This blog is my new writing home now. I don't have the website anymore. I grew up in a small town in the Missouri Ozarks. Where flags fly, farmer's markets cater to customers, baseball and barbecues rule the summer, music flows freely from gazebos on the lawn, and holiday traditions draw the community together on the courthouse square.
This
month let’s visit the art of photography. Photography and the camera is one of
my favorite inventions. It lands up there with electricity for sure!
Photographs give us details of what our ancestors looked like, how they
dressed, where they lived, how they traveled, and so much more! That
documentation of detailed information puts the leaves on the branches of our
family history tree. of what our ancestors looked like, how they lived, and
where they lived.
My
family knows how much I love and value photographs. I keep my camera close and
snap, snap, snap pictures of them and what they are doing. Cell phone cameras
are easy to keep and capture those moments we long to remember. And the quality
of phone cameras isn’t too shabby!
I’m
thankful that all of my family lines enjoyed taking pictures. In every line, I
have multiple photographs. So, as you travel, play on vacation, and go to
family reunions, keep your camera/phone close and snap away. You’ll be glad you
did! Cameras truly capture the days of our lives.
Lucy Phillips had a passion for working on her family
history. One fall day she posted online to genealogy message boards about the
family reunion that was scheduled for the following summer.
AN UNUSUAL CHRISTMAS GIFT
A few months later, just after Thanksgiving, Lucy received
an email from Kathryn Davis who lived a couple of hours away. Kathryn found Lucy’s
post about the family reunion, and she possessed something that she knew Lucy
would want. It was a good-sized box packed with family photographs. Lucy’s
family photographs.
As Lucy and Kathryn corresponded the story unfolded about why
Kathryn had the box of pictures. Years ago, Kathryn’s father, George, had
worked in the southern states and he was friends with coworkers. One friend, James
Phillips, kept letters and pictures he received from his family, in a heavy
black box with a lid.
As time went by, James got sick and died. George was the new
owner of the black box. George gave up after trying in vain to find someone to
claim the pictures. And before he passed away, he gave the box to Kathryn,
telling her the story. Not knowing what to do with a box of old photos of
people she didn’t know, Kathryn put the box in a closet.
Years went by and she never thought of the photos again.
Until…
While cleaning one day, Kathryn found the box shoved to the
back of the top shelf in the closet and her curiosity took over. She lifted the
lid once again and placed the old pictures on a table so she could inspect them
better. On the backs of most of the photos were names, dates, and places.
Kathryn didn’t want to keep the photographs, but she didn’t want
to throw them away. She decided to try the message boards on genealogy websites
in hopes of discovering a family who could claim them. Her efforts paid off when
she found Lucy’s posting.
One chilly Sunday afternoon, a couple of weeks before Christmas,
Lucy and her husband drove to northern Missouri. The ladies and their families sat
together at a table at a local pizza parlor eating lunch. One by one, they went
through the photos.
Kathryn was ecstatic to deliver the box into the family's hands. Lucy
was about to faint with excitement. To her, the picture box was a prize worth
so much more than money. Lucy’s husband paid for Kathryn and her family’s lunch,
and they said goodbye.
On the drive home, Lucy opened the box, and her squeals of excitement
brought a smile to her husband’s face. As he drove, she chattered on and on about
who the people were and the story behind them.
Once home, Lucy spread the contents on the dining table. The
old black box contained an array of vintage photos. Numerous cabinet cards of assorted
sizes, some giving the photographer’s studio imprint, some with gilt decorative
borders, and photo postcards of babies, young children, couples, and families told
a story. Lucy was especially happy when she found three large pictures of one-room
county schoolhouses with the teacher and children standing in front. Among the
collection were tiny postage-stamp-size photos called gem-type photos. One of
the prized possessions was a large eight-by-ten tintype, dated in the mid-1800s.
The lady’s face echoed much heartbreak, yet ladylike behavior expected from the
era.
