family

Photo of My Dad

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Pam’s Pictorama Photo Post: I found this photo in New Jersey while looking for something else over the holidays. I found a cache of photos there of my father and his cousins when they were very young and spending summers in a tiny, bucolic enclave called Cottekill, in Ulster County, New York where the family had a house. Some of those photos showed my grandfather quite young with my dad as a tiny tot and many of the three children at play.

I don’t know why, but somehow I never saw this particular pile of photos. And I am sorry not to have found them to puzzle over with mom while she was still alive. Photos from Dad’s family somehow didn’t make it into the family rotation. Actually my parents mostly kept pictures of their life together in the house and ones from their past dribbled in over time, but were not always examined it seems. Although a cousin brought mom a pile from her side of the family which we were able to examine during the last years of her life.

Dad’s memory, never good, was sort of a Swiss cheese hit or miss before he died and I don’t know how much help he would have been in identifying anything anyway. As interesting as I find those photos of him as a babe or small child, this is a rare shot of my father as a young man and I can’t think of another from this time in his life so I have brought it back to New York with me.

Frankly, it is not a great photo, bad exposure and poorly printed, messy edges with some bit of another photo bleeding into the left side. The composition is not great – the photographer could have fitted dad into the frame better. Presumably it was taken by one of his friends, perhaps also learning the craft of still photography at the time. Dad appears to be noodling around with a piece of film editing equipment. (On subsequent study – is that a press camera seen from the side?) For me my interest is mostly that I don’t have other photos of him from precisely this time. It is undated and there is nothing written on the back – may I just say, neither side of my family ever made notes on their photos.

A photo of mom from about a decade later.

My father did his undergraduate degree at NYU in history and, after a stint in the army during the war in Korea where he was stationed in the Arctic and learned to film maneuvers. He later used the GI bill to get his masters degree in film at Boston University. I wonder if this shows him, plying his new trade, in an apartment somewhere in Boston, although it doesn’t really have the look of a student apartment – drapes on the window and paintings on the wall.

The objects on the table are too indistinct to really see. I believe the paper in front of him is likely the booklet of instructions for the device he is using – that may be a roll of film next to it. He is dressed in a rather natty button down shirt and vest and a watch with a leather band which predates the metal Rolex one I inherited (and wear) and remember him best as wearing.

Dad in an undated photo on a motorcycle he rode across country.

Dad always dressed well and he liked clothes and shopping – my mom didn’t so I assume I got my interest in those things from him. (I have written about his mom, Gertrude, before who collected jewelry and was always well dressed. A post devoted to her and my inherited interests can be found here.) The only real surprise is that he never wore a striped shirt in my memory. His closet was a perpetual sea of light blue and white versions of this shirt (pink might occasionally find its way in) which I might inherit to mess around in once the collars and cuffs frayed. It is a bit beyond my imagination to think of him wearing stripes, but evidently they are something he grew out of.

I have a photo I have written about before of dad a few years later, astride a decaying motorcycle he rode across the country. (That popular early post can be found here.) I like this one to help fill in the dots along the timeline of his life and I plan to put it in a frame and bring it to my office. There it will reside next to a much beloved picture of my mom I rescued recently where a young Betty Butler is holding Snoopy, our first cat as a family. Mom and Dad would meet about five or more years after spot on the timeline I assign to this picture.

Unlike some family photos I have unearthed, this one doesn’t really have stand alone quality as a picture to recommend it so thank you for indulging me a bit if you read this to the end.

Hot Popcorn

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Pam’s Pictorama Photo Post: It’s a crisp fall weekend here in New York City. Tomorrow will, in part, be devoted to a Halloween Howl dog parade over at Carl Schurz park. I will stop by the animal hospital’s table and visit my colleagues handing out animal care info. Costumed cuties will likely abound so keep a weather eye out for pics on Instagram.

Meanwhile, today’s photo is one of those odd one off purchases for me. Saw it, liked it and followed my nose to purchasing it. I can imagine this being a much loved family photo of this proud family business owner of yore.

It came to me via the Midwest (dealer of all things vintage @missmollystlantiques), but there are no identifiers as to location. Emanelo Fine Cigars are boasted and Camels proudly in large letters below it. The sign that reads Pharmacy is decidedly less prominent, at least for the purposes of this photo.

