Editorially speaking…
Two weeks ago, I wrote about some of the interesting old photographs I’ve found over the years (Some Old Photos are Real Heart Breakers, September 14,2023, and how some of them have “gone home” again.
But I keep turning them up, such as these two.
Both have been taken professionally, but only that of the unidentified baby bears the photographic studio’s imprint: The Willson Studio, Welland, Ont., and Port Colburn.
So we’ll never know anything more about them. I’ve said it before: there oughta be a law that you have to write the who, the when, the where and the why on the backs of photos. How many times, friends have told me they have old family albums—but can’t identify the folks in the photos.
Members of their own families!
But here I am, calling the kettle black. I always meant to have my father go through the two albums of photos he took during his 20 years in the RCN, dating back to the 1930’s. But I never got around to it. Always too busy, and the chance of a lifetime gone forever...
But, belatedly, lesson learned: I’m now trying to sort through and catalogue several 1000 film and digital photos I’ve taken myself over my writing and researching career. It’s proving to be a big job but it must be done as many of them are destined for museums and various regional archives when I hang up my ‘typewriter’.
The moral of the story, readers, is to do this as we go along, when it only takes a few minutes—not years after the fact, when it becomes a mammoth task.
Something else to remember is that we now store photos digitally and not all storage systems are equal. Something for you to research online or to ask a friendly techie.
As pointed out in my recent post, I’m not the only one who ‘rescues’ old photos at flea markets and garage sales, reader Brian Holt writing:
“I have to say that your story about old photos being tossed to one side struck a chord with me. I too have collected a few nameless old pictures over the years, but there is one in my small collection I will not get rid of.
“I was on the hunt for two of those old ornate oval picture frames from the late 1800s and into the early 1900s. I wanted them so that I could place pictures on my grandparents into the frames. Long story short, I managed to find a very nice original oval frame at a small shop in Courtenay.
“Behind the glass frame was a picture of two young brothers. It seems the family didn't care about them enough so they sold it to the pawn shop. I paid for the frame, took it home and, wouldn't you know it, those two boys (with names, by the way) are still in that same frame and on the wall in my place.
“I just couldn't bear to take them away from that crazy old frame. Now I hope that my family will treat them with respect when it's time for me to check out. Well done, TW, and thanks again. Brian.”
Bless you, too, Brian.
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Also two weeks ago, there was a ‘family’ reunion with a difference in Chemainus. It was the fifth CP Air/Canadian Airlines reunion, the first to be held locally, thanks to organizer and former airlines employee Marlie Kelsey. 52 attended, down from 86 the last time, partially due to attrition as former employees pass away.
Attendees were from the Yukon, Ontario, Alberta, Mayne Island, the B.C. Interior, the lower Mainland and other parts of Vancouver Island.
Kelsey, whose husband also worked for the airline (she, for 18 years, he, for 25), loved her job and only quit when she became pregnant. “What was unique about what I did, I worked at a time when women were not initially allowed to work at airports.”
She remembers the airline “moving into the jet age; they were so far ahead of other airlines so far as branding smarts.”
Canadian Pacific Airlines, headquartered in Vancouver, operated domestic and international routes,1942-1987, and as CP Air, 1968-1986. Acquired by Pacific Western Airlines it was later absorbed into Canadian Airlines International.
Longtime CP Airlines manager and former bush pilot Grant McConachie is recognized as being one of Canada’s foremost aviation pioneers.
A CP Air Douglas DC-8 in the famous CPA orange livery at London Gatwick Airport, 177. —Wikipedia photo by Eduard Marmet