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 is my aunt, Beatrice Soares, in 1944. Her outfit could be that of a "candy-striper," or hospital volunteer. I wonder if she was doing some war-related volunteer work? The struggle on the home front during World War II was very real. Bea's brother, Arthur, wrote a reminiscence of the war years in Somerset for his SHS alumni newsletter: "...On car windshields, stickers graded A, B or C, designated the amount of gas that vehicle could consume. There were little books with coupons for everything: gas, meat, butter, coffee and shoes, plus collections for scrap metal, paper, rubber and cooking fat, items the government wanted conserved to help the war effort. At any given time, long lines in the city markets indicated the availability of rationed items were in short supply."