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December 1943. "Lynn Massman, wife of a second class petty officer studying in Washington, D.C., giving eight weeks old Joey his daily bath." The Massman family was the subject of dozens of photos shot by Esther Bubley for the Office of War Information. View full size. Epilogue: Joe, a lawyer, died in March 2000 in Montana. His dad, Hugh, died two years later. Lynn, a mother of eight, passed away in 1983 after a very active life. Click here for remarks by her son Bascomb.
The Massmans are all big folks. Joe was 6 foot 2 and about 275 pounds before the cancer thinned him down in his last weeks. I'm 6'5 and 210. My daughters were both over 10 pounds at birth. I always say "Massman" is just another way of saying "big guy."
The size of Joey at eight weeks doesn't surprise me. All three of my sons were also chunky at eight weeks. Their pediatrician instructed me to start my sons on baby cereal at two weeks with pureed fruits and vegetables.
By around six weeks, I was instructed to add pureed beef roast or chicken into their cereal for dinner.
Of course this was served in tiny amounts off of a baby spoon.
My sons also slept through the night around six weeks of age. Now I have three strong teenage sons and not one of them has an allergy. Go figure!
Just have to ask - are you sure that's an 8 WEEK old baby and not 8 MONTHS??? I'm sorry to question, but my baby is just about to turn 18 months next week and she was not anywhere near the size of Joey in this picture until 8 or 9 months, and she was 8 lb 2.5 oz at birth and has remained in the higher percentiles of weight & height to date!
[Eight weeks seems to be correct. Joey was born in October 1943. - Dave]
The confusion could have been caused by her name change. When Lynn died she had not only remarried to Julius "Babe" Stoner, but she had taken to spelling her name Lyn. She made that move in the seventies when she ran for the state Senate in Montana--and nearly won. If it had been after Watergate instead of before, she probably would have won.
I'm Lynn's sixth child. Her fourth son. She died in 1983 of cancer. She would have made a great old lady.
[Thanks for filling in the gaps. - Dave]
Lynn died before her sister Elaine passed away in 2001. Elaine's obituary.
[Thanks, Joe. - Dave]
When did she die?
[In 1983 (see above). More on the Massmans in this thread. - Dave]
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