52 Ancestors | father | handcrafted | old photos | portrait photo

52 Ancestors,
in 52 Weeks

Week 24:
Father

My Father

For this week’s prompt I thought I’d share some favorite photos of my father, Bob LaFara. My father passed away back in 2004, but he lives on in our hearts. I enjoy looking at old photos and telling stories about him. My father was a research scientist with the Navy, but he was so much more than his occupation. He could build anything, and repair everything. He was a good teacher, he taught me to sew, how to change a tire and the oil, how to use power tools and even how to code. I still regularly do one of those things.

School Days

Here’s a sampling of my father’s school portrait photos, elementary, middle and high schools and college.

Military Service

I previously wrote about my dad’s service in the Army Air Corps during World War II for this year’s prompt “Air.” [1] My father was a member of a B24 bomber squadron in the South Pacific. You can view the scrapbook of his military service on the web page I created, “WW2 Photo Scrapbook”. [2] Also, he blogged about his service experience, “My World War II Experiences in the Pacific”. [3] Here’s a photo of him sitting atop the gun turret of a B24 in 1943 and standing next to a retired B24 at an air museum in Fort Worth, TX in 1975. [4]

Fatherhood

Photos of my father as a young dad with four children.

Computers

My father began using computers starting in 1950 when he was a mathematician with the Army at White Sands, NM. The photo below from 1955 is when he went to the IBM facility in White Plains, NY to inspect the IBM 650. [5] The IBM 650 was a vacuum tube machine, with a magnetic, rotating drum for memory and punched cards for data input. My father liked to marvel at how computing had advanced in his lifetime. He had personal computers at home as soon as they were being made. Every one of those PCs far exceeded the computing capabilities of that old IBM 650. Of course, now even our phones have more computing power than the old mainframes. Read my father’s account of his computing career, “Bob LaFara’s Computer Biography”. [6]

Through the Years

Here’s a collection of images spanning nearly 40 years.

Because my father took most the family photos himself, he is in very few of the photographs. So, I particularly like this photo taken by my nephew, capturing granddad holding his camera.

Bob’s Crafts

My dad really enjoyed making things. Wood, metal, textiles, and electronics. He even created a website to share his love of crafting, and storytelling, Bob’s Crafts. [7] His website is still online, it is mostly as he made it more than 20 years ago. We did recently port it to a WordPress theme-based layout to give it better navigation and SEO. Here’s a link to the pattern for one of his most popular, and enduring, projects: The Little Red Chair. [8]

More Crafts

Here’s a further sampling of just a few of my father’s creations, most are still in use or on display.

Keep On Rockin’

Another family favorite, here’s the rocking horse pattern [9] and photos.

Conclusion

I hope you enjoyed this sampling of photos of my father. He would enjoy knowing I shared them. Be sure to try one of his craft projects and share your results with me.

SOURCES:

Blog post, Family Finds: Air; https://barblafara.com/air/
Project post, LaFara Family Projects: WW2 Photo Scrapbook; https://www.lafara.com/project/ww2-photo-scrapbook/
Blog post, Bob’s Crafts: My WWII Experience; https://bobscrafts.com/wwii-in-the-pacific/
Website, Commemorative Air Force; https://commemorativeairforce.org/aircraft/3
Website, Wikipedia: IBM650; https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/IBM_650
Blog post, Bob’s Crafts: My Computer Biography; https://bobscrafts.com/computer-biography/
Website, Bob’s Crafts; https://bobscrafts.com/
Project Post, Bob’s Crafts: Little Chair; https://bobscrafts.com/little-chair/
Project Post, Bob’s Crafts: Rocking Horse; https://bobscrafts.com/rocking-horse/

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Frank Takeo Flucawa

by Barb LaFara | October 23, 2014 | Biography, Family, Immigrants, Indiana, Quakers | 0 Comments

Born Takeo Furukawa on 15 March 1883 in Tottori-Ken, Tokyo, Japan, little is documented of his early childhood. Family oral history stories say that the young Takeo experienced hunger, poverty and the loss of his family. Additionally, the stories tell of friendship, spiritual learning and scholarship.

Father

52 Ancestors,in 52 Weeks

Week 24:Father