The historical value of the photographer’s studio imprints on
many of the photos were valuable. The old cabinet cards noted they were taken at
Cassville, Missouri at the Paris Art Studio, the Sander’s Studio, and the A.J.T.
Joslin Studio. Studios in Monett were the Will F. Sims Art Studio in the Opera
House Block and the Daugherty Studio. Several photos were taken in Joplin,
Missouri at the Ayres Photo Company, located in the Grover Building and a few others
were taken in photography studios in Oklahoma and Texas.
Lucy carefully placed the treasured photos in a safe place
so she could later sort them and make notes about each one and preserve them in
a controlled environment. Lucy was blessed because the box of memories was
found.
It was Lucy’s Christmas present. PS This is a true story, but the names are changed.
Travelling Photographers and Studios
Today’s pictures are bland and boring compared to the ones
taken from antique and vintage cameras in the early days of photography and especially
those taken by traveling photographers and those taken in galleries and
studios. Over the years I’m delighted that I’ve found many of my family’s antique
and vintage photographs.
As I collected family photographs with the photographer and
gallery imprints, I did as much research on them as possible. This information
gave me information about where the people lived and traveled, what they wore,
and a sense of the era in which the pictures were taken.
The imprint of the studio’s information will be found somewhere
on the photographs. They are beautiful photos of families, portraits, children,
and people with their beloved pets.
Here’s a bit of history pertaining to the topic.
In the last half of the nineteenth century, the development
and increasing recognition of the art of photography rose to popular demand. As
the techniques of photography became less cumbersome, transporting equipment
became more practical. Photographers opened their own galleries or studios, while
some loaded their horse-drawn wagons and hit the road as a traveling
photographer.
In the early days of traveling photographers, they
documented scenes of everyday life as well as historical monuments and places.
They sold their pictures to tourists who collected them as souvenirs of their
travels.
Traveling photographers used many modes of transportation
to get from one place to another. One photographer used a pony to haul the
camera and equipment while he walked through neighborhoods offering to take
pictures of anyone who was interested.
Due to long exposure times, photographers used equipment to
help keep their subjects still while sitting and waiting to be photographed.
Many photographers used chairs and benches or tables with armrests that helped
make the subjects more comfortable during the wait.
If you have some of these antique and vintage photographs in
your collection, look at the backdrops. Most of the backdrops are painted outdoor
scenes. Sometimes the backdrop features draperies and a window or other
interesting props. Notice the back drop in this photo. And, look at those clothes! Magnificent photo!
Some of the Victorian photographs I own are from the Paris
Art Studio and H.D. McMahan traveling photographer in Cassville. Other photos
are imprinted with the names of the Sims Art Studio in the Opera House block in
Monett, and Fogel Postal Studio of Joplin. Another prized photo is a postcard of
my great-grandmother holding her son. She wrote a quick message on the back
and dated it 1912. There is no name of the photographer, but it has to be
from the local studio. the photo is below. I absolutely love this photo!
Kay Hively, now deceased, a local author and newspaper
reporter, wrote the story about a bicycle photographer named L.E. Deubler.
Deubler used his bicycle to carry his camera and equipment and rode throughout
Oklahoma, New Mexico, and Texas in the early 1900s. Hively also included the story of another traveling
photographer, Charles Allonby, who lived in Neosho, Missouri. Allonby, born in
England, came to the United States in 1900. He lived in several states besides
Missouri and was a newspaperman. Photography goes hand in hand with newspaper
writers. He traveled the states finding interesting people to write about and
took photographs to accompany the stories.
Hively owned the box of Allonby’s negatives and there were
several from the Utter family reunions held in the local park that Allonby
took. What a find and a happy day for me!
In the photo below, you see Fields Photo's imprint on the photo of Harry and Lucy Utter and their daughters Ruby and Lavelle Utter. What a beautiful photo!
