A personal album made to celebrate Samhain, the Celtic "Day of the Dead".

1. Ancestors
A Samhain Portfolio

3. Samhain is a Celtic Holy
Day, like the Mexican Dia
de los Muertos, that is
devoted to remembering
our ancestors….. our
Beloved Dead.

6. Helen Pitcher was born in Los Angeles
in the 1800's, and grew up in
downtown Los Angeles near the
fashionable Westlake Park, which
later was renamed MacArthur Park,
with her twin sister, Anita. She
married Edmund Greene, who worked
for the police department. Florence,
born in 1917, was their only child.
Helen was an accomplished oil
painter.

9. Flora Pitcher was the mother of Helen and
Anita, and a son, Anselm. Anselm died in
the great Influenza Epidemic of 1914. She
was originally from Maine. Here she is
shown with her grand daughter, Florence,
in 1917.

10. Kent

11. Kent Langford Pillsbury grew up in Los
Angeles, the son of a single mother. In his
youth he was a competitive swimmer. He
attended U.C.L.A., and entered the Navy
at the advent of WWII, where he served in
Europe and Germany. When he returned
after the war he entered Columbia
University on the G.I. bill, and pursued a
Ph.D. in Philosophy of Education.
In New York he married Florence Greene,
and they moved to Wisconsin, where he
unsuccessfully ran for Senate. He loved to
travel, and during his lifetime he ran a
liberal democrat newspaper called the L.A.
Free Press, toured Europe with a grant
from UNESCO, worked for U.S.A.I.D. in
Kabul, Afghanistan, and taught at A.S.U.
in Tempe, Arizona, U.S.C. in Los Angeles,
and at Cal Poly in Pomona, California.

13. Glen Langford Pillsbury
lived in Beatrice, Nebraska, and
married John Pillsbury. They lived in
the small farming prairie town of
Dewitt, Nebraska. Their only child was
Kent Langford Pillsbury who was born
in 1915, and died in 1977. Glen was
much younger than her husband, and
was unfortunately widowed when Kent
was still a young child. A talented
seamstress facing difficult times in
Nebraska, the young widow decided to
move to Los Angeles with her son in the
late 1920s where she worked as a
seamstress. She also worked with the
thriving movie industry in Hollywood
as a costume seamstress. Glen died in
1965.
Her grandson, Glenn Greene Pillsbury,
was named after her.

14. Glenn
Glenn Pillsbury loved to play the
guitar, and shared a life-long study of
geology. He had an extensive fossil
collection. He studied Buddhism
and Buddhist philosophy, and always
wanted to travel to India.
Glenn died in 2014.

16. Florence and Glenn died within 6 months of each other.
Close in life, they were also close in death.

17. It don't take much, but you gotta have some
The old ways help the new ways come
Just leave a little extra for the next in line
They're gonna need a little water
from another time
A tattered quilt on the goose down bed
"Every stitch tells a story", my Grandma said
Her mama's nightgown, her fathers pants
And the dress she wore to her high school
dance.
Wrapped at night in those patchwork scenes
I waltz with them in my dreams
My arms, my heart, my life entwined
With water from another time
John McCutcheon

18. Thank you to ………
Florence, Kent, Helen, Edmund, Glen,
John, Flora, Margaret….
and so many ancestors whose names
I do not know…….for bringing me here.
Lauren
2016

19. P.S.:
New Arrivals