Barb Album, Italy 1966

These are photos and other things from Barb’s childhood scrapbook made mostly in 1966 when she lived in Italy. The commentary and captions are the best I can glean from the album and my own guesses. There are a few photos and things at the end from another scrapbook from 1968-1970. I need to get Barb’s official commentary later.

This first set of photos are under the label “We are at the World’s Fair” which I thought meant the New York World’s Fair which opened to much fanfare in 1964 and ran until October 1965…but now I’m not so sure.

Two notes from Grandma Fisher. Maybe she wasn’t so bad after all?

Photos from an unidentified (presumably Italian, since the guy’s newspaper is Italian) beach. [We figured out much later that it might be Rimini.]

Christmas! Somewhere! 1965?

Different Christmas…and maybe a birthday? 1966?

More Christmas?

All dressed up.

Barb and Betsy and cat (Britchelino?)

Letter from an admirer with very fine penmanship, Jimmie, April 1966

May 1966 letter from Aunt Leona.

Class projects and homework/quizzes. Proud of her 100s.

Barb artwork, I’m pretty sure.

Betsy artwork, I’m pretty sure.

Notebook ruminations. I love this: “I like Jim. I like Gearde. But I hate all the rest of the boys.”

Proof they were in Italy. Definitely Venice.

Other places in Italy.

Two pages in the scrapbook are given to cut out photos…I’ve tried to extract the best bits.

Here’s a photo, I suspect, of Louise’s Mom, whom the girls called Nanny. I never met her but she was Barb’s favorite. She was the source of crispy spaghetti. Need I say more?

Louise and Nanny (or Grandma Fisher?) took a train trip to Rome and sent this postcard back to Barb in Milan.

The family moved from Rome to Milan in…1966?

The family took at least one vacation trip to Switzerland and Germany, visiting Lake Titisee and Neuenweg, a little town in the southwest corner of Germany.

Postcards from the trip.

A few Christmas cards in the back of the scrapbook…one from Leona.

One from Betsy, hand drawn and very impressive.

And one from Grandma Fisher.


Here are photos and items from a second scrapbook that appears to be from 1968 – 1970. I’m afraid it’s not well annotated so your guess is as good as mine for most of them. The first two are easy, though. The Fishers had a family dog, Lily, that I think was a French Briard. I know from Barb’s stories that Lily was well-loved.

From here on, things are bit more murky. The photos that have dates are from July and August 1968…just don’t know who or where. The Fishers moved back to Annandale, so most are from there.

There are a series of photos of ships and what seems to be a harbor tour, here are a couple of the shots. There are more but mostly just of various ships.

We close with the program from a school Holiday production in December 1970…which would be their first year in Dusseldorf? Barb was in the Elementary Chorus, Betsy in the High School Chorus.

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