Fields Photography from Cassville, Missouri, was once a
leading photographer who traveled the Ozarks taking photos of many places,
events, and people. Now all of the negatives that Mr. and Mrs. Fields owned are
in a collection found at the Barry County, Missouri Museum in Cassville. You
can search through the collection and have photos printed. History is preserved
in that archive! There are a few photographers today who travel to schools and
take photographs. They use various backdrops for the children's portraits. At one
of our family reunions, we used a local photographer who was a family friend to
photograph our family.
in the photo above you see the traveling photographer's banner on the photo.
The days of old-time traveling photographers who used
bicycles and horses and wagons to carry their photography equipment are long gone,
but their unique Victorian photographs live on, portraying their legacy of long
ago. Orphaned Photographs
Orphaned photographs are those that are separated and lost from
the family they belong to. You know the ones…you see them in flea markets, estate
sales and yard sales, online in databases, antique stores, and many other
places. Beautiful pictures of people of the past, staring at the camera.
Babies, children, weddings, military, family groups, and portraits of those who
no longer live in their family’s treasured photograph albums.
I’m drawn to them, wishing I could take them home with me to
treasure. But you know the answer to that.
If you are curious about photographs lost from your family
that are orphaned, there are a couple of options you have. You can plan search
locally by traveling to genealogy societies, area historical societies,
museums, and libraries sometimes may have orphaned photos. You might call ahead
and ask if they house lost photos to prevent traveling a great distance.
Another option is using online resources. A good place to start is the website Dead
Fred, www.deadfred.com. This is a
genealogy photo archive using your family surname search to look for your
family’s orphaned photographs.
Another internet website for orphaned photos is Lost and
Found Old Photographs at www.oldphotos.homestead.com.
Many genealogy magazines feature a section for photographs. Ancestry.com
magazine features a new section called ‘Found” to help find the rightful owners
of orphaned photographs that are submitted to their magazine.
Also use Rootsweb, Cyndi’s List, Ancestry.com, and other
genealogy websites, check into the message boards and submit the family surnames
you are researching. Sign up for alerts from the message boards so if someone
posts about your family names you will get the alert through your email.
Using the genealogy message boards is how I discovered living
members of a family who had been friends of my great-grandmother. Through our
exchange of information and photographs, we were able to piece together solid information
about both families!
Spread the word about your family surnames you are
researching and watch for anything that eventually may turn up. You may be
surprised to find orphaned photos of your family. Happy hunting!
PHOTOS: COMPOSE A FAMILY HISTORY TIMELINE
There’s an old saying, “Every memory tells a story, and
photographs are worth a thousand words.”
If you have old family photographs, have you thought about using them to
compose a timeline? A timeline will help organize your family history and people’s
life timeline. From there you can write about that person(s).
Open a new document on your computer and start a timeline
for one person or family group at a time, or whatever you prefer. Compose the
timeline, using names, dates, and places, adding details later.
After you get the dates, names, and places finished, you can
look at the people, their clothing, what they are doing, and the background. Use
the buildings, automobiles, pets, homes, areas, and other things you see in the
photographs and add them to your timeline.
All the details found in the photograph bring the story to life.
Also, check the back of the photo for information.
As you progress through your photographic timeline, don’t
forget to include occupations, value of property and ownership, newspaper articles
and obituaries, and death and funeral information can be included on the
timeline.
Once you have that information written, you can incorporate
historical information into the timeline. Are there Civil War ancestors in your
family? What social events might your family members have attended? Did your
relatives belong to fraternal organizations and local chapters of societies?
Remember to include church and school information. Research and record all the
information you can find.
Don’t forget to include information found in obituaries
and newspaper clippings. A trip to the cemetery to photograph gravestones and
an overall view of the entire cemetery will add details to the timeline.
Continue the timeline and in the end, you will have the
outline for writing your family’s history. I used this method to put together
my great-grandmother’s life story.
Once the timeline is saved to your computer, you can add to
it whenever you discover new information. Photographs do truly tell a wonderful story and
they are worth a thousand words!
I hope you've enjoyed learning a little about photographs. They are my passion in fmaily history. There is so much you can learn from a photo.
