“The little girl with the cat in her lap turned out to be mom.”

Philadelphia, early 1930s.

Out of the cascade of vintage mom pictures in my Facebook feed yesterday, the best had to be this one, from my friend Sue. She’s a poet and has two excellent Tumblrs. Check out Maggie: A Magazine (poetry and dogs) and Franklinstein (mashing up Gertrude Stein, Ben Franklin, and the history of Germantown, Philadelphia).

Studio portrait of five kittens on a pedestal, probably taken in Compton’s Photo Studio in Brigham City, Utah. Between 1895 and 1925. Source: Utah State University, Merrill-Cazier Library, Special Collections and Archives, via Mountain West Digital Library.

Gone Fishing by Wooway1 on Flickr.

Mrs. Hastings with Kittens by Vermont Historical Society on Flickr.

“Composer Alan Hovhaness, working in score littered studio with black cat nestling amongst the papers on the piano.” Photograph by Gordon Parks, December 1955. Source: LIFE Photo Archive, hosted by Google.

Ralph Crane, Black Cat Auditions In Hollywood, 1961. Source: LIFE Photo Archive, hosted by Google.

From Happy Cats, 1942. Source: janwillemsen on Flickr.

Brassaï: Le Chat Noir, ca. 1945. Source: Centre Georges Pompidou, via Réunion des Musées Nationaux.

Couple of things.

I like how this is a BOY dressed up as a witch.

And: “with black cat being THROWN onto him,” more like.

Image: Boy (6-7) dressed-up as witch in Halloween party with black cat jumping onto him. Source: Corbis.

From Vanished Americana:

John Jr. and Caroline surprise their dad, President John F. Kennedy, in the Oval Office here in this Halloween 1963 photo. What makes this photo even more poignant was that a mere three weeks later, President Kennedy was assassinated in Dallas on November 22, 1963.