Clearly the pharmacy was also where you went for your cigars and cigarettes and there is a sign for something called Penetro, which a quick bit of research tells me was a medicated rub. Sort of like Vicks I assume. (That from my childhood – does it still exist? I haven’t heard of anyone using it for years.) There is a tiny advertisement for Kodak also on the far left.

Our fellow, I assume proprietor, stands proudly in front of the establishment and with this splendid popcorn machine which is labeled Hot Popcorn. This is not a photo postcard, but a photo and it shows evidence of having been glued into an album at one point. The Deco border dates it back to the early years of the 20th century, but for decade it is a bit timeless and hard to nail down.

Pictorama readers know that I have restaurants on one side of my family tree and a dry goods store on the other. I would love to have a photo like this of either establishment, but in some ways especially Butler Dry Goods which I retain a very dim memory of having been in. It is more a memory of light and smell and space than of the specifics of the interior.

I inherited a large number of photos which I am going through in New Jersey. I don’t know where they all were because there are many I never saw before. Of course now with mom gone I have largely lost my ability to have the family members identified.

Many of these photos are from my dad’s family and I’m not sure how many she would have known as these were long before her time too. Dad never knew. He seemed to remain somewhat willfully ignorant about his family history and passed almost no stories on. Mom held what tales we had, as told to her by Dad’s mother. I have a few cousins who might find them of interest and I should scan some for them. I imagine I will share the best of the pictures with you all too as future posts.

Black Cat Couture

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Pam’s Pictorama Photo Post: Many of us have a period in the past and it is certainly no secret that my affinity is for the 1920’s and early ’30’s. Let’s face it, this was a very Felix-y time. However, it was a time a very black cat time in general – reaching a bit earlier to the ‘teens.

I have previously opined with some lust over items like the Halloween decor of the earliest part of the 20th century. (Some posts boasting extremely jolly Dennison’s Halloween decorating books from the teens can be found here.) The dress being sported in the back row of this photo does make me yearn for a time when lucky black cats decorated both items and clothing. Interesting that this is not at all a costume, not festive Halloween wear, just an otherwise white summer dress.

My own version of black cat clothing from a post last fall. Pams-Pictorama.com Collection.

Obviously this photo came to my attention due to the fashion statement of the woman with the large black scaredy cat on her dress. Pictorama applauds her attire and I am so glad it is memorialized here. The seller on eBay states that this is the 1920’s and also that it was from Newark, New Jersey. That these are fellow Jersey Girls makes me like it even more.

It is a small photo, not a postcard. It is a petit 3″x 4.5″ and the rounded edges is a slightly unusual printing style. On the back it is stamped 516 LxL Newark, NJ and something that didn’t come out. Sadly no identifiers or date.

Not clothing, but an arresting cat pillow image here from a post last September. Pams-Pictorama.com Collection.

Nine women are gathered in this grouping. It’s hard to say from hairstyles and clothing if the seller is right about the date or if this might creep into the early 30’s. The back row of younger women all wear white while the front row, seated on benches in front the women look a bit older and are wearing floral prints and a bit more dressed up.

My friend with the black cat dress has had the good sense to stand apart a bit so we get pretty much the full effect, while the three woman at the end are sort of grouped naturally together. In the front two women sit with their heads together – makes you wonder about the relationships represented here.

Took this photo of a friend’s daughter’s shoes last summer. Were beloved hand me downs from another friend. Who wouldn’t love these?

This appears to be a nice backyard on a spring or summer day – too hot for using the fire pit and wood right in front of the scene and a large garage with double doors (just like my NJ grandmother had) behind them. To my knowledge, Newark and the immediately surrounding area were more residential at this time than the very urban way we think of it now. The amateur photographer has the top row of women butting up against the outside of the frame, but this way we do see a bit more of the yard. I’ve improved it a tiny bit, but it is also overexposed.

Part of me wonders how the black cat dress was received – it certainly is the most sporty bit of attire here. Were the back row of women following some general mandate to wear white and did this qualify? Perhaps ironic that it has saved this photo from complete obscurity and earned it a perch here at Pictorama.

Elliott

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Pam’s Pictorama Post: I guess I have on occasion posted about father’s day. (Most notably in an unusual post before he died which can be found here.) Generally I tend to find it painful and assume others may as well. However, I just came across this photo of my dad the other day while looking for something else and I decided I would share it today.

