My Grandmother's Photographs

My grandma was born in a little town called Morton, Washington. Her name was Wilma Marie, born to James Bennett and Ina Mullins. When she and her younger brother were very little they caught pneumonia and had to go to the hospital–during which time her mother ran off with another man and left her children behind. My great-grandfather worked long and tiresome hours as a logger, so from a very young age my grandma was responsible for caring for her little brother and looking after the family's small farm of cows, goats and chickens.
 
Coming of age in the 50's when American television began mass-advertising the middle-class American lifestyle, my grandma must have become aware of her family's poorer economic situation–having an outhouse rather than a water-flushing toilet, and not being able to afford the modern household appliances, for example–because she never spoke highly of the house or the situation she grew up in (only of her father), and wanted to get as far away as possible from it and never go back to anything like it. I don't know for certain what my grandmother's aspirations were as a youth, but she was the supermodel of tiny little Morton and I think she dreamt of being on television.

All of these photographs were saved by my grandma, and many of them are her own. What stands out most to me having organized this selection is that my grandmother also had an excellent eye and natural technique for capturing beautiful, animated and intimate photographs of her life and community as a child and into mid-adulthood.