Photographs of Puck, Ilu, and Robin, spring 1953, with Pickens Walker Corbell obituary clipping, December 2, 1953
Book 2, Page 227 ·1953
Transcription
Upper photograph - caption above in blue ballpoint:
Puck - Ilu + Robin - Spring 1953
A black-and-white snapshot showing two figures and a small child seated on the brick steps of a house behind a black wrought-iron porch railing - a boy at left in light shirt and dark trousers (presumably Puck or Robin), a man at right in dark trousers and light shirt (presumably their father Dr. Corbell), and between them a small child in a pale dress (Ilu).
Lower photograph - caption above in blue ballpoint:
Puck - 1953
A black-and-white snapshot of a boy in dark clothing seated astride a low horizontal oak branch, framed by leafless winter twigs against a pale sky.
Newspaper clipping - obituary, pasted below the photographs:
Deaths
Pickens Walker Corbell, 9, son of Dr. and Mrs. Robert Lawrence Corbell, Jr., died at his home yesterday. Services for the family will be held at the graveside.
He is survived by a brother, a sister, his paternal grandmother and his maternal grandparents.
The family especially requests that persons wishing to send flowers contribute instead to the American Cancer Society or to the Trinity Church parish house building fund.
Hand-typeset date label (Dymo-style embossed strip or label-maker tape) pasted at the foot of the page:
Wednesday, December 2, 1953
AI Notes
Album page with two black-and-white photographs and a newspaper obituary clipping pasted below. The upper photograph shows two figures and a small child - a boy at left, a man at right, with a small child in pale dress between them - seated on brick porch steps behind a wrought-iron railing. The lower photograph shows a boy seated astride a low horizontal oak branch among leafless winter twigs. Both prints are captioned in blue ballpoint above. A clipped obituary headed ‘Deaths’ announces the death of Pickens Walker Corbell, age 9, son of Dr. and Mrs. Robert Lawrence Corbell, Jr.; a small hand-typeset (label-maker style) date strip pasted at the foot of the page reads ‘Wednesday, December 2, 1953.’ The surname is CORBELL throughout the printed clipping (not ‘Corbett’). The printed obit gives the boy’s age as 9 (he turned 9 on 13 Nov 1944 + 9 years = 13 Nov 1953, so was just over 9 weeks past his ninth birthday at death); some family memory had him as 8.
Pickens Walker “Puck” / “Pucky” Corbell, born 13 November 1944, was the compiler Amy Walker’s grandson - son of her elder daughter Emma Dee (“Dee”) Walker Corbell and Dr. Robert Lawrence Corbell Jr. of Portsmouth, Va. He died at the family home in Portsmouth of cancer on 2 December 1953, age 9. The obituary’s request for memorial contributions to the American Cancer Society - rare in 1953 - and to the Trinity Church (Portsmouth) parish house building fund identifies the family parish. The “brother” and “sister” surviving him are Robert Lawrence Corbell III (b. ~1940; see p192) and Ilu Corbell, both visible in the upper snapshot; Robin Corbell, also pictured, may have been the surviving brother named in the notice or a young cousin (album captions on pp193, 197, 198 follow Robin from Mt. Vernon and Ft. Benning through Portsmouth boyhood). The “paternal grandmother” is Mrs. Robert Lawrence Corbell Sr. of Portsmouth (Dr. Corbell Sr. having presumably predeceased); the “maternal grandparents” are James Pickens Walker Sr. and Amy FitzSimons Walker, the compilers. An earlier photograph of Puck on crutches with his left leg in a cast, dated Portsmouth 1953, is pasted on p216 - almost certainly an earlier stage of the same fatal illness.