About ten years ago I bought an old album at the local pawn shop. I normally stay away from the old black-and-white
photos on sale at antique stores – because although the images are often fascinating,
they are also totally removed from the context of family ancestry or historical
setting, and I find the ethics of ripping apart old family albums to make a few
dollars totally odious. But I couldn’t
stop myself from paying 4 lats ($8) for this album. It was an instinctual thing at the time – what
caught my eye was the fact that the album was completely intact. From the old leather cover with a metal
floral decal, to the inscription “To commemorate your confirmation, 26 May 1927”,
to the carefully placed photos on every page.
When I noted to good condition of the album – the cardboard pages
printed with green acorns – I imagined someone else buying it, removing all the
photos and throwing them away, so that they could put their own photos in. So I
bought the album: to protect it, I guess.
Who knows how the album got there.
What kind of person sells their family photos? Could it have been stolen? Or was it trucked off with a load of stuff
when someone was cleaning out the house of a deceased estate? Of course when I
bought it, I had the idea that I might be able to locate the family and return
it to them. Latvia is such a small pond,
so it is not a totally crazy idea. I thought
I might have been able to identify places, times, find names written on the
back of the pictures - something to lead me to the family. But this was to no avail. None of the photos have any notes on the back
of them. Apart from the fact that the
family lived in Cēsis, in the Vidzeme region of Latvia, I’ve got no leads.
The album is the record of a family and their life over a period of
around 40 years – I think the pics range from somewhere pre-1920s to the 1960s.
My guess is that the album belonged to a certain man with wing-nut ears, who
appears in many of the pictures. Throughout the pages we see Wing-nut as a
young boy with his parents, on his confirmation day, on a nature walk, on his
wedding day, in a portrait with his wife and young baby. Later there are pictures of what I assume is Wing-nut’s
grown son, pouring him a drink, pictures of him in the garden, now an aged man,
braces holding up his pants. Wing-nut
and his wife look simple, but kind. The people
in the album are not particularly glamorous, good-looking, or rich – just ordinary
people, like you and me.
Towards the end there are photos of his wife in a hospital bed, and
pictures of a funeral – not sure if the two incidents are related. There is also a poignant picture of friends
posing in an orchard – one man is in a Soviet army uniform, a young, dour woman
has perched his army hat on her head.
The album comes full circle by finishing with more confirmation photos –
this time a young man with a Beatles haircut and armfuls of flowers. Wing-nut, face now wrinkled, without his wife
at his side, poses next to the boy in a group shot.
In historical terms, without any kind of identification of places,
people or events, the album has no value.
I see enough significant photos in my line of work, help to interpret
them, preserve them, publish then in exhibitions. The pictures in this mystery album are typical
family photos of any other people who lived in Latvia at that time – without the
personal information.
But the romantic side of me cannot get the album out of my system. All of those family pictures in sequence –the
small joys of belonging to a church community, of having children, your wedding
day, sitting in the garden, and putting on your best clothes to go to the
photographer. All of those eyes, and
smiles, and lives caught in black and white, carefully sorted and stored in an
album.
Then again, maybe the family story isn’t as rosy as I imagine it.
Perhaps Wing-nut worked for the Soviet regime and sent people to exile in
Siberia? Maybe he was a philandering
fool, whose wife died of heartbreak early?
Or a less-dramatic version – maybe in his older days, Wing-nut turned to
drinking and estranged his family, so that no one was there to collect the
album later on?
Whatever the story was – I have the album now. Stored in the bottom of
my drawer. And occasionally, once every
couple of years, I take out the album and pore over the pictures – find faces, now
familiar - admire the clothing, wonder about the people, their fates, their
families. And in a strange way, I feel
that I know them, and that I have saved the memory of these people, who lived at
one time, in a regional town, somewhere
in Eastern Europe.
