Camping out (including maybe my mom's parents)

 For a few short years, from about 1913 to around the mid 1920s, auto camping was all the rage. As new owners of automobiles, Americans were learning what the freedom of having an automobile felt like. To be able to get in their cars and drive someplace, away from the city, even if just for a few days, it was worth it to be able to relax and escape the responsibilities of day to day life. Although this trend lasted just a few years, it laid the groundwork for the ways Americans would travel for years to come: auto camps were the precursor to both motels and RVs.

Thanks Facebook, Posted by Hershey Region Antique Auto Club of America

My maternal grandmother and her sister took photos of their camping out (or something outside by a car) in Texas. On the other side of my family (my father's parents) went on some hunting trips with various photos. I'll try to dig them out, but I think the hunting trips were in the 30s, so they'll be in a separate post, and my mother took part in them, while at just 7-8 years old, she wasn't in the camping outing with her mother and step-father below.

Mozelle Miller Webb Munhall, 1925, my mother's mother. 

A series of photos collected by my mother as a young girl. Later than the dates shown I think, because some of the dates are confused....probably posted after her step-father died when she was 10. 

Mozelle Miller Webb Munhall 1925

Fred Munhall and brother Jack, 1926. Fred married Mozelle Miller Webb and became my mother's step-father in November, 1924. It looks like these guys might have been hunting also, but standing on a civilized sidewalk kind of foils their intentions. Get out in the woods, guys!

Fred Munhall 1926, looking very much like he got out in the woods

Mozelle Miller Munhall and my mother, Mataley 1924 (however same outfit and standing in the same place with her step-father, my mother noted in her album 1925.) Upon further thought about them being dressed up in the daytime (not a concert or party happening) I think it might have been when Mozelle married Fred Munhall in Nov. 1924. At that time my mother would have been 7 years old.

Fred Munhall 1924

Fred Munhall

Uncle Jack Munhall, Mozelle Miller Munhall and Fred Munhall, 1926. It appears they are sitting on the bumper of a vehicle, with various boxes around. Perhaps camping, or moving...who knows.

Dorothy Miller 1926 - My great aunt Dorothy, sister of my grandmother Mozelle Miller. No clue what she is holding!

And we come back to a car with a family gathered to enjoy the great outdoors. 

 Family by the side of the road with a model T Ford

Sharing with Sepia Saturday this week.

The Sepians may be by the water, but my family was in dry land, yet outside on all occasions!