Down the Shady Lane We Go

Frederick and Augusta Kent

While I was at my mother’s home in Minnesota for three months this fall, I finally tackled a huge family history project: I scanned and organized more than 3,000 family photos, newspaper clippings and letters. When I came across this photo in an old, lovingly assembled albium, it took my breath away.

Frederick Henry Kent

The couple in the photo are my great-great-grandparents, Frederick Henry Kent and Augusta Osborn Kent, who lived in Huron, South Dakota. The above photo was taken during a family trip to southern California around 1905. Written on the margin of the photo, in Frederick’s handwriting, were the words “Down the shady lane we go.”

Augusta Osborn Kent

Augusta would leave this earth four years later at the age of sixty-three after thirty-six years of marriage to Frederick. The photo poignantly captures the precious and fragile beauty of a devoted couple’s twilight years.

Before I started this project in August, I wouldn’t have recognized Frederick and Augusta’s names. Now, more than a century after her passing, I feel as if I’ve stepped back into the mists of time and had the privilege of getting to know them a little bit. Had they been around when I was growing up, they would have loved me and I would have loved them. Oh, to tear away the veil of time and join them for a leisurely walk down a shady lane at dusk.

The photo below features Frederick and Augusta with their little granddaughter, Helen, who would grow up to become my father’s mother.

Frederick Kent with wife Augusta and granddaughter Helen Hubbart Bolsta

Click here to see all my posts featuring my parents and grandparents.

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