We tend to picture our grandparents as they are now: reading glasses, favourite armchair, strong opinions about the thermostat. Old family photos tell a different story. Before they were Grandma and Grandpa, they were young people flying planes, welding warships, dancing on wings, escaping dictatorships and dressing up as giant roosters for reasons nobody can now explain.
The 25 pictures below were shared online by grandchildren and great-grandchildren, mostly on Reddit's r/OldSchoolCool community and on Imgur, after they found them in albums and shoeboxes. Many date from the 1930s to the 1960s, a period that included the Great Depression, the Second World War and the start of the space age. That history sits quietly in the background of almost every frame: the uniforms, the cars, the cigarettes, the women in work overalls who would have been told a few years earlier that such jobs were not for them.
We have grouped the photos by theme and added a little context to each one. The personal details come from the people who posted them, so treat family stories as family stories. The historical background has been checked. Each photo is credited to the person who shared it.
Wartime grandparents: pilots, Marines and welders
For millions of families, the war years produced the most dramatic photos in the album. These pictures show young people facing enormous events with remarkable composure.
The flight instructor they called Kidd
According to her grandchild, "Kidd" was refused entry to the air force on account of her sex, and spent the war in Stephenville, Texas, training young male pilots instead. Women could not serve as military pilots in the US during the war, but from August 1943 the Women Airforce Service Pilots (WASP) ferried and tested aircraft at home. Of more than 25,000 women who applied, 1,074 earned their wings, many training at Avenger Field in Sweetwater, also in Texas. Their service was only recognised as active military duty in 1977.
Photo: jsdlp on Reddit
The day before shipping out, 1941
This intense portrait shows a young Marine the day before he left for service in 1941, the year the United States entered the war after the attack on Pearl Harbor in December. The hair, the stare and the unbuttoned collar give it the feel of a film still. Photos like this were often taken in a hurry so families had something to hold on to while their sons were away.
Photo: aking25 on Reddit
Climbing out of a downed plane
A pilot clambers along the fuselage of a fighter that has come down in rough water, the white star of US military aircraft visible on its side. The grandson says this is his grandfather getting out after being shot down. Ditching at sea was one of the most dangerous moments a wartime pilot could face, since a plane could sink within a minute or two, and photographs of the moment itself are rare.
Photo: gettingthere52 on Reddit
A soldier and a "liberated" car
Leaning on a dusty car in a European street, this American soldier looks very pleased with himself. Family lore says he took the car from German forces. Soldiers on all sides commandeered vehicles as armies advanced, and many such stories were told with a grin for decades afterwards.
Photo: ksm2721 on Reddit
A great-grandmother at the welding bench
Welding mask pushed up and grinning, she is one of the millions of American women who took industrial jobs during the Second World War. The number of working women in the US rose from about 12 million in 1940 to around 20 million by 1944. Riveters became the famous symbol, through "Rosie the Riveter", but women also worked as welders in shipyards and aircraft plants.
Photo: anonymous-horror on Reddit
Training horses at Petawawa, around 1922
Horse and rider sail through a burning frame in a display jump. The poster's great-grandfather trained horses for the army during the First World War and is shown here at Petawawa, the long-standing Canadian army training ground in Ontario. Cavalry and artillery units relied on horses well into the 1920s, and riding displays like this showed off both animal and trainer.
Photo: FutureMillionaire_ on Reddit
A tiger cub in the backpack, around 1960
Shared on Memorial Day by a grandson who said he would be happy to have half his grandfather's nerve, this photo shows a man in tiger-stripe camouflage with a real tiger cub riding in his pack. That pattern was worn by some US advisers and special units in Southeast Asia in the early 1960s. The exact story behind the cub is not recorded, but it is hard to beat as a family portrait.
Photo: johnthat on Reddit
Daredevils, adventurers and the space age
Granny on the wing of a crop duster
Two snapshots show a woman perched on the upper wing of a biplane, first on the ground and then in the air, with farmland far below. The plane belonged to her son, a crop-duster pilot, and the family says she went up like this several times. Wing walking was a barnstorming stunt of the 1920s; doing it as a grandmother, for fun, is another level.
Photo: silvervendetta on Imgur
Water-ski acrobatics
Posted on the day he died, this picture shows a grandfather water-skiing with a woman balanced on his shoulders, arms spread wide. Shoulder lifts like this were a highlight of the water-ski shows that grew popular in the US in the 1940s and 1950s. It takes serious leg strength and trust from both partners.
Photo: kitsa on Imgur
Mock panic beside a missile
A man in a tweed jacket pretends to flee from a US Air Force missile, hands over his ears. His grandchild says he worked as a newspaper photographer for the Los Angeles Times for more than 50 years and kept his sense of humour to the end, joking on his deathbed that the paper had promised him "a big spread". The family also credits him with an early published photo of an atomic test explosion, which we could not independently confirm.
Photo: SunsetMerlot on Imgur
With three Mercury astronauts, 1959
A smiling young woman stands among three men in silver pressure suits. They are members of the Mercury Seven, the first group of NASA astronauts, introduced to the public in April 1959. The caption names John Glenn, Gus Grissom and Alan Shepard: Shepard became the first American in space in 1961, Glenn the first American to orbit the Earth in 1962, and Grissom died in the Apollo 1 fire in 1967.
Photo: di11deux on Reddit
A fresh start after fleeing Bulgaria, 1978
Leaning on a sports car with a newspaper under her arm, this woman had just left communist Bulgaria for West Germany. Leaving the Eastern Bloc without permission was illegal and risky, and people who made it often started over with almost nothing. The confident pose suggests she had no intention of looking back.
