Old Photos

This past summer I went to Hathaway to visit cousins – my mom’s first cousin Louise and her son (my 2nd cousin) Joseph.  They have been into genealogy and old photos for a lot longer time than I have.  They’ve been collecting old Bucklin and Hine photos for over ten years.  So we share photos with each other.  (I am usually on the receiving end of this!)  When we were in Hathaway, they pulled out a small, tattered looking book-like object.  It was an old photo album from well over 100 years ago.  It was so amazing to see all of these small, yet sharp photos of people who have been long gone.

This photo of a pensive looking woman was one of those photos.  The sad thing about this (beside the obvious one being that she is no longer alive) is that we don’t know who she is.  There are a few hints.  The photo was taken some time around the 1880s or so.  Some of the photos around it have IDs that show they were taken in Iowa.  The Bucklin family had lived in Iowa during that time, so it’s probable that the photo is of a Bucklin relative.  Or a friend.  Or a neighbor.  Or who knows?  The point is that we don’t know and probably will never know.  I could do some revisionist history project and give her a name and tell a story about her and post it all over the internet.  If it shows up enough times, it must be true!  Right?

My mom was always good about writing people’s names on the back of photos and I picked up that habit myself.  She said that she remembered seeing old photos when she was a young girl and nobody knew who the people were.  It was probably these same old photos that her cousin was showing to me.  Of course, back when these photos were taken, nobody ever had that problem before.  Photography was new and there weren’t any unidentified photos lying around.  Taking a photo was a luxury and you probably only had photos of people you knew.  They didn’t think about the photos lasting for over a hundred years and someone posting it on the internet for everyone to see.

But now we know.  So make sure to identify the people in your photos.  Especially the old ones.  And if any of you cousins of mine want to share any of those old photos with me, send them my way! (A good scan will do nicely.)  I’ll edit them as best I can to make them look like new.  I may even be able to identify a few of the people for you.  It could become the subject of a good story.  I’d definitely try to preserve them for generations to come.

PS – If any of you happen to know the identity of the woman in this photo, I would appreciate the information.  (And I won’t let anybody know that you’re an immortal!)