Old-time photos from Around Here run to the Civic Group picture, in which everyone in Eastport lines up in front of the Gleaners Hall in uncomfortable clothes, and the Whoa, Looka the Size of those Logs! picture, in which everyone in the lumbering camp climbs atop several hundred tons of white pine stacked in the approved manner. The people are dwarfed by their enterprise, by the trees, the snowbanks, the lakes.
But every now and then . . . I can’t take my eyes off a face. A stranger steps right out of 1900 and into my cabin, shoos the Duo off the couch, sits down and looks expectant. Tell my story.
There are so many stories, and I don’t know enough about any of them, and they ramble around and intertwine and go off down a hundred rabbit trails. Where do I start? And what’s the ending? Nobody knows. Just begin. Keep going ’til you get there. That’s what we did.
Torch Lake Views 
Fee
February 9, 2011
You know what always strikes me about old photos – how everyone was so solemn in them. Clearly having your picture ‘took’ was a serious business, and no laughing matter! Oh, what stories they could tell if they could talk to us now …
On my occasional flights of fancy (or what hubby calls moments of madness) I wonder, if I had a time machine, where I’d go and who I’d talk to. But that’s just me, nuttier than squirrel poop half the time!
Gerry
February 9, 2011
Imagine how frightened they’d be if we turned up out of 2011! Of course, they probably wouldn’t believe us anyway, so they’d just send us off to live in a cabin in the woods. Oh, wait . . .
Fee
February 9, 2011
Knowing my luck, I’d land in the middle of the witch-hunt period and be doomed!
P.j. grath
February 9, 2011
I love the detail in old black-and-white photographs with their long exposures and fine-grained film. Was it just chance, Gerry, that you got so many handsome faces in this group? And oh, this reminds me, I have a small section in my larger postcard collection that are family photographs! Aren’t they wonderful?
Gerry
February 9, 2011
I just picked out the ones that remind me of the people I see when I’m out and about on my rounds. We are a good-looking bunch in the Township. 😉 Seriously, you’ve given me something to think about. I wonder myself why these–and the six others I had ready–were so compelling. I deliberately chose faces that struck me as “contemporary” for some reason. I wanted to capture them in their youth or early middle age–so many of our historic photos are of Civil War veterans 30 years after their war was over. (I tell you what, though–quite a few of them are pretty foxy too!) I wanted something different from what I usually see.
I thoroughly enjoyed pawing through your postcard collection with you, albeit virtually, and look forward to some posts about special ones. (If you have any of Rhinelander . . . !!)
Nye
February 9, 2011
I like to look at old photographs also, especially when I visit someone’s home, they always have a family photo albums. Imagine years from now, I wonder what they would think of our photos, classic look perhaps. 🙂
Gerry
February 10, 2011
Make a present to your grandchildren. Put identification on all the photos! It’s sad to find beautiful albums filled with anonymous people in unfamiliar places doing inexplicable things. We long to know the stories, especially the stories of how they came to be here, in this particular person’s attic.
Fee
February 10, 2011
Yes, absolutely, Gerry. My girls used to think I had a magical ability to tell which of them was in a picture of a baby. I had to confess that until they were one they were really hard to tell apart, but in between their births we had re-decorated. I knew which baby it was by the colour of the walls!
Karma
February 10, 2011
Wouldn’t it be wonderful to be able to know the stories behind these people?
Makes you wonder if all the wonder will be gone for generations after us, since we’ve dubbed ourselves the “information age” – will everyone be sick of the stories in the future because of all the emailing, blogging and social networking we did?
I keep real-life photo albums anyway. The kind you can touch and turn the pages. Have nearly one for every year I’ve been married, and sections labeled with dates, places and names. Perhaps one of my great-great-great-great-great-grandchildren will some day find them to be a treasure.
Gerry
February 10, 2011
It would! Tell the stories to anyone who will listen. Write them down for the rest. One day . . .
I am a storycatcher. I spend hours and hours listening to people around here who don’t know me from Adam’s off ox. They tell me wonderful stories. And sometimes ordinary stories. But they’re all precious. You can tell stories in any medium at all. A person could probably tell a whole family history in tweets, should a person be so inclined.
The thing I would really, really hate is if some historian in the future decided to treat email forwards as primary sources.
