That’s my great-granduncle Arthur Seligman, son of my great-great-grandparents Frances Nusbaum and Bernard Seligman, standing with the then governor of New York who would soon be President of the United States, Franklin Delano Roosevelt.  This was taken while FDR was campaigning in New Mexico in September, 1932.

(Was FDR really that tall, or were all those politicos from the West really that short?)

(I just looked it up.  FDR was 6′ 2″.  Those guys must have been at least 8″ shorter.  I am not surprised my relative was short; we are not a tall family.  But all three of them together?  Didn’t they feed people well out West?)

And I once thought I was the member of my family who’d gotten closest to a future US President when I shook Jimmy Carter‘s hand very early in his run for President.  At the time, I’d never heard anything about him and never thought he’d end up as President.  I was just being polite to a man who’d come to speak at the school I was attending. And no one took our photograph.

Thanks to my cousin Pete for sharing this.  More about the photo can be found here.