Sunny Smiles & Family Fun: May Celebration Days

May 19, 2025

Spring is in full bloom throughout our state, sunshine warming the air and the soul. The National Days selected for this month’s installment of our National Day Calendar series reflect this heavenly springtime weather. The image above is a cropped portrait of the Clowes family (from our Clowes Family Collection) taken while on vacation in Vermont 1954—a fitting occasion for this month.

The Sunday preceding Memorial Day is National Family Fun Day, May 25 for 2025. Family fun can come in numerous forms: vacations, recreational activities, sun-kissed days at amusement parks. For the Stratton-Porter family, picnicking was one way they had fun together! The photograph on the left below shows the family of the esteemed Hoosier novelist Gene Stratton-Porter picnicking in some sandy locale with their Model T parked behind them. Similarly, the picture on the right captures a Carpenter family vacation scene at Cedar Point, Ohio. The Carpenters visited Cedar Point in 1914, when it was merely a popular beach resort, decades before it was developed into the roller coaster capital of the world.

Picnic, Gene Stratton-Porter Collection, M1235, IHS; Cedar Point, Walter N. Carpenter Family Photographs, P0236, IHS (cropped)

Our Irwin-Sweeney-Miller family collection is surely one of our largest collections dedicated to one family group (the collection contains scores of photograph boxes and over 700 manuscript boxes!). Outside of their successful involvement in the Cummins Engine Company, the Miller family was quite musical, often playing instruments as an ensemble. Below, Irwin Miller and relatives are bonding and having fun as a quintet.

Miller Family Performing Music, Irwin-Sweeney-Miller Family Collection, M1003, IHS.

Family reunions are splendid opportunities to reconnect and socialize with relatives. We have several panoramic photographs documenting family reunions, particularly from the early twentieth century. A photographer from the Beitler Studio in Marion, Indiana, was hired for the Turner-Crandel reunion, which was held on August 15, 1918. Generations of these two families came together for a convivial gathering over an outdoor banquet. More pictures from other family reunions, outings, and group events are included in our digital Panoramic Photograph Images collection. Look to see if your ancestors appear in any of them!

Turner-Crandel Reunion Aug. 15, 1918, H.P. Dexheimer/Lawrence H. Beitler Collection, P0379, IHS

May 31^st is National Smile Day, arguably the cheeriest of all the National Days. The simple and contagious joy of this day speaks for itself. These two images capture the smiles of children as they interact with little animals at the Indiana State Fair.

Little Girl with Piglets; Two Girls Holding Chicks, Larry Foster Collection, P0569, IHS (both cropped).

This final photograph was taken at the Lassen resort in Cedar Lake, Indiana, where immeasurable fun and endless smiles passed during the twenties and thirties. One swimmer is grinning coyly at the camera while relaxing on the deck, posing like a model. The toboggan slide across the water would make me smile, that’s for certain!

Swimmers at Lassen’s Resort, Lassen Family Photographs, P0562, IHS.

Here’s to pursuing more family fun and many more smiles, from this month to the next. All the images in this blog can be purchased through our Digital Images site.

Cooper Davis is an Assistant Librarian at the IHS. When he’s not researching history, he enjoys reading poetry and playing Chopin nocturnes.

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