A photo essay of sorts

Posted on by Mary

Since I did a little post last month specifically about June on her birthday, it is only right to do the same thing for Milton Wayne.  His birthday happens to fall exactly a month later on July 5th. Milton (Dad, Uncle Mit, Poppa) was a joy. I am a little daunted at the idea of trying to write about his big personality. Maybe in the future, I will do it justice but for now, I am sneakily going to rely on some photos – some that have never been seen before (at least by me) from his childhood! I hope the images capture a small part of his charm and charisma. I only wish his grandchildren and great-grandchildren in the US had been able to hang around him more. He had a certain kind of the “joie de vivre” that poured out of him and I hope you see that.

To be fair, I went through a phase of “sequence” photos so I had Dad fall into the pool and then I also took a picture of the splash. But the exaggerated fall was all his doing.

Those who knew him knew he was someone with an infectious sense of fun. He loved to tell stories and make people laugh. He was relatable to people of all ages. One of my early elementary school (in Kobe) memories is going on a field trip where Dad volunteered to be one of the chaperones. I think by this time my classmates had met my father through a birthday party we had hosted. It is a vague memory, but I do know he organized all the entertainment that included a treasure hunt with prizes magically coming down a chute. So, with that background knowledge, you won’t be surprised to read that when it was time for the class to be grouped with the parents; a horde of my classmates jumped over to be around my father thus inserting themselves into his group. So many that I, his own daughter, did not get to be in his group! In future blogs, you will read that he had a true heart for young people in his missionary work as well.

Kobe – teaching young children – well almost all of them are paying attention.

Milton was creative and resourceful. With his electrician’s background, he never met a broken toaster he couldn’t pull apart and usually fix. 🙂 As I have been digging through the old albums for this blog project, and looking at pictures carefully, I have a renewed appreciation for his eye for photography. I read several entries in his 1941 daily planner/diary that mentioned going out and taking some “snaps”. (This would have been around age 22). Other entries were about getting pictures developed and buying a photo album. No wonder pictures of their early days in Japan are so good – he really practiced the craft.

Sorry Dave & Margot I’m throwing you into the post without your permission here but this is one of my all time favorite photographs and it has to have been taken by Milton Wayne.
Another photo that shows his talent – Just my opinion but the arrangement of this family around their motorcycle is so eye-catching. Maybe it was spontaneous but! I can just imagine Dad crouching down a little to get just the right angle.

Now – as promised I will stop rambling with words – let’s get to these photos of Milton– they speak volumes. Just recently, Darelyn discovered an old photo album probably originally belonging to his mother. Milton described his unique childhood, growing up in Fiji (in a previous blog post) but I had never seen pictures from that era – so this is so fun for me to post. I was flabbergasted to see them – thanks Darelyn!

Milton & Walter

We are pretty sure the picture above is Milton and his brother Walter feeding chickens. I was a little thrown off by the blonde hair color but he definitely had curly hair and intent eyes. His hair just got a lot darker as he grew up.  Milton was born in 1918 so this is probably from around 1920 judging from his age. In other words – this picture is over 100 years old! I don’t think I can properly express my excitement in seeing this!

Sorry for the blur but this is probably about 1923. Milton’s twin younger sisters Rewa & Loma look to be no more than six moths. The Whan family. Milton is the shorter of the two brothers standing in the middle.
This too looks like Milton holding a tropical fruit so probably in Fiji. Being the nerd that I am, I had to figure out what kind of fruit it was. Based on the fruit size and the shape of the leaves on the tree, my best guess is Pomelo. Ironically, I had never heard of this fruit until two weeks ago when it was a question in a trivia game.
Rewa is missing from this picture. I also find it funny that there seems to be two photographers as Matthew Whan, Loma and Milton are looking off to the side and Margaretta and Walter are looking straight. Hard to tell the year but guessing about 1930 ish.
Sorry for the blur but remember the pictures are from probably 100 years old. Milton would be the one in the middle. I am enamored with the history in this photo.
With a friend (he is on the right) I don’t think shoes were that important in Fiji.
Before I leave the old Fiji pictures, this would have been perfect for the post about his Fiji days. He talked about going up river with his father.
This was from a day trip to Mt Fuji – I am including it because my love for the adventure & outdoors comes from Dad.
In future blog post I will explain the church camps – Milton would be 42 in this picture. He loved taking church groups on day hikes and Bible camps. What a handsome dude!
One more from Darelyn’s discoveries. This looks like the Blue Mountains to me so Milton is somewhere around 18 – 20 years old I am guessing. I wish I could read his mind at that moment ha ha
Here’s one from the later years to close off this post. Dad went through phases of beard, no beard as his hair turned grey. This was taken outside the church just up the road from their home in Haberfield. When June and Milton moved back to Australia, after almost 40 years in Japan, they both still felt a strong connection to Japan. His robe is for officiating at weddings. At that time many Japanese couples flew to Australia to have a wedding & honeymoon.

I could go on and on with pictures but I need to save some for future blog posts! Oh oops one more – can’t resist one more from Tokyo days…

Tanashi, Tokyo. He was probably asked to pose like he was going to throw a snowball – if it wasn’t staged, the photographer would have been running!

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