Photo: wfyff on Reddit
Style that still holds up
Grandpa at his grandson's age
A grandmother sent this to her grandson as a gentle hint: his grandfather at the same age, shirtless in patterned shorts and in remarkable shape. Fitness in that generation usually came from physical work rather than a gym membership. The shot became one of the most shared photos on the topic.
Photo: jbob5059 on Reddit
A 1940s portrait worthy of Hollywood
Waved hair, dark lipstick and dramatic side lighting: this studio portrait follows the glamour style made famous by Hollywood photographers of the 1940s. Many ordinary people booked a professional sitting for engagements or to send to a sweetheart in the forces, and the results could look like film publicity shots.
Photo: FinneganWelles on Reddit
The photo chosen for her funeral
A red-haired young woman, probably in the late 1960s or early 1970s, makes a rude hand gesture at the camera with a half smile. Her family placed this picture beside her coffin, which says a great deal about the sense of humour they wanted to remember. It is a reminder that a funeral photo does not have to be solemn to be loving.
Photo: CallMeBlue on Reddit
A full skirt and a big smile, 1942
She spreads her skirt wide in front of a house and a 1940s car. Her grandchild describes a woman who left an alcoholic husband, raised six children alone and cooked at a gas station seven days a week, with grandchildren sleeping on the floor there at weekends. Behind the playful pose is a life of very hard work.
Photo: jewelsinme on Reddit
A fish, a cigarette and a book, 1950s
In white sailor's kit on deck, this grandfather holds up a fish with a cigarette in his mouth, a paperback tucked into his waistband and a pack rolled into his sleeve. Rolling cigarettes into a T-shirt sleeve was a common habit in that decade. His shipmates seem just as pleased with the catch.
Photo: schants on Reddit
Trousers on the farm, 1938
Reclining on a rock in riding trousers and laced boots, cigarette in hand, this grandmother looks completely at ease. In 1938 trousers were still unusual everyday wear for women in much of the US, though practical on a farm. Her grandchild's verdict was that she simply did what she wanted.
Photo: bringdoughnuts on Reddit
A pin-up portrait to remember her by
Shared by a grandchild after she died of cancer, this studio shot shows her posing on a stool with a fur wrap and an old telephone. The pin-up look was hugely popular in the 1940s and 1950s, and many young women had playful portraits taken in that style. For the family, it captures her confidence.
Photo: wefoundeachotherinthedark on Imgur
Great-grandpa Eddie, Omaha 1939
Top hat, cravat, waxed moustache, checked waistcoat and cane: Eddie looks as if he has stepped out of the 1890s rather than 1939. Costume events and old-time celebrations were popular in American towns at the time, and this may have been one of them. Either way, he wears it with total conviction.
Photo: CorporateSloth on Reddit
Characters, jokers and lifelong love
Einstein's violin teacher?
Albert Einstein, violin in hand, stands beside the poster's great-grandfather and a young boy with a violin bow. The family says the great-grandfather gave Einstein lessons. Einstein was a devoted amateur violinist all his life and often played with other musicians, so the story is plausible, though we could not verify it.
Photo: TheTimeIsChow on Reddit
Swapping clothes, 1943
She wears his army uniform and cap; he wears her floral dress and headscarf. Dressing up in each other's clothes was a popular joke among wartime couples, and it shows a couple who could laugh together at a time when separation was always close.
Photo: howdidyougetin on Reddit
Cosplay before it had a name
A man stands in a studio in a full rooster costume, feathers, tail and claws included. The photo looks early twentieth century, when fancy-dress balls and theatrical costumes were common entertainment. Whatever the occasion, he committed fully.
Photo: RadionicPsychotronic on Imgur
A former samurai in a mining town, around 1900
In kimono, a man holds a small child while another child stands beside him. The poster describes him as the "samurai" of a small coal-mining town in Kyushu, posing with the poster's grandmother and one of her sisters. Japan abolished the samurai class in the 1870s, but former samurai families kept their status and standing in many communities for decades.
Photo: DiarrheaThighs on Reddit
What a man in love looks like
After his wife died, a grandfather sent his grandchild this photo of the two of them as a young couple, he gazing at her while she laughs, so the grandchild would "know what a man looks like" when in love. They were married for more than 60 years. The image is shown here in its original and a colourised version.
Photo: atothego on Imgur
Why old family photos matter, and how to save yours
Part of the appeal of these pictures is surprise. It is easy to assume older relatives were always cautious and settled, and photographs remind us that they had the same restlessness, vanity and sense of fun as anyone young today. They also lived through upheavals most of us have only read about, and their faces make that history personal.
If you have albums at home, a few simple steps help keep them alive:
- Scan or photograph them now. Prints fade and get lost. A phone scanning app is enough to start.
- Write down the stories while you can. Ask older relatives who is in each picture, where it was taken and what was happening. Without that, a photo can become anonymous within one generation.
- Store originals carefully. Keep them away from damp, heat and direct sunlight, ideally in acid-free sleeves.
- Share copies. Sending scans to siblings and cousins is the simplest backup there is.
And when you find the picture of your grandmother on a plane wing, show it to her. The story behind it is usually even better than the photo.
Sources: Photos shared by the users credited above on Reddit's r/OldSchoolCool and r/pics and on Imgur, as collected by Bored Panda. Background: Wikipedia: Women Airforce Service Pilots; Wikipedia: Rosie the Riveter; Wikipedia: Mercury Seven.
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