This photo of my parents, Helen Finkel and Sol Baum, was taken on a date shortly after they met. It was probably 1936 or so. The car was a prop. They married as soon as dad got home from WWII, in February 1946, and were together for 54 years until his death in December of 2000. Written in mom's handwriting across the photo is: "Having a wonderful time". They met on a school boat ride when they were 14, in 1934. They both went to Seward Park High School, in lower Manhattan.
The 1930's were a decade of severe stress: the Great Depression, the Dust Bowl, the rise of Nazism. But it was also the end of Prohibition, the beginning of the change of land management (poor farm ...