November of 2017 seems like worlds ago for me, for all of us I guess in many ways since we managed to have two pandemic years we didn’t see coming in the midst of it. I had started my new job at Jazz at Lincoln Center earlier that year after almost 30 years at the Metropolitan Museum of Art. I had already been to Shanghai with the orchestra and was trying to adjust to a very different pace of work. (Posts about leaving the Met and that wild trip to Shanghai can be found here and here.)

Shanghai toy cafe.

Meanwhile, my parents had recently moved into this house, the house I inherited and will visit later today. That alone has changed so much. First my mother directed much of the planting in the yard which went from somewhat neglected to a sanctuary, but even in the year since she passed I have transformed it further with more plantings, a vegetable and herb garden and made the deck an oasis.

The NJ garden in clean up mode a month of so back. Strawberries and cherry tomatoes are evidently already producing. More on that later today.

The years she and my father spent in this house were years of caregiving and the house was set up around that. The bedroom I have taken was my father’s. (I used to sleep in a sunny room on the second floor which in some ways I preferred, but mom wanted me to take the main bedroom at a later time and ultimately it made sense so I could be closer to her at night.)

Recent photo of the front of the house in NJ.

Pictorama readers have seen, most notably, the garden transform. However, I have made many changes inside, redoing the floors, adding furniture, rugs, lamps and, of course since it is me we’re talking about, interesting stuff I have collected – already.

An older Milty on a very recent visit.

Still, this view out the window remains largely unchanged. It is a sunny, favorite window. I still have that chair, but it was moved a bit during mom’s last illness and has remained there. (That chair is Beauregard the cat’s favorite spot and if you sit in the chair with him he will pat your head.) For several years it gave first dad and then mom the best view of the small but cheerful yard to enjoy daily.

I remember the day I took this photo very well. It is the only picture I took that day. Dad had returned from a stint in the hospital and Kim and I were visiting and I snatched it discreetly. He had a rare very good day that day, arguably the last really, and I pretty much knew it was a real moment of grace in an inevitable decline. I remember him being very lucid and remembering all sorts of things in conversation with some prompting by me and mom; his memory turned to Swiss cheese at the end – bits he would recall perfectly and then complete holes. He was very candid about it.

Dad is taking a rest and enjoying the sun here. His extremely devoted cat Red on his lap. (I have written about Red here – a real prince among cats that one!) Our other cat, Milty (still around today at about 20 years of age and one of the New Jersey five) is observing from a favorite spot on the window sill – much beloved. Mom filled it with plants over time and although I keep fewer there than she did, there are still a bunch. I’ve changed the blinds as the existing ones (like so many things – think roof, deck!) broke shortly after mom died.

Red on my bed, a photo taken about a year after the one of dad.

Also on that window sill are some reproduction Remington bronze sculptures which were among dad’s favorite possessions. He always loved bronze sculptures and liked to have these around him. (There was at least one other, enormous one, at one time.) I recently found myself in someone’s office who also had some of these, including a large reproduction made for a restaurant, and immediately felt at home. All the walkers, bottles and other paraphernalia of illness is there too.

I have written posts about my father and his interesting and fulfilling life as a cameraman for ABC news, and about his youth and riding a motorcycle across the country (those can be found here and here), but today, just a small tribute to that moment in 2017, coughed up by my phone and as a gentle nod to the Father’s Day holiday today.

Mom and Snoopy

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Pam’s Pictorama Photo Post: Today’s post is of a family photo, something I haven’t done in a long time, and it is one of my mom. The one year anniversary of her passing is tomorrow.

I wrote frequently about the surprisingly interesting time caring for her at the end of her life, here and here, and at her death I wrote a brief tribute to her here. However, a friend suggested that I find a photo of her to frame for my office as a way of recognizing the anniversary so I dug through some mountains of pictures in New Jersey last weekend and emerged triumphant.

Many years ago my mother’s mom put together a photo album for mom and her brother John for Christmas. I don’t remember seeing my uncle’s, but mom’s, although slim, is made up of wonderful early childhood photos of her that I had never seen. Mom’s father died young of a heart attack. He was much beloved to me during the short time I knew him (Poppy!), but I was only about four or five when he died. There aren’t a huge number of photos of him at all so it is extra nice to find these.

However, in addition to those photos which are mostly Betty and John as small kids with their various pets, mom had tucked a number of other early photos in and today’s photo is from that batch. This would have been taken around 1969, mom was still wearing her hair a bit long – she cut it short a year or so later, Snoopy just out of kittenhood.

