The Bucklins in 1950: Color by Betty Lou

Fred D. and Myrtle Phenice Bucklin family in 1950

This is the best photo of my mom and her family from when she was growing up.  I posted a family photo of them from 1948, but that one didn’t include her parents.  There were several photos taken on the day of this photo, with some of them looking like they were trying to be serious.  But inevitably, one of them was laughing or smiling.

This is the Fred and Myrtle Phenice Bucklin family in 1950.  Fred Bucklin married Myrtle Phenice on March 12, 1930, at the Raymond Methodist Church in Raymond, Louisiana.   The day before their first anniversary, they had their first daughter Sylvia Daisy Bucklin.  She is the dark haired beauty standing on the far left of the photo.  Their next daughter was my mom Betty Lou Bucklin, who was born on May 20, 1933.  She is standing on the far right of the photo.  Their next daughter was Alma Marie, who was born on November 10, 1935.  She is the blond standing next to my mom.  Their fourth and final daughter was Loris Janet, who was born August 31, 1937.  She is the brunette with the inquisitive look standing next to Sylvia.  Then, the day after their 12th wedding anniversary, a little boy finally showed up.  Austin Harry can be seen front and center in the photo.

This photo is actually a composite of two of the photos taken that day.  Most of the photo is from one original photo, but I swapped the part of my mom with another photo that I thought was better of her.  These photos are really difficult to work with.  They are textured and matte finish, which makes them look scaly when they are scanned.  I remember my mom liking the quality of the paper with that particular finish.  She said that it worked really well for tinting photos.  And that’s exactly what she did with one of them.

The colorful Fred and Myrtle Phenice Bucklin family in 1950. Color by Betty Lou.

This is the family photo that she tinted.  It was this photo that was on my mind this week when I was considering my blog post.  I recently joined a group on Facebook that provides free colorizing of old photos.  I submitted one of my dad’s father and it came out nicely. 

When I first started doing any type of photo editing, one of the things that I did was tinting black and white photos.  I later decided to focus on making the photos as clear as possible by removing blemishes and improving the contrast and lighting.

But I’ve seen some really good colorizing that has made me reconsider my view.  Maybe I’ll follow in my mom’s tinted footsteps and you’ll see a future post titled “Color by Van.”

Update Dec. 20, 2020 – replace photos with enhanced versions for more detail in the faces