Reggie
February 17, 2011
That was well-put, Karma. We’ve also got loads of photo albums, but haven’t updated them in years – not enough time! And now that everything’s on the computer, it’s difficult to justify why we’d want to use ink and paper and glue and all that… But NOTHING beats a good, old photo album with thick pages and lovingly hand-written captions. Sigh…
Mind you, I suppose if we emailed less and internet’ted less and watched fewer DVDs, there might be enough time after all…
Anna
February 10, 2011
I love old photos like these and always wonder about their stories–struggles, loves, hopes, dreams and such. I remember reading somewhere that back then they didn’t smile because they had bad teeth. I don’t know…
Gerry
February 10, 2011
Could be. Although now everyone smiles so much it makes me nervous. I seem to recall that the human face at rest used to be arranged in a pleasant non-smiling fashion most of the time. Now everyone walks around taking phone photos of each other and everyone is smiling for the camera . . . I am a crankypants tonight. I think I should go read a book.
katherine
February 11, 2011
They didn’t smile because they had to hold still for longer and it’s hard to hold a smile for a long time (at least that’s what I was told)
You wonder who these people are, maybe we could all adopt one or two as instant ancestors.
Gerry
February 12, 2011
I believe I’ve adopted 70 of them, which wouldn’t be a problem, but they insist on coming along with me whenever I go out and about on my rounds. Turn here! Turn here! See that foundation up on top of the hill? Look over there–the ladyslippers bloom there in the spring. There’s the old road. I’ve told ’em a hundred times, we’re not taking my car on that road. So they sulk a little bit. Then they get into a squabble about a land deal that went bad in 1887 and we’re off to the races. It’s exhausting.
Pat
February 11, 2011
I have some VERY similar pictures in my “Family” book. My Grandmother, Mable Love Morrison had her Senior Picture taken and if I hadn’t looked twice, I would say that last picture is her! Same style blouse and the hair! Perfect match. She graduated from the Elk Rapids High School on Spruce St. around 1910. As for the boy with the horse, my Uncle had that same picture taken only his horse, Nelly, was black. 🙂
Please everyone, write on the back of your pics! At least the date.
Gerry
February 11, 2011
I hope people will identify photos, but be careful. If you’re going to write on the back, use a soft lead pencil and a light hand. Lots of local historical societies would be delighted to make digital copies of historic photos for their archives, documenting the identification as they go. (In Antrim County alone: Elk Rapids Area Historical Society, Wilkinson Homestead Historical Society, Central Lake Area H.S., Bellaire H.S., Banks Township, Mancelona . . . lots.)
And if anyone out there has late 19th century photos from Around Here, Miss Sadie, the Cowboy and I will trade excellent treats for the opportunity to scan them!
Pat
February 11, 2011
I’d be glad to let you scan what I have, but you’d have to make a trip to Kentucky. 🙂 ERAHS has all my father’s things, haven’t gotten my grandparents stuff to them as there are so many Morrisons in the area. We’ve dated them back to Mary, Queen of Scots, which was pretty interesting.
I haven’t written on the backs, as I have made an album with side tags for each picture. Love, Love, Love the old pictures.
Gerry
February 12, 2011
Pat, if you have 19th century photos of the NW part of Antrim County that are not already in the ERAHS archives, Miss Sadie, the Cowboy and I will drive down to Kentucky bearing excellent treats. But not until spring. We have driven in Kentucky before.
Scott Thomas Photography
February 11, 2011
What a wonderful look into a past we know so little about. Even today with everything being recorded digitally, it is hard to piece together a person’s life. That one in the upper right corner is where I would have started. 🙂
Gerry
February 11, 2011
That one in the upper right corner is, in fact, the first face I chose for this gallery! I have some ideas about who he might be, but they’re not especially firm ideas. I will keep pestering people until I find out more.
It’s always been hard to know the most important things about a person. I have to say, though, that it is too easy these days to learn altogether too much about people from the digital information scattered about willy-nilly. It’s not, generally, their most precious stories, but it is enough to clean out their bank accounts or run up lots of unauthorized charges on their credit cards.
uphilldowndale
February 12, 2011
Phew, what a big task you’ve taken on. Magical.
Gerry
February 12, 2011
I am a woman obsessed. But it’s very absorbing, so that’s all right then.
La Mirada Bob
February 18, 2011
For Fee, on February 9.
Gerry’s Grandfather Bill wrote a story “Other Tracks” about time travel in 1938 for Astounding Stories. His imagination worked pretty well. The story was published again in 1953 in an anthology “Science-Fiction Adventures in Dimension”
Gerry
February 18, 2011
So you’re saying I come from a long line of eccentrics? Good.