Many of the family pictures that have come to me were either stored loose in envelopes or folders or mounted unlabeled in plastic-sleeved albums. In many cases I have to guess at the occasion being depicted and sometimes even the identities of the people who stand smiling for the camera. I rely on the facts I am sure of and on my intuition as a student of social history. Undoubtedly I am sometimes (perhaps frequently) wrong in the assumptions I make, but there is nothing else I can do.

I've had to make some assumptions regarding the pictures below. I know who the people are -- on the left is my grandmother, Emilia Yakimoff, and my cousin, Lorraine Iovannico. On the right are my parents (or, more precisely, the people who would become my parents), Rose Dwyer and Ludwig Yakimoff.

My grandmother and cousin are standing in front of the house my father grew up in, on Marple Avenue in Clifton Heights, Pennsylvania. Rose and Ludwig are standing in the back yard. I am assuming that the picture was taken on July 4, 1944 -- my father shipped out for Puerto Rico on July 12, and this was probably his last visit home before that assignment. He's wearing his army uniform -- my mother appears to be wearing a corsage. Although she is not wearing an engagement ring, I am assuming that they had a serious "understanding." They'd known each other for two years here, and became formally engaged three months after my father returned from duty in early 1946.

And I can see the joy and young energy in their faces, the tenderness with which my father holds my mother's arm. My father will soon be teaching Puerto Rican recruits the fundamentals of English. My mother will be doing her part on the home front as a secretary in an Air Corps officers' training school. They'll write to each other, exchange snapshots of their daily lives, and when the war is over they'll marry, move to a house in the suburbs, and add two individuals to the group now known as Baby Boomers.

What I don't know is the nature or purpose of the clothes my grandmother and cousin are wearing. Lorraine is no more than 3 -- a bit young for Brownies. My grandmother's dress is white, and she is wearing some kind of pin at the v-neck and above the left breast pocket. The veil suggests a nurse or some other kind of medical worker -- a volunteer, perhaps. As I have said elsewhere, I know little about my paternal grandparents' backgrounds. It is possible she had some kind of medical training, but I am not at all sure.

I am hoping that someone who reads this, who has perhaps more knowledge of activities in wartime suburban America for a 3-year-old and her 48-year-old Polish-speaking grandmother, can enlighten me about the outfits. My e-mail address appears on the index page.