Before You Were Born

The small Island sits humbly in a beautiful New York city bay. It is not far from the shores of Manhattan but there is a great distance within the culture and lifestyle of these two places. The Island is Broad Channel and this memoir will chronicle three generations of my family who settled here. Mine is a very normal family with some occasional abnormalities. My grandparents were the family pioneers who left the comfort of a Manhattan apartment to settle on an island with a population of only one hundred folks like themselves and very little amenities. My functional family memories include bootlegging, speakeasies and war heroes. bu, a very prominent feature of my life was my father's career as a New York Daily News photographer. However the most important feature of an island childhood is the bay itself. It was our playground, we fished we swam, we explored, we were happy. On the very day the memories of my childhood in Broad Channel had been completed, the Island was hit with the full force of Hurricane Sandy. I hope and pray that when the houses are rebuilt and the mental anguish has eased, my friends in Broad Channel can smile again when reading of the memories of a Broad Channel many years ago.

An award winning photographer, Marguerite Rocholl was born and raised on the small island of Broad Channel in the large city New York. After her graduation from High School, she worked in the fashion center of New York City with some occassional modeling but always looking through the other side of the lens. It was after she married Ted that she began photographing children, beginning with her own and then whoever crossed her path. Eventually she was signed by a stock agency, H Armstrong Roberts and her photographs appeared in calendars, textbooks or advertising.Before You were Born is her memoir of a lovely childhood surrounded by an eclectic cast of characters, her large Irish family including her father a photographer for the NY Daily News.