Some Old Photos are Real Heart Breakers
A few weeks ago, I wrote about how some Facebook posts can generate an emotional response from readers. One that I wrote recently appears to have struck a chord.
It's a subject I've written about numerous times over the years, inspired by some of the fascinating, sometimes saddening, finds I've made in my travels. Let me explain...
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I’ve come to joke that there oughta be a law that photographs should be identified on their backs with the who, where and when. The people in this old photo found with others in an envelope in a dumpster? We’ll never know. (And don’t ask me what my friend was doing, diving in a North Cowichan dumpster.)
You see them from time to time at garage sales, flea markets, even antique sales: old family photos, some of them still mounted in their original albums.
Some have been removed to sell individually and are now separated from their captions so there’s no way of telling who, when or where. Once they were someone’s prized family treasure; now they’re just a sales item without meaning or value other than as objects of mild curiosity.
I’ve rescued many such mementos (even war medals) over the years, even buying them from a family member who just doesn’t give a damn about aunts and uncles, grandparents or— Give them a couple of bucks, and it’s a deal.
First World War, probably Canadian; more than that, I can’t tell you.
If I sound cynical, so be it. It always bothers me to see photos that once had great meaning to someone treated so cavalierly, hence I sometimes buy them just to give them a home, even if it’s that of a stranger. At least, I can sometimes use them to illustrate my writings—like my Facebook post and, today, the Chronicles.
And, it can be fun to study the faces and wonder who they were, what happened to them.
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While still living in Victoria and writing for the Colonist, I began going to garage sales and, even after moving to Cobble Hill, to the Sunday flea market at the old Tilikum Outdoor Theatre, Victoria. (There’s never been and never will be another gold mine for antiques, collectibles and artifacts like the Tilikum!)
That’s where I first saw, among the incredible array of practical and personal items for sale, old family photos and war memorabilia. Some of the latter were identifiable because medals and trophies are inscribed. But it was a rare photo, indeed, that was captioned. Mysteries they were to me then, mysteries they are to me now.
You can bet that this WW1 photo once had real meaning to someone.
But not all of them were anonymous and, of those I ‘rescued,’ as I choose to look upon it, some I was able to return to owners who, it turned out, didn’t even know they’d left the family’s possession. (Families do break up.)
A prime example was the entire album of old cabinet photos (so-called because they were mounted on cardboard backing by the studio photographer) at the Cobble Hill Agricultural Hall (another weekend gold mine). They obviously represented at least two generations of the same family from before the turn of the last century.
One of them bore a single clue: an extremely unusual name—a name that I recognized as having seen or heard since I moved to the Cowichan Valley.
A quick check of the phone book and there it was, one only listing in Crofton. I dialed the number; the lady who answered sounded suspicious until I quickly explained why I was contacting her. She acknowledged that I had the right party then said she was torn between joy and anger. Joy, because, yes, they were family treasures and she did want them back for her two daughters. Anger, because an estranged family member had obviously used the flea market to dump them by selling them to a stranger—me. So I parcelled them up and mailed them to her. (She never did thank me, by the way.)
If you’re wondering what he’s doing, he’s participating in an army obstacle course.
This was by no means the first time one of my finds found its way home again.
Back when I wrote for the Colonist’s weekend magazine, I wrote a two-page article with photos on some of my garage sale finds. Then the phone began to ring, at the newspaper and my home. All were from people who’d recognized the photos or my descriptions of items—and would like them back!
One studio photo was of a boy, maybe seven or eight, posing on a large model train. He’d grown up to join the navy and was killed in the war. The small trophy for boxing at Esquimalt navy base also belonged to a sailor lost in the war. Ditto the engraved mug for a lieutenant in the army ordnance corps.
I was pleased to return them after each party explained how family separations had led to personal items being discarded or donated to thrift stores or....
A standout was a thick (two inches) album containing perhaps 100 snapshots of a global tour by Capt. William Beaumont who once owned Discovery Island, off Oak Bay, Victoria. Beaumont had been entrusted (by a wealthy family, obviously) to escort a 12 year old boy on a round-the-world learning cruise in the 1920’s.
Well, that boy was a successful Victoria lawyer when he read my article in the Colonist. so, of course, home it went.
One that I managed to keep, and still treasure, is the photo of a young First World War soldier. He’s a private in full uniform and several accompanying photos show him with his parents and sister or girlfriend in the family orchard. No names on the backs of the photos, of course.
The lady who sold them to me at Shawnigan Lake said she “thought they’re of a local family”. As, indeed, they are!
The late Bob Dougan immediately identified the soldier as Thomas James Jeffrey who lived with his parents on Cameron-Taggart Road, Cobble Hill. Tom Jeffrey died of his wounds within weeks of Armistice, 1918, and his name is on the Cobble Hill and Duncan Cenotaphs.
This great mining photo, provenance unknown, alas, was found locally by a friend.
On my bedroom wall is the framed belt buckle of Lieut. Kenneth L. Keith, DSC, MID, Royal Navy. It has been made into a woman’s brooch.
Keith enlisted in the RAF in Calgary in 1935 and three years later transferred to the Fleet Air Arm. He saw service in the Mediterranean on the carrier HMS Eagle and was mentioned in dispatches for shooting down Italian bombers and taking part in the raid on the Italian fleet at Taranto.
