H. C. Thru the Years

I was looking through my photos, and I couldn’t decide if I wanted a photo of my great grandfather when he was young or when he was older.  I decided to go with both.  I don’t remember ever comparing these two photos side by side before, but the photos are similar enough in style to work well with each other.  My mom was Betty Lou Bucklin Landry, and she was the daughter of Myrtle Sylvia Phenice Bucklin.  Myrtle’s father was Harry Clifton Phenice, but he is usually referred to as H. C. or Grandpa Phenice.

H. C. was born in Butler County, Pennsylvania, in 1874.  His parents were Samuel Phenice and Cathrine Foster.  Their families had been in Pennsylvania for a few generations, but Samuel and Kate must have decided it was time to go somewhere different.  When H. C. was about six years old, the family relocated to Milford, Nebraska.  This was shortly after Samuel’s mother Susan Jackson had died.  Samuel’s father Daniel Phenice moved with the family to Nebraska.  He died within a few years.

The family was in McCook and Hitchcock, Nebraska, in 1890, and then in 1900 they had settled in Precept, Nebraska.  Samuel and Kate would spend the rest of their lives in that area.  I’m not sure if H. C. ever lived in Precept, because he had settled in Louisiana in 1898 at the age of 24.  That’s what my mom always said and wrote about her grandfather.  She also talked about him riding his bicycle from Trenton, Nebraska, to Colorado three times.  Trenton is the county seat for Hitchcock County, so that must have happened around the early 1890s when he was a teenager or in his early 20s.

After being in Louisiana a couple of years, he was married to English immigrant Daisy Keys.  I’ve never seen any photos from their wedding.  It seems like it must have been a simple affair in Lake Charles, Louisiana.  The photo of him as a young man was taken around 1906 when he was about 32 years old.  I don’t know of any earlier photos of him.  There is a photo of him in a gold mine, but it was taken around the same time and I’m not sure which one was taken first.  The one I’m showing was taken in March of 1906 at the time of his younger sister Myrtle’s wedding in Precept, Nebraska.

Both of these photos of H. C. were cropped from other photos that were taken with Daisy.  But I just wanted to look at H. C. and see how his looks changed through the years.  The photo of him as an older man was taken when he and Daisy were celebrating their Golden Anniversary in December of 1950.  There were 44 years that passed between the two photos.  I have to say that old H. C. aged pretty well.  You can definitely tell it is the same person.  There is the slight grin, the long nose, the twinkling eyes, and the hair curve. 

After looking at the two images together, I noticed that he didn’t show his teeth when he smiled.  I’ve always thought of him as a charming, pleasant person who smiled easily.  Perhaps that’s because my mom always talked fondly of him.  But none of the photos of him show him with a big smile.  You never see his teeth.  Yet, somehow, I always saw a smile. 

I think it’s in the eyes.  Those twinkling, smiling eyes.