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Faded
Photographsby
Mike Cox
The people in these images could be
your ancestors. Or mine. One thing is sure: They are long dead, and so, too, is
anyone who could identify them. |
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“Adopt
a Family” says the hand-lettered sign on the box in the antique store. “Put ‘em
on your mantle. $3 each.”
Inside the box lay a collection of old photographic
portraits mounted on cardboard, their once black-and-white images faded to sepia.
Babies had been shushed long enough to be posed in elaborate studio settings,
stern-looking women sat stiffly in dark dresses buttoned to their neck, mustachioed
men in suits and high-collars stood next to their wives before a fake studio background.
Vintage photographs seem to
be an increasingly popular inventory item in antique stores or malls. The going
rate is only a few bucks per image, though like most collectibles, prices vary
from less than that to a lot more.
Collectors
are particularly interested in photographs mounted on ornately decorated cardboard
bearing the name of the photography studio. They also like vintage clothing, interesting
studio backgrounds, work by a particular photographer, Civil War and Old West
images, disaster photographs, early town and city scenes and interesting shots
of interesting people doing interesting things. |
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While
the people and subject matter vary, most of the faded images you see in shops
have something very sad in common: No one ever bothered to write the name of the
person or place on the back of the photograph.
The people
in these images could be your ancestors. Or mine. One thing is sure: They are
long dead, and so, too, is anyone who could identify them.
Caches
of photographs usually come from estate sales. Often they are displayed in the
same trunk or box they had been kept in by the last survivor of their family.
At least the last survivor who cared enough to keep them.
Over the years,
I’ve acquired dozens of unidentified photographs, fascinated by the stories they
hint at.
For example, there’s the older woman in the black dress with
white polka dots, standing in front of a car holding a photograph of a man in
uniform. The only clue is the date, “May 29, 1944.” Is he her son? Grandson? Had
the family just received news of his death? The questions go on and on, the answers
likely unattainable at this late date. |
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Courtesy Lance
Ingham Sloan, (decendent of the Vaughan's of Goodnight) and (GGGG-nephew of Charles
Goodnight) |
Just
as frustrating is finding a particularly interesting shot of an
early-day community or scene that would be far more useful, not to say valuable,
if a location had been given. Sometimes, happily, an image will contain enough
clues for an identification to be made, but not always.
But it’s the unidentified
photos of people that particularly haunt me. I feel sorry for these folks and
their families, but not because they are no longer with us. That, obviously, awaits
us all. In a way, they are only partially dead, stuck in an in-between dimension.
An instant of their life captured on tintype, glass plate or early Kodak negative
still exists, but is no longer conntected to their name.
All that remains
of them is that images, waiting for someone willing to pay $3 for it. Of course,
if that old photograph does bear some form of identification its value can increase
tremendously. Images of identified Civil War soldiers or officers and long-gone
structures bring much higher prices. |
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Hall Family and
Friends
Courtesy Lola Hall Norton and Laura Jean Hall |
Courtesy
Billie Mayhall Freeman |
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Courtesy Courtesy
Rob McLain |
Most
of the old photographs haunting
the antique stores of Texas will remain forever nameless,
but we can protect ourselves, our family and our friends from this photographic
purgatory.
Make sure you label your film-era pictures. Go back and label
the ones you have while you can still remember who’s in them. If your parents
or grandparents have a drawer full of old pictures, spend some time with them
and get the names of your forebears on those pictures while you still have a chance.
Admirably,
many libraries and archives holding photographic collections actively try to get
unidentified images pegged. They publish interesting photographs and hope someone
will be able to come up with a name or location. ( See Casasola
Collection) |
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| The internet has
raised the odds of being able to ID an old picture. A genealogical magazine, My
Family Tree, publishes scans of nameless photographs and has had success in attaching
names to faces.
Also thanks to the net, family historians can at least
learn some things about their unlabeled photos. Various Web sites chronicle clothing
and hair styles by era, types of photographs, and other information which can
at least pinpoint the approximate date of an old photograph.
Digital technology
also makes it possible to restore a photograph and enhance features not readily
apparent in the originals. Of course, the same technology also makes it possible
to trick up photographs, but that’s another story.
©
Mike Cox
"Texas Tales"
September 30, 2010
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