Beginning my posts about the 1920s with some photos of real 20s people

These were in my mother's photo album. Happily she dated them, so I know they are from the 1920s. She grew up on a farm, and went to school in the next town. This was a small place in northern New Hampshire, far away from the cities, but these girls look quite as fashionable as others I've seen in pictures from those years.

Marcel. Is that what it was called when their hair had those folds in it? Yes, I just looked it up!

This is the only one from the 20s that had my mother in it - a brother beside her.

And another brother (there were ten kids)

One of her sisters

 Girl friends

And the teachers! They don't look much older than teenagers themselves.

And life on the farm (my mother boarded with someone in town during her high school years)

Her father

Will our 20s be roaring?

This is 13-year-old me on March 17, 1961 dressed for a roaring 20s dance. I remember there was a woman in town who had an attic full of old clothes, and I went to her house and chose the outfit.

In that year, 1920 was only 41 years ago. 41 years ago now was 1979. To most of my readers, I would guess, that doesn't seem that long back.

I found myself thinking about this, and thinking about the fact that the twenties were still a part of living history when I was a girl.

I decided that I wanted to learn more about that decade. I've gathered the books I own that were written then, or are about people who lived during that time. I want to buy a nonfiction book about the 1920s. And I've bought Clouds of Witness by Dorothy L. Sayers. I'm not planning to read exclusively about this time period, but I want to read a fair amount to bring myself back to those years.

Here are the books I have on my shelves. I have read some of them. The Great Gatsby and The Sun Also Rises are two of my all-time favorite books, as well as A Moveable Feast.

Hadley has come out in a new edition and with a new name - Paris Without End. It was published around the same time as the fictional, The Paris Wife. I've had my Hadley for years and I so look forward to reading it. The cover has Hemingway's famous, heartbreaking words.

Hadley is buried in New Hampshire, only about 60 miles from me, and I hope to visit her grave, and post pictures when I write about the book!