Time now to check out some of the old photographs I "rescued" while antique shopping in Jacksonville. As you all know, I'm a fan of old pictures and I love putting them online so they can survive in digital perpetuity.
First, polishing up the Dodge on Easter, 1947. It looks like everyone is dressed up to go out, or maybe go to church. I think Mom in the background even has a little corsage.
On the back: "Sport."
On the back: "My room." The decor has some style but it looks like the back of that chair is pushed right up against the bed. Not a whole lot of space!
Maybe he sent this picture to his sweetheart, prominently displayed on the desk.
Catastrophic structural failure is imminent, but no one seems worried -- except possibly that little kid on the left.
Dated 1964 -- Grandma is very proud of her new refrigerator!
My childhood babysitter had eyeglasses just like hers.
On the back: "Dec. 22, 1944." If I had to guess, I'd say someone was posted to the South Pacific during the war, and this is a picture of a piglet that became a Christmas feast.
On the back: "Durham: Geo Clymer." At first I thought the man in the photo was George, but I think actually the photo may have been taken on the USS George Clymer, a wartime transport ship. Perhaps Durham was his name.
And finally, a mysterious cityscape. It's obviously somewhere in Europe, and on the building on the left we can see the word "Haus," which suggests Germany. It took me a while but I finally figured out the location using the sign atop the curved building in the background, which says (not very clearly) "Rundschau Haus." This was the headquarters of the Frankfurter Rundschau, a daily newspaper in Frankfurt-am-Main, Germany. The building went up in 1953, so the photo was taken sometime after that.
That puts the location of this photo on Eschenheimer Tor. Here's what the area looks like today. Rundschau Haus is now gone, but the castle on the right, the white building in the center with the circular decoration, and the building on the left all appear to still exist.
These are just eight of 22 photos I bought. Here's the whole batch on Flickr, if you're interested.
Fascinating - well done for working out the location of the city photo.
ReplyDeleteWhat a great collection of photos. An interesting look back at life as it was in black and white.
ReplyDeleteThis is so much fun. Thanks for the link to the rest of them, and for the sleuthing.
ReplyDeleteSuch photos are precious evidence of ordinary lives in changing times. Your rescue efforts are laudable - otherwise they would probably disappear forever.
ReplyDeleteExcellent! The area in Frankfurt is pedestrianised, which would help to put a time stamp on it, early 1970s I guess.
ReplyDeleteGreat detective work, Steve. That mini-castle is storybook worthy.
ReplyDeleteI like the way you research into the pictures. I always look at the clothes -- the man wearing a hat places it before men didn't any more. Women in hats,too. I'm guessing late sixties.
ReplyDeleteThese are fun to see.
The woman in the kitchen intrigues me. She seems angry or unhappy and I'd like to know why.
ReplyDeleteThese are such fun, Steve.
ReplyDeleteThese are fantastic! Someone took great care to get these shots. And I loved seeing the ones in the Flickr link. Just very, very interesting. Thanks for the research you do.
ReplyDeleteWonderful. Lives like ours today, really. Don't you wonder what became of these people.
DeleteInteresting photos. they clearly bring back another age.
ReplyDeleteI love these. Great detective work finding that location. That "my room" photo looks like a dorm room and I love the "bad-boy" look on the guy with the cigarette. I also like the ones on Flickr. I wonder what that lady was doing on the blanket with the stuffed animals.
ReplyDeleteI love this, Steve! The young man‘s cramped room could have been at a unibersity or college‘s dorm, I imagine.
ReplyDeleteInteresting photos as always. I love absorbing details of an old photograph.
ReplyDeleteGreat collection of photos. That Dodge looks like the one my parents had, we drove it from Grand Rapids MI to Seattle WA when we moved there in 1952. Mom, Dad, me, and a carsick Siamese cat. Good times!!
ReplyDeleteDurham is kind of cute. Too bad he's a smoker :)
ReplyDeleteThese are fascinating and I love your doing the research on the German site!
ReplyDeleteYou got an excellent batch of photos! Those people pyramids used to be quite the thing; I wonder if anyone does them now. I think my mom has that refrigerator!
ReplyDeleteIt looks like the child on the right is in the process of climbing up to the top of the pyramid. Little peeks into the past.
ReplyDeleteGreat photos. I love bringing these people back via the digital age. While at the same time, we look back at a different time and place. The photos show great change from then to now. Regarding time and place, your sleuthing is quite amazing.
ReplyDeleteI like the old photos, interesting to think about what was going on.
ReplyDeleteI always love seeing these along with your comments about them. My favorite is "Sport". I love it that someone did that with their limited film (as opposed to the gazillion photos of my dogs on my phone). If it weren't for the children in the photo, I'd think "Beach Party Bingo" with that unstable pyramid!
ReplyDeleteHalf granny with her giant fridge is hilarious!
ReplyDeleteI wonder if that 'room' is a dorm room? The guy looks kind of old to be a student, but it always amazes me to look at my parents' yearbooks. The graduates look much more 'grown up' back in the day. The picture on the desk looks like a graduation shot.
ReplyDeleteI love 'Sport' and the smoker looks like he's on a fishing boat. It's fun to imagine the stories behind these pictures.
Grandma looks like my mother
ReplyDeleteI remember my mum being very proud of our new refrigerator, the previous one being an ice-box with a giant block of ice delivered weekly. When she packed up and left us, she took the fridge with her! So dad put the icebox back into the kitchen for a while until he got a secondhand fridge for us.
ReplyDeleteWell, that IS a nice (and big) fridge for 1964! And ... poor piglet ...
ReplyDelete