My Big Sister Hazel – a Childhood in Black and White

It’s been more than a decade since my big sister, Hazel Coburn (nee Wordsworth) passed away after a battle with cancer.

I miss her very much and she was a very big part of my growing up.

As my daughter Jessica and I have been organizing our family photo albums, I’ve been reminded of the changes the world has gone through since I was born. They have been dramatic. Photos of Hazel’s childhood seem to really reinforce this.

While I remember her as a great sister, and a dedicated mother to my nieces, I sometimes forget that while all my memories of her are in colour, the photographic representation of her early life is, in fact, in black and white.

I thought I’d pass some of these along, since for many of us, our youth took place during the “black and white” times.

This is one of Hazel’s first photos taken with my mom’s (Joyce Florence Wordsworth – nee Healy) mother, Florence Healy (nee – Galloway) aka “Gramma Healy.”

I’ve left the written descriptions on the scans of the photographs because over time they become part of the history of the image. Who’s handwriting is this? Where were they when they wrote it? How excited were they about this new addition to the family?

Here’s three generations of Healy women, Hazel at 5 months, Mom and her sister Peg, and ‘Gramma Healy’ holding Hazel.

Here’s mom with Hazel probably around 1 year old, as the song goes, ‘in an English country garden.’

Here’s Hazel perhaps getting close to 2 years old in pretty adorable looking coveralls made from a floral print. They were probably made by someone in the family, and since fashion is cyclic, they are probably very much back in style!

Here’s Hazel with my Dad, near a statue. I’m unsure but I think it might be Winnie The Pooh, looking as he may have in the original book. Winnie touches two parts of Hazel’s life, written by an English author, about a Canadian bear.

This is Hazel in her Girl Guides uniform, years after moving to Canada.

Here’s Hazel as a teenager in front of our first house in Canada. She is holding Sadie, a Dachshund we had for 16 years. Sadie used to sleep under the covers with Hazel, every night. Dogs have always been an big part of the Wordsworth family.

By now I’m pretty sure we had a colour camera, but someone was still using the black and white. Perhaps they preferred the quality. Maybe they just liked the subtle nuances of black and white.

Hazel’s life was in fact all experienced ‘in living color’, with the ups and downs that we all experience as time progresses. Seeing images in black and white though allow us to harken back to a simpler time with fewer electronic distractions and stresses. Even without the internet of things and a smartphone for selfies, it still seems like a pretty charmed youth.