I estimate this photograph was taken between 1935 and 1940 in Kerrisdale (in Vancouver). My mother is the girl in the middle. Their house was on West Boulevard. I think it’s still there. My maternal grandmother is standing to Alexander’s right, in the light print dress. It’s one of the few photographs capturing her image.

This photograph was found by Windows Live Gallery, which has indexed photos on several computers; it has some facial recognition technology built into it, and thought my grandfather’s face was similar to my own, and placed them side by side. The resemblance was remarkable, purely in terms of eyes, cheekbones, mouth, and to some extent, nose. And width of face. Eyebrows very similar too. Maybe I get my technical facility from him; he was the classic Scottish “engineer” of his time. The sort of man (there must have been many like him) who was characterized in the Star Trek character “Scotty”.