"Hmm," my supervisor at the Willamette Historical Center pondered, tapping her fingers together. She looked at me with a suspicious smile. "I'll be right back." She disappeared into the back room and returned with a cardboard box full of old pictures. "Someone donated these pictures and we need to decide which ones are relevant for us to keep and which ones we should sent to another historical center in Oregon."
I settled into a chair and began sorting carefully through the century old photos. Most were portraits taken at studios in either Salem or Portland so the studio was labeled, but not the identity of the person. A few were picture postcards addressed to "Aunt Nora" from "Lucille." One picture simply had a first initial to identify the person in the post card. Why would you only write one letter to remember who the person is? Didn't they know that someone in the future would want to know their entire life story and all they would have is a picture?
There was also a copy of a poem cut out of a newspaper folded up inside a photo book.
Such is Life
Clyde Ralston
We walked o’er the farm where the wild clover grew;
He told me he loved me, I thought it was true.
Oh, girls, don’t believe men whatever you do,
Another face charms them and they forgotten you.
I sing of my love in this heartrending rhyme,
I know Fred’s a-courting a girl at this time;
She thinks she has got him, but won’t she be vexed
When he wearies of her and flies off to the next?
He tells you the sweetest things ever you heard.
You raise your eyes doubting, he says, “On my word.”
I scarcely know why I am writing this stuff,
It puts Harry Arlington all in a huff;
He says I don’t love him as much as I ought;
I don’t think I do, now I’m sure that he’s caught.
Bob’s coming this evening; he’s wealthy, and so
Just which one to marry I really don’t know.
You say this is flirting; perhaps so, and yet
The lesson Fred taught me I cannot forget.
Tho’ I may be guilty, ‘twas he did the harm;
He stole my heart from me last year on the farm.
I would have been true had he made me his wife,
While Bob, he is rich, and I – well such is life.
Among all the loose photos was a scrapbook. There were no pictures, but there were calling cards and card sized business posters. A few pages were filled with Bible verse cards that the little girl probably got in Sunday School. After some further research I discovered that the scrapbook belonged to a little girl born in 1881. She probably began the book in 1887/1888. There were calling cards from her sisters and cousin. I was able to find the rest of her family and who she married, I even found a baby picture of her daughter as well as one when the little girl was five years old among the collection of pictures. It's so fun! It's like a treasure hunt back in time. :)
