You see them in every thrift shop, junk store and consignment store you visit. Boxes, baskets, trays filled with photos, and not just any photos but personal ones from years gone by. They fascinate me.
With something of a compulsion, I stop and rummage through the current offerings. What am I expecting when I do this? Is it my bent toward history? Just curiosity? Am I hoping to recognize someone? Perhaps run across a family member?
Admittedly, I do this so often that some of the people photographed are becoming familiar to me. I almost think I recognize some of the people. And then there’s the slight dread I really might see someone I know.
So ingrained is this habit that I can place the photos in their decade by the composition, clothing, hairstyles, toys, activities and facial expressions.
Most are photos of celebrations—marriages, birthdays, new babies, grandparents showing off grandchildren, family reunions, new cars, prom dates and men (mostly) in uniform proudly heading off to do “their duty.” When I see military photos, I wonder if the person came back home. Or did those photos morph from celebration to grief, becoming the photo parents and wives displayed forever.
Then, there are the iconic photos of the Good Ole USA as seen through the family vacation lens. Hoover Dam, Grand Canyon, See Rock City signs painted on barn roofs, motels with individual units designed like teepees, alligators in tanks, bears in cages, snakes in pits.
Individual photos of men and women that most assuredly were taken to send to a sweetheart as well as wedding photos make me wonder what the future turned out to be for these folks. As with most of us, they enjoyed the good times and mostly endured the bad, I imagine. For some, the future was not to be.
All these photos were taken to stop a moment and keep it forever. I grieve that these photos, taken for personal reasons, have been thrown to the public, I grieve that no one cares anymore.
Well, a few of us care. Years ago, I was invited to the home of new friends for dinner. On the wall were two of the standard old-style photos, a man and a woman, probably taken in the early 1900’s. I asked if they were her ancestors. She replied, “No. But they are somebody’s.” And they just happened to fit her decorating needs.
My house is full of old photos of people I do know, some only by family story. I love learning about my ancestors, having faces for those known only through family lore.
There’s one of my great grandfather and great grandmother and the train. I knew him, but she died when I was six-months-old. They are sitting in two wooden chairs. He wears a tie and she a Sunday dress. Both hold their hats in their laps. The ground is bare dirt. Behind them is a train car on a track. Who takes a photo like that? But, I know these people; they are not forgotten.
In my late mother’s treasures, I found a photo of “Aunt Lucille.” All of my cousins and I grew up with the story of Lucille, my grandparents’ first child and the only one of six children to die before adulthood. The cause was diphtheria, and she was five-years-old. I have the photo and the obituary. These must not end up for sale in a basket in a store.
I see those baskets and I am sad.
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