Is This Your Mother?

This is Edna. 

I found hundreds of images of her and her family, taken as early as 1948. The richly-saturated Kodachrome slides are meticulously labeled and organized, but offer few clues about her actual identity.  I'll post more here as I scan and prepare them. 

In the interim, check out Is This Your Mother?  on Facebook.

I'm attempting to use the power of social connections to find her surviving family.  How long will it take until one of her children or grandchildren (if she had any) will stumble accross her likeness on Facebook?   If they do, perhaps they'll want the photographs returned to them. Then again, maybe not.  

Maggie Sends a P-Mail to Mrs. Scovel (Princeton, 1910)

This lost family portrait seems to have been made on a farm, probably in Princeton, California, during July 1910. The subjects are sitting on a pile of wood, and there's a horse-drawn carriage in the background, sans horse. There is probably someone outside of the frame on the left side who is distracting three of the subjects.  The photograph was printed as a postcard and was sent from Princeton to Mrs. Hester Scovel in Libertyville, Iowa, on July 29:

Dear Friend,  I received your letter yesterday evening and was glad to hear from you. We were down at San Francisco last week, it was nice and cool there. It's very warm and dry here. Peaches and melons are ripe and are fine. An Evangelist is holding a meeting here now. Hope this will find you all well is the wish of your friend.  

- Maggie.

It's hard to imagine life moving so slowly.  A handwritten letter was one of only a few ways to know for sure that your loved ones in faraway places were alive and well.  Precious post card real estate was consumed by short sentences describing the weather and the condition of the local fruit.  Does this suggest a shallow relationship between writer and reader? A concern about privacy?  Or in 1910, were these truly important subjects of discussion?  Was the post card the equivalent of 140 characters or less?

The Man with Unfortunate Pants

This rear of this photograph is marked only with "1974," and "Thelma Blumberg," the photographer's name.  Not much is known about Ms. Blumberg except that she photographed in the Gaslight District of St. Louis in the 1960s and 1970s.  A Google search turns up a copy of  Life Magazine, in which she once had a photo published.  Even less is known about the man in this portrait, who probably was quite fashionable for the time.  Before you chuckle too heartily, take a look down at the pants that you're wearing today:  this could be you in 35 years.
 

[click image to enlarge]

Mystery Twins with Super Powers (Match 'em if you can!)

We'll never know the name of these eight people in this skillfully arranged portrait.  There's a mystery here.  On the left and right sides, the two boys and the two girls appear to be of the same age. Could we be looking at two sets of boy-girl fraternal twins?  Or two sets of boy-boy and girl-girl identical twins?  Perhaps neither.  Maybe the mother and father wasted little time between offspring, and it's just a coincidence that their children share such similar features. 
Regardless, this clan appears to have been gifted with a super power. Their unusually wide-set eyes likely provided enhanced depth perception, making them well-suited as race car drivers or airplane pilots.  That is, if race cars or airplanes had existed back then.
[click image to enlarge]

Man Strikes Hip-Hop Pose, 50 Years Before Hip-Hop is Invented

This unknown man is striking a formidable pose for the photographer, suggesting that you aren't likely to get past him to see what is happening in the barn.   The pin on his shirt appears to be made of metal, and is not a flower as it appears at first look.
 In the background is a row of cars and another man opening the door to the barn.  Like most of these portraits,  reconstructing the story behind this moment is left to our imaginations, but at the least it proves that this particular pose was not invented by hip-hop and rap artists, after all.

[click image to enlarge]

German Family with Two Identical Calendars

This photograph of a German family reveals nothing about the when or where, and written on the backside are five German first names, barely legible, which provides the only glimpse of the who.  The family is at the dinner table, and several of them appear to have heads bowed and eyes closed.
 Upon closer inspection, there are some peculiar items in the room:  two identical day calendars, one on each side of the window, each set to the 21st of whatever month it was. A special hook to the left of the window is used to store newspapers. There is a barometer in the window, of course used to predict the weather.
Likely made with a box camera, the silhouetted, backlit, dramatic feel of this image was probably a lucky mistake, but a beautiful result nonetheless.

July 2011 Update:  My friend Chris insists that the newspapers hanging on the wall are used for hygienic  purposes, as they seem to be mounted strategically above a seat-shaped hole.  Really?

Studio Portrait of Eagan, with a Special Note

This well-dressed young man, known only to us as Eagan, sits for a technically perfect portrait. On the reverse side of the mounted print he has scribbled:

Yours very truly,— Eagan.    If you don't want to be troubled with rats and mice, just place this (photograph) in the room and you won't be bothered.

You May Now Shake the Bride's Hand

They're probably not even married. She has a ring on her  finger, but that doesn't mean she's married to him.  This portrait of an unknown couple was made by Schneider, a photographer in Green Bay, Wisconsin.

Both subjects of this lost portrait are fancily dressed and stiffly posed against a painted backdrop. To the man's right there is an ornate frame that contains a display of other portrait photographs. Could Schneider have been working at a social event, making obligatory souvenir pictures, like they do at every tourist attraction here in Chicago? That might explain the icy handshake, the disparate gazes in opposite directions, and their apparent mutual disinterest in even being there at all.

The Mystery of Case 57

There's writing on the back of this print that says,  "F. Copeland Shelden, Kansas City, Missouri."  A bit of Googling produces several clues about the name.  Dr. Sheldon was an accomplished orthodontist, speaker and author for many decades until his death at 70 years old in 1977.

The question remains: are these photographs of one of Dr. Shelden's patients?  The boy does not seem to be a candidate for orthodontia. Or is "Case 057" actually Dr. Shelden himself, being photographed as a young boy long before embarking on his career in medicine?

Two Photographs for Olive

These portraits are likely from the Spring or early Summer of 1945, after World War II had ended in Europe but was still raging in the Pacific. Without any dates except Mary's instruction to "Remember June 1945,"  these matching folios contain  brief sentiments of two young women who both have a friend named Olive.

I can only assume that these wonderful portraits were given as a gift or exchanged upon graduation, and I am left with a feeling of disappointment that I'll never see a portrait of Olive herself.

Portrait of a Man and Woman, Both Appear to be Angry

This is an example of a truly lost portrait. This image was not a part of an album, a scrapbook, or even a pile. It has no markings that suggest a photographer, a location, or any context at all.
In the early days of photography, plates and films were less sensitive to light, and required subjects to sit perfectly still (to avoid blurriness) during long exposures.  Perhaps a faked smile was too hard to hold.  Even still, could this possibly be the best of the bunch?

Portrait of Unknown Man, Kentucky

We know nothing about the man in this photograph, but the photographer was well-published in the late 1800s, when this portrait was most likely made. On the reverse side of this wallet-sized print: 

D.H. Anderson, Photographer,
Corner Main and Third Streets, Danville, Kentucky and Opposite Capitol Hotel, Frankfort, Kentucky.
Duplicates can be had from this Negative at any time.