A woman and five girls in a Columbia Villa living room, 1945. The photograph is captioned, “Mrs. Lovelace and family.”
City of Portland (OR) Archives, A2001-025.53.
Columbia Villa, 1945
Vintage Portland
A woman and five girls in a Columbia Villa living room, 1945. The photograph is captioned, “Mrs. Lovelace and family.”
City of Portland (OR) Archives, A2001-025.53.
I believe the round item on the coffee table is a music box. A similar item in my family is made of metal and has a lovely shade of blue-green. Under the lid is a shallow area for storing a small treasure.
There is a very nice entry about Columbia Village in The Oregon Encyclopedia, with photos and a map. https://oregonencyclopedia.org/articles/columbia_villa_new_columbia_/#.Xc6zvS-IahA
My mom had a smaller music box like that. The shallow area above the mechanism held face powder. She was a busy person and had no time for makeup other than a touch of lipstick when she went to church, but a little powder puff dealio remained waiting in that space.
Donna, I’m glad you mentioned that your mother’s music box held face powder. I’ve always wondered what that space was for. Do you remember the name of the tune? I don’t. But I do remember that it sounded a bit tinny.
This picture is of my family consisting of my Mother and six girls, one sister is not in the picture. We were in the Vanport Flood and moved into the Villa after the flood. That means that this picture was taken sometime between July and December, 1948.
Three items on the coffee table that I noticed were the glass cigarette box, the table cigarette lighter, and ash tray.
Sharon–That is so cool! Which one are you? Do you remember the context in which the picture was taken?
Yes! Sharon, so glad know more about the picture. Everything about this is so sweet and homey – the kitten, leaning on mom for the story time, the little girls playing with paper dolls, and especially, the neat and tidy space. I love how much pride people used to have about “keeping house.” My mom sure did. We didn’t have a lot but she made sure everything was clean and polished. How many homes with six kids would look like this now!? (Of course, stay-at-home moms made a big difference.)
Wow, how unusual it is to have the first-hand commentary coming from someone who is a subject in a VP photo; thank you, Betty. Before reading Betty’s comments I had speculated about when the photo was taken. The clock on the desk looks like it’s reading 4 or 5 o’clock and it’s looking to be near sunset and not quite completely dark outside.
You were lucky to have a mom and siblings. I was an only child and I never experienced an evening like this as I was either watching TV or playing somewhere in the house alone. My mother was a spotless housekeeper however in my case it was taken to an extreme to where you felt like you could do anything that would disrupt the “model home” order.
I too noticed the music box with an “Oh Wow!” Just like my Mom had. As for the tray on top after removing the lid, she kept her jewelry tthere. Had forgotten all about that until I saw this photo today. And I think its wonderful Sharon was able to see and comment for us.
These were hibrow people to have a white/ivory WeCo 302 telephone !
Constantly in the news in the 80’s. Glad it got cleaned up.