conjuring a memory

It has been said a picture is worth a thousand words. I present this picture as an example of a picture gone silent. This photo was among my great grandfathers things and is unidentified. By all estimates it was taken in the early part of the twentieth century. But just who are these children ? Sadly I can't say with 100% certainty. I'll tell you who I think they are. The young lady is my great aunt Mildred and the young man my grandfather Elwood Christian Reichart. I reached that conclusion after what the law calls a preponderance of the evidence. I call it a good guess. Aunt Mildred , the lady my own sister was named for was born in 1898 and so fits the time frame. Grandfather Elwood was born in 1900 and so also fits the time period. Doing a little research on the internet I discovered he is dressed in what was called a Buster Brown outfit, popular in , you guessed it the early part of the twentieth century. Buster Brown shoes adopted the cartoon character as its' mascot in 1904 and the shoes became a fashion staple. Interesting is that Buster Brown had a girl friend, Mary Jane. Do you remember those candies? And his pet dog? A pit bull! The gladiator style shoes the young lady is wearing was quite popular as well.

 I also know that the picture came from my great grandfathers home. It was Elwood Christian Reichart that married his daughter Clara Lester. Sadly Clara passed shortly after giving birth to my father. As a result my father and his brother was raised by their grandmother and grandfather. Elwood would go on to marry another lady, Lina, and have two sons with her. That grandmother Lester would have kept that picture is reasonable enough to assume. Grandfather Elwood would pass away from a ruptured appendix on a trip to Florida in 1932. Great Aunt Mildred would live to be in her eighties and I knew her well. Strange I don't recall her ever talking about her mother and father or any of the family history for that matter. It was, of course, during the time people didn't speak of the dead and children were to be seen and not heard. There were many secrets, dirty laundry was the term used, that went unaired.

 Now I also know, after much research and reading, that Great Grandfather Christian Reichart, born on the fourth of July, married Catherine Gaffga. Catherine came from a rather well to do family that lived in Greenport on Long Island. Her family were German immigrants to this country. Great Grandfather Christian was the first born Reichart on American soil. I haven't discovered the circumstances but Catherine passed away at an early age. Following that there seems to have been a falling out between Christian and her family. Why Elwood took his children to live with his deceased wife's' parents instead of his own is a mystery. What is no mystery is that the Gaffgas' were financially far better off than the Lester's. It is a fact that Christian Reichart passed away from stomach cancer in the " poor house " at Yapank, Long Island. He was interred with the rest of the family at Sterling Cemetery in Greenport. 

 All of that information combined with other later photographs has convinced me that is who is in that picture. The Gaffga family would certainly have had the resources to have a photo taken. We do have to remember that in the early 1900's having a picture taken was an event. You had to make an appointment, get all dressed up and go to the studio. All in all a big deal and not cheap. What was the occasion? Of that I can't even guess. Perhaps it followed the death of their mother Catherine, I just don't know. The picture is silent. I have written what I believe on the back of that picture for future generations to discover. I have given it a voice. The question is, does it speak the truth? I'm hoping I will know that for certain one day as solving of a mystery. Life itself is a mystery and all we can do is speculate anyway. 

 Well I haven't counted but I don't believe this is a thousand words. I'm thinking I could write a thousand words about this one picture if I really made an effort to do so. That was my thought this morning. I sit at my desk surrounded by pictures of the family. Each picture does have a story to tell. For the pictures that I can I intend to one day write the story. The majority of them will be non-fiction and that is a good thing. Others, like the one presented, will be fiction. Still I feel compelled to tell the " story " even if a bit of it is conjecture. It is from conjecture that magic is made. To conjur, to call an image to the mind. Old photographs are magic in a way, capturing a single moment in time. That moment can only be released by words. Words then conjur a memory, and what is a memory? Just a mist in the mind subject to change at any time. But a picture last forever.