A photo of a young woman on horseback is now identified (I never knew my mother could ride a horse).
The faded picture of two strangely dressed old people holding a fat little baby will show future generations how people dressed in the late 1800s in America.
These treasures are not in an art show or a magazine, but in shoeboxes on a shelf in my closet.
For once, I’m taking my own “senior” advice and before this summer is over, all of the photos in three shoeboxes will be identified. For a person who never owned much of a camera, I seem to have collected an inordinate amount of pictures.
Some of these gems from history were saved by my late mother and thankfully, she marked every one with a name – not just “grampa,” but a full name. There’s one of her grandfather, Francis Sawyer, who was a brickmaker and built his own house, still standing on one of Windham’s few remaining country roads. His old brickyard is now covered with houses. There’s a snapshot of her other grandfather, born in Denmark. He farmed on the Chute Road, raised his own hops and made a special dark beer.
We’ve all heard stories about and from our ancestors; it’s really special when you find a photograph to go with the story.
Years ago, when I got bit by the genealogy bug, long-lost relatives, six cousins removed, sent me photos they had collected. Some were of barn-raisings, picnics, pictures taken at church affairs and those wonderful studio-produced pictures of women in long embroidered dresses and hairdos of curls and huge bows.
In this world of ours, where telephones take pictures that are viewed and seldom retained, boxes of old photographs are a treasure.
Twenty-five years ago I traveled to Canada and visited a small town created by Danish immigrants more than 125 years ago. Naturally, I borrowed a camera and took a lot of photographs of the buildings, museum and town where my great-grandparents lived. When the genealogy bug bites my great nieces and nephews, these pictures will provide a link to the past.
I imagine you have a few boxes or old tattered envelopes full of photographs you’ve saved over the years. Once in a while you’ve shown them to a grandchild or child and laughed and remembered the occasion depicted. I strongly suggest you take a few hours this summer and, before your memory fades like the pictures themselves, write down the names of the people (first and last) and if you know it, where the picture was taken.
Kay Soldier welcomes reader ideas for column topics of interest to seniors. She can be reached by email at kso48@aol.com, or write to 114 Tandberg Trail, Windham, ME 04062.
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