He won his Distinguished Service Medal in Crete for “placing an anti-aircraft gun in position to destroy landing German paratroopers. Afterwards took charge of a force of 100 men and led them safely to the main line... Although ill in health at the time, Lieut. Keith carried out the operation with zeal and cheerfulness.”
Lieut. Keith survived the torpedoing of the Eagle. Two weeks later, he was shot down over Tobruk, North Africa. Badly burned and taken prisoner, he died two weeks later, on June 26, 1943.
For $10, I bought the belt buckle-brooch from a dealer who’d bought it from a Keith relation in Mill Bay.
Most of the items I’ve found and returned to family members over the years have, so far as I know, been gratefully appreciated. I have the satisfaction of knowing they’ve gone to their rightful homes and that they’ll be cherished.
There’s always an exception. A framed certificate, one of too many issued to Canadian servicemen who were disabled during the First World War, is still with me. It was rejected by the family member who contacted me when I wrote about it in the Cowichan Valley Citizen. The same family member, perhaps, who’d donated it to a local thrift store?
The sergeant-major, it seems, was such an unpleasant man that, even generations later, family members want nothing to do with him!
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I began today’s Chronicle by saying that a recent Facebook post drew considerable and thoughtful comment. Not everyone agreed with my expressed disapproval of disposing of family heirlooms, nor what I interpreted value to succeeding generations.
Be that as it may, here are the best of these responses:
Bill B: It's a conundrum I often think about. I and my siblings have inherited many print photos of our ancestors, but when we're gone, will our children and grandchildren value them as we did? My attempt at preservation is to digitize as many as possible, and I have also made plans for my online accounts to be accessible to my son when I pass on. He's not interested in these old photos now, but my hope is that when they become his, he'll at least value them enough to preserve them.
TWP: I'd say you're doing it right, Bill. He may well change his mind about them down the road.
Trevor S: Bill B, I think he will be more likely to cherish them if he has an idea about who they were via captions or audio captions if you’re doing a digital keepsake. I think it’s a great idea.
Carol M: Trevor S., I agree. Amazing how much history is lost because people didn't put the names on the pictures - I think they thought no one would ever forget...and for physical pictures, please write the names on the backs of the photos so they won't be separated.
Trevor S: I know exactly what you mean. I have been working in the recycling/waste industry since 1996. Over the years I have seen so many old photos, negatives, and slides come to our processing facility. I have saved many collections over the years but like you say, all these once cherished and beloved memories are orphaned.
One year, while I was equipment operator, I found a large box of photos, slides and some negatives. I had just recently purchased a flatbed scanner with a slide and negative adapter, so I took them home and scanned most of them. One man’s life spanning from a single photo of his high school grad all the way to shots of him as an old man in a hospital bed.
What really caught my eye were the slides that had small writing in pencil that said, “here comes the commies”. Once I got some of them scanned I saw that he had served in the Korean conflict and many of the slides were of a meeting between the allied forces and the North Korean reps that all had a yellow band on their arms.
I still have them all somewhere but I found it so cool to be able to zoom right in on any part of the digitized pictures. It breaks my heart to still see vast amounts of photos make their way towards destruction.
If I did not already have a career, I might seriously consider starting a business of going to senior housing sites and offering a service of scanning and preserving photographs to the elderly. I also wish that there was somewhere I could donate found collections so that they could be scanned and shared.
TWP.: Trevor S: Bless you for caring as you do, Trevor. Your idea of offering a scanning/digitizing service reminds me how I made several efforts to get a high school project going whereby students would interview senior citizens and save their stories on tape and computer. It would be a great bonding between the generations. But no go, so I do what I can in print.
This one, from a Nanaimo flea market, was destined for me, the coal mine history guy!
Rick H: Growing up in a family with two brothers and one sister and looking thru photos and there were tons of baby pics of them and none of me. My sister told me that I was found in a cabbage patch on Roy road in [Saanich]. I’m still wondering if she made the story up or not.
Neill M: I am with you. I have always been dismayed at the complete lack of value and respect that people place on their forebears’ lives. Particularly military history. So much of it has been sold/discarded as junk–-absolutely appalling! These people don't realize that they are destroying their own family structure.
Kimberly S: I appreciate the photos you share here! I'm like you and love to wonder about who they were and their history, but it's sad that some don't value family photos... I wish I had more.
Carol A.: We have lots of grandparents’ and great grandparents’ photos which we will have to chuck as we don’t have room in our suite for all of them and no one is interested in them!
T.W. P.: That's your DNA, Carol.
Melissa E: I appreciate what you share, makes for an interesting read.
Shirley R. (Top fan): Thank you for your tireless work!
Janice M.: I am always amazed, as a photographer and lover of all historic ephemera that others, including remaining family, just aren't interested. puzzling In my lifetime my paper family has meant so much.
Sandeep B.: Yes, sometimes all those albums full of people you never knew can become a burden
Al K.: These pictures remind me of "The Green Fields of France" about WW1.
"Did you leave a wife or a sweetheart behind
In some faithful heart is your memory enshrined?
Although, you died back in 1916
In that faithful heart are you forever nineteen?
Or are you a stranger without even a name
Enclosed forever behind the glass frame
In an old photograph, torn, battered and stained
And faded to yellow in a brown leather frame?"