The Way We Were Wednesday - My First Cover Shoot

I have been taking photos since I was a child, I started to get serious about it in high school.  This was my first commissioned cover shoot, as I recall I was paid a whopping $15 for this.  I really needed a wide angle lens, something I didn't buy until the fall of 1976, after this had gone to print.  

Suncrest was a local skilled nursing home.  My grandmother was on the auxiliary, the volunteer group. She asked me to do this, she probably paid for it.  The cookbook was a fundraiser.  It was printed by a friend of - the village undertaker who ran a print shop as a sideline.  

My grandfather died in this nursing home late in the fall of 1976.  He had dementia, my grandmother and I cared for him at home until late summer of that year.  He had a health crisis, was in the hospital, then home for a day or two, then a couple of different nursing homes.  He died quietly of a heart attack while having lunch one day.  The nurse described it as "he went face down in the mashed potatoes."