Old photo, 1919.
Availability Status: SOLD Size: 2 and 3/8 x 4 and 1/4″
Probably when I found this one (it was floating loose in a bin), I thought I’d be able to read the surname for Frank. Hmmm, no, not getting it. (My own scribble is just as bad.) But they’re a cute couple. (We’re on a short “couple theme” – a continuance of Valentine’s Day). At least, I think they’re a couple – no certainty there, either. But it’s a nice, “We were here….standing on this street….in the summer of 1919” photo. It would have been the summer after the end of the “Great War.” It’s a tree-lined residential road; you can see the utility pole and barely make out an old street lamp. There are train tracks, for a trolley one would guess, but we don’t notice any overhead cables, so maybe the tracks are a remnant from our horse-drawn car days, or maybe they’re old tracks, no longer used. That’s probably an old Model T in the distance (if you were betting you’d play those odds). Through the open wooden gate, we see a woman carrying something, potatoes maybe, on her way back from the garden or cellar storage.
The young woman in the photo – she’s beautiful, hair pulled up, appearing here in a long-sleeved white blouse with black cuffs (great style, yes, but think how practical that is) and in a striped, high-waisted skirt with big front pockets. Nothing fancy but it never needs to be. And Frank – he’s got that, “knows what he wants out of life” look. That direct gaze, a hint of sadness in the smile (did he lose an older brother in the war?), the confident, kind of brash stance, the backwards cap, that proprietary arm around his girl. We’re off with them, in spirit, just for a moment, to each of the many and wherever, those many possibilities led.
Great observations – the West, living on the edge of the modern world but still coming from the past – all the modern inventions, new ways of doing things, so-called modern medicine, new morality – but still the human body a miracle passed down to us from stars and firelight in caves to this photograph .. you’ve said it so well
who is annieoakley ? I know who the name refers to historically, but who is this modern reference ? My great grandmother, born on a farm in Ohio 1853 fancied herself after Annie Oakley, the one who toured with Buffalo Bill, who shot a rifle at targets behind her back using a mirror to aim .. whose hair came down to her waist, almost the limit that hair can grow, who wore embroidered boots and long dresses and a barrette in her hair with a six-pointed star and a comet’s tail
Great observations yourself, O. D.D., “a miracle passed down to us….” that is gorgeous. That’s interesting about your great-grandmother. AO had a pretty fascinating life, was reading the Wikipedia entry again. Definitely a good role model for anyone, really. Taking care of her family at such a very young age, able to pay off her mother’s mortgage at age 15. The reference to her on my website was just a spur of the moment thing. With the given name of Anne, it was just one of the many nicknames I had from various people thru childhood and beyond. (Anastasia, Anne of Green Gables, Annabella, Anne of a Thousand Days…) Great fun from great family and friends. Just a testament to them, really.
Anne