Discovering One's Past

I have brick in my blood......er...a love of brick......that is I have a history of brick in my blood.  If you read my recent post (Family History....."brick by brick") you would know that my Great Grandfather Benjamin Franklin Hoover was a brick maker in the late 1800's and early 1900's.  MeMa and I traveled to Moro Oregon with my parents to visit the site were that part of our family history started.  We stopped in at the town's museum which unfortunately had no photos in the archives but once the word got out in the rest of the family, my mothers youngest sister Bonnie brought out her collection of family photos and to our surprise several of the Hoover bricks as well.


The gentleman on the upper left with his hat on his toe is my great grandfather B.F. Hoover



Hoover brick yard with the county Court House in the background



Eventually my great grandparents moved to Portland where B.F. Hoover owned and operated the Unique Brick and Tile Company in Gresham Oregon.  The gentleman in white shirt and hat is my great uncle Asa and the gentleman in white shirt with no hat is my Great Grandfather.  The large wheel had wires that cut the bricks

My grandmother, my mothers mother, Ann or Annie Hoover is the little girl in white dress on the left.   As long as I can remember my grandmother talked about her faithful companion "Bounce", the massive dog on the right.  Funny I always imagined him to be a small terrier breed from the stories she told of him.  I am seeing what he actually looked like for the first time.



From left: Great grandfather B.F. Hoover, Grandmother Ann Potter (Hoover) and Great grandmother Martha Hoover



The Potter girls
From Left: Barbara, Marjorie, Bertha (my mother) and seated Bonnie

Grandma Ann and B. F. Hoover's youngest daughter, My mother Bertha or Bertie, my twin brother Don and myself. I'm the good looking one.