Veteran's Day

My maternal grandmother, Helen Jane Byers, was born in Wisconsin on December 31, 1916. She passed away in Ohio at age 84, November 3, 2001. Before she met and married my grandfather, a widower with 5 children with whom she'd have two children of her own (including my mother, their youngest), my grandmother served in the US Navy. 

I have inherited hundreds of photographs of my grandmother's family -- her siblings and parents and uncles and aunts -- over the years. I have her Navy ring and some of her documents, official photographs and snapshots of her and her friends goofing off around New York while they were in training at the Naval Training School in the Bronx. It's a time of her life I never remember her discussing, and I'm fascinated by it. 

In honor of my grandmother's life and service on this Veteran's Day, here are a few photographs and postcards from her time in the Navy.

Downtown signs

All images © Monika Seitz Vega, 2012.