Saturday
Jun262010
Broken Connections
June 26, 2010 * * * * * Posted by: guest blogger 
I’ve always spent a lot of time in bookshops and at some time during the mid – 80’s, in a second hand bookshop in Belfast I came across an old photograph album, which I bought for £1.
The album was small, cloth bound and a little grubby. The photographs inside were small too – about 1.5” x 2.5” and dated from early in the twentieth century. The story told seems to be a trip across the Atlantic to New York with the Statue of Liberty in the distance and the skyline of New York beyond the docks.
The main characters are two men, dapper in their best suits and straw boaters and two young women, fashionably dressed and clearly enjoying the trip. There’s also a series of photographs of various crew members and officers on board ship.
I bought the album at the time because there is something intriguing about old photographs; the details were compelling and the faces very clear. A trip like this would have been a huge adventure and it could even be a record of a family emigrating to the United States – there’s no way of knowing. There are no dates, nothing written on the back of the photographs, no indication of the names of the people in the pictures, or which (if any) of the people shown had kept the album.
I’ve had the album ever since and have looked at it from time to time and shown it to one or two other people, but as no more than an interesting curiousity.
On 8th April 2009, my mum died very suddenly. She was taken into hospital one evening and within 24 hours she had gone. It was a really difficult time for the whole family and after her funeral my family, along with those of my three brothers, spent time together, which we don’t do very often as we’re scattered around the UK,
As the afternoon went on, we all started passing round old family photographs that Mum had collected over the years. We laughed at haircuts, remembered the different places and people, explained to the younger family members who the people in the photos were, and what had happened to them. The family connections for us that afternoon bridged the years from the 1880’s to 2009. From great-great grandparents to my youngest nephew aged seven. Our family history was being carried forward into the future.
In the next few days as I was arranging our family photographs into albums, I thought about the anonymous one that I had bought all those years ago. That piece of family history had gone astray, that connection between the past and present had been broken. We can never know why the album ended up where it did, or whether, somewhere, there is still someone who would recognize the faces in the pictures. Now, in the absence of their real family, I like to remember the people that took that trip so long ago. The collage I’ve made shows a few of the photographs, with handsome young men and pretty young women dressed in their best.
It makes me all the more grateful for my family connections, for the people and places that I’ve only seen in photographs or heard of in stories told by my parents, but who are still part of where I came from and part of where our family is going.
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Special guest post today by Griselda Pugh who blogs at 'Too Much at Random' . Thank you for joining us here today, Griselda, and for your wonderful story and image.
Reader Comments (11)
Most fascinating, Griselda. It does make you wonder how the album became disconnected from its family. Surely there was/is someone left who would want the memory? In the meantime, it's in good hands, I can tell. I'm sure the memory of your mom's passing is still fresh in your heart and mind. Thankfully you had the enjoyment of going through her old photos with the family, something you'll never forget. I still go through the photos of my own parents, deceased since the mid-90s. Thank God for photography...and photographers. If you're the only photographer in your family, please make sure someone starts taking pictures of YOU. Thanks for joining us today at V&V as our guest!
I have an album like that, I found it in my mums house when she died, but I don't recognise anybody on the pictures. My mum must have gotten it when her aunt died (in the 70's), I figured. I showed it to the whole family, but nobody recognised someone.
The collage is lovely. Thanks for joining us today
Hey Griselda, that is a beautiful collage of the photos that you did,
thanks for sharing.
Griselda, I'm so sorry for the loss of your mother. Even though it has been over a year since her passing, I'm sure there are still days when her loss hits hard. Memories are what helps to sustain us and photos help, and can be essential, in maintaining those memories. Such a fascinating story told by your photo album collage. It seems such a shame that it was separated from its family, but it has landed in good hands. Thank you so much for joining us here today!!
So sorry to hear about your mom. Time has a way of healing..but never allowing us to forget. Lucky for you - you have the family connections..the photos and the memories. Always sad to think of who this family was..and where their descendants may be...and how lost their history has gotten.
Thank-you for your words and images..and for being here with us today!
Whenever I go to antique shops I always find myself looking at old abandoned photos and I always wonder the same thing, "why are they here, where is the family that they belonged to?" It seems so sad that they are in a shop and that strangers are the only ones that see them. It is wonderful that you have this, and wonderful that you also have your family connections. And I am sorry to hear about your mom. Thank you for sharing this with us.
The concept in your post that fascinates me is the idea of "Broken Connections." I had never quite thought of it that way.
My mother's side of the family has done a wonderful job of recording the family connections (history through lineage and images) but my father's side is very, very sketchy. I wish I knew more about researching family history so I could help bridge those "broken connections" and missing links.
A very thought provoking post. Thank you for joining us and sharing with us at Vision and Verb.
I really appreciate all the comments that have been made, and thank you all for being so welcoming to V & V :)
hi griselda, what a wonderful story - and a wonderful find!!! how lucky that it was you who stumbled upon this little slice of another family history and, more importantly, that you treasure it. hard not to wonder at their lives and what became of them. i am a collector of images too, and i love to have my family laid out before me.
Thank you for sharing with us! I love old photographs as well. I are a reminder of how much we love those dearest to us even if they are no longer here.
This is an interesting post. I collect vintage postcards and often the dealers also sell old photographs. I have quite a few. I don’t know why I bought them or what to do with them now. I saw a blog a while back, of a woman who had found a box full of old photographs and made a blog showing them, trying to find people who might have known the families. The funny thing is that she did find quite a few families who recognized their relatives.