Those were the days: The Soares clan, with friends & neighbors

Vintage photographs from the 1930s and beyond from the family of Victor Faria Soares, Sr. and Rose Raymond Soares of Somerset, Mass., my grandparents. These were digitized by my uncle, Arthur Faria Soares, who also provided me with many stories about my family and his experiences growing up. The children of Rose and Victor Sr. were: Victor Jr., Beatrice, Raymond (my father), and Arthur.

Here we have Art (left) and Ray Soares, my uncle and father, or as I like to call them as they appear in this photo, "rebels without a cause." This was probably taken around 1943. I believe those Adirondack chairs were handmade. They are iconic within our family lore and show up in a number of photographs. Dad rebuilt them in later years and we had them in our own yard well into the 1980s. Notice how the boys' pants appear to have been let down several times. Also, if you look closely, Art is holding a cat. This photo was taken after my father had broken his nose. He said he ran into a fence; who knows?