My half-sister, Bidney Anne, was born in September 1941. Her father was killed in Germany shortly after the Battle of the Bulge. Her father is buried in the same Luxembourg cemetery as Gen. George Patton. For my entire life until this past week, I only knew Bidney Anne from a single professional studio photograph that was obtained a few months before she died in March 1956, at the age of 14 1/2. This photograph was subequently published 3 years later in the senior class section of her high school yearbook.
This past week, I received several old photographs of Bidney Anne from my cousin, Nancy. The three “brownish” photos were made in Leaksville (now Eden), NC, in the mid to late 1940s and early 1950s (the last includes a little Tommy Boyd, oldest of the surviving Boyd cousins). Nancy said her parents adored Bidney Anne and on their first date, my uncle said to his date, “don’t worry about trying to impress my parents, just impress Bidney Anne.” These photos bring Bidney Anne to life for me in a way I never experienced before, and I just wanted to share them with y’all.
The photographs below are from the early to mid 1950s. The first was on my parents’ wedding day in Leaksville in 1952. The series of five photographs made at summer camp are not dated, but were presumably in 1955 when she was 13, a few months shy of her 14th birthday. The camp photos also show Ginger, Bidney Anne’s best friend. According to Ginger’s sisters, the two were inseparable. After Bidney Anne’s death, Ginger continued to be part of our family, going on our vacations to the beach, to the mountains, or to visit my dad’s kin in LA (for those not familiar, that is Lower Alabama). Ginger was like a much older sister to me, and, like most everyone else, spoiled me rotten. Ginger’s mom became my “Mama 2” and, of course, she spoiled me, too! I also learned this week that Bidney Anne played piano, won a blue ribbon for a floral arrangement at a Garden Club competition, was involved in skits and drama, and loved people. She may have been quite smart, as she was 13 at the start of ninth grade.
She also had quite the wit, apparently inherited from her Uncle Bill and Uncle Jack. Nine months after my parents married, Granny was staying with Mom and Bidney Anne while Dad was in Kansas on a business trip. My mom wrote to him, “Mother just asked [11 year old] Bidney what she thought you were doing right now, and she replied, ‘Probably flirting with some pretty girl’.” My mother added, “If you are flirting, she better be pretty!”