Vintage Picnic Photos That Will Inspire You to Plan Your Own Family Picnic
Updated: Mar. 16, 2022Because food tastes better when you eat it outside.
Perfect picnic
Wendell Gladstone, foreground, and his family enjoy lunch in upstate New York in 1936. Among those with him is his wife, Ruth, holding baby Shirley on her lap. Shirley’s daughter, Wendy Eaton of Seattle, WA, sent in the picture. Just make sure your family never eats these foods at a picnic.
Riding high
“My sister Debbie balances on Dad’s arm at a gathering in northeastern Ohio in about 1952. I’m the 2-year-old on the blanket with our parents, Kenneth and Magdalen Freeman.”—Thomas Freeman (Outside or inside, eating together is one of the important habits all happy families have.)
We made our own fun
“We had lots of picnics and played hundreds of games of cards when I was a kid. Mom and Dad always said they couldn’t go to fancy places, so they made their own fun.”—Martha H. Williams. These vintage Frank Sinatra photos will bring you back to days gone by.
No learning—only play
Gertrude Woehrlin’s kids Beverly, Kevin and Patricia—along with Simon the Cat—have a snack on the wagon at the family’s lakefront cabin. “We moved to the lake the day school was out and didn’t move home until school started in fall,” she says. “When we got there, it was like turning horses out to pasture. No lessons—only play.” (At your next family picnic, serve one of these healthy picnic dishes that don’t taste like diet food.)