Project Mercury astronauts

Events of 1957:

    Eisenhower orders Marines into Lebanon

    Army's Jupiter-C rocket fires first US satellite, Explorer I, into orbit

    NASA initiates Project Mercury

    First transatlantic jet passenger service by BOAC

    NY Yankees win World Series 

    Top Song:  At the Hop by Danny and the Juniors

    Best Movie Oscar:  Gigi

    Most popular TV show: Gunsmoke

    Luba Petrusha is born

1958 was a particularly important year for my family because the first child (me) was born on June 11th of the year. On this page are photos of my mother (pregnant) and of me as an infant.  I travelled to Wisconsin that year; those photos are in the Neillsville section (or will be, soon).

You might not the startling absence of heads in some of the photos.  My father has the opposite of a light touch when it comes to cameras, and pushes a bit hard on the button, thus angling the camera downward, and cutting off the heads of his subjects.  My Uncle John, in contrast, used to cut off feet.