Without knowing for sure I am fairly certain that this was taken at our house in Englewood, New Jersey, It was a tiny, cozy two bedroom cottage on Jones Road and across from what seemed to a tiny tot me to be an enormous park. (Actually, a google search shows a very substantial park on Jones Road, so perhaps my childhood estimate was more accurate than I think!)

Mom is holding the very first pussy cat in a long line of pets, Snoopy. I think I named him, for the comic strip and because he had black spots – he was a cow spotted kitty. In retrospect it is hard to believe that my older sister would have allowed me to name him (she was bossy!), but nonetheless that is my memory.

Snoopy was just a great cat. You’ve heard tales of my dressing him up in doll clothes and pushing him in my doll stroller – also playing circus dog with him and the German Shephard, Duchess. He was a lovely, easy going boy cat. He and the dog were buddies and unlike the dog, he rarely got into trouble (there was the time he walked across wet red paint on the porch and then through the kitchen, but that would be the exception that made the rule) and was loved by all equally. I believe his origin was as a barn cat – friends of my parents had a farm in South Jersey and supplied us with rather excellent cats for many years.

It’s funny that seeing him so many years later (his life was sadly cut short by an Akita several years later) his spots and markings are surprisingly immediately familiar. Black over one eye. I can remember petting him when I look at this.

My guess is that dad was trying out a new camera as this has a hallmark of being a rather posed photo. Dad wasn’t typically at his best with still photos. If anything I am better with those and lesser with moving images and he the opposite. He had an extraordinary eye for shooting movies, but somehow it didn’t quite apply to still images. This photo for me is an exception however. It captures mom and Snoopy perfectly and even reminds me of the wonderful garden at that house where these trees likely were. (When we moved to the shore, probably later that year, it was many years before we lived in a place with a garden and our first home was sandy, often salty soil right on the river, which flooded frequently. Mom struggled mightily to at least have a vegetable garden and some scrubby trees. Readers know I now glory in keeping up the garden my mom created at the house I inherited.)

One thing of note for me is that mom appears to be wearing both a watch (although on her right arm and she was right handed) and a wedding band. Mom never wore either later in life. I think she went through a series of wristwatches when she was younger and gave up – her active life and hands constantly in things probably did both that and the ring in. I know that the early version of her wedding band wasn’t gold (turned her finger green!) and she stopped wearing it. Years later my father gave her a gold band which I now have, but to my memory she just almost never wore jewelry. (Early arthritis in her fingers exacerbated this. I fight it in my own hands, especially with the fingers I broke a few years ago running.)

She is wearing a camel colored sweater coat, a very mom color. If it was a few years later jeans would be on the bottom half of her, but this early it was probably a skirt or some other trousers. She has a white (cotton I bet) top under the sweater. Mom was very allergic to wool and gave it up early in life. She wore a lot of polar fleece later on.

There is a little tear on the left of the photo where the color emulsion has peeled. I need to keep this in a not especially light or hot place I think. The color is faded.

Clearly I take after my father’s side of the family in this regard as I consider the purchase and wearing of jewelry to be one of life’s great pleasures! (I have written about some of my favorite finds here and here.) My paternal grandmother loved jewelry (Gertie! There’s a whole post for her here.) and my dad inherited that love and bought us three women in his life jewelry frequently. As a result, I have all of mom’s (virtually unworn) and my sister’s which tended toward a more contemporary design than the vintage pieces I am drawn to.

While it is mostly accepted that I resemble my mom more than my dad, I’ve not been sure about that as I age and look somewhat more like Gertie. Having said that, the resemblance between me and mom is strong in this picture, the differences in our coloring being less evident. (Mom was extremely freckled, fair and green eyed – I am fair but less freckled and brown eyed. Her hair had red tints that mine never had.)

Finding this photo was a gift and I am grateful! To have mom and Snoopy together to consider in this picture is a treat I had not anticipated and I cannot think of a better way to honor her life and the sad anniversary of her passing. Thank you mom.

Felix in the Nursery

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Pam’s Pictorama Post: I pulled this photo off of a small pile on my desk this morning. Purchased several months back, it has awaited its turn up at bat. It is neither professional, nor significantly profound, but delightful in its own way.

It is a 2″x 4″ photo with nothing written and no identifying information on the back, although it appears to have been printed by a skilled hand. The Felix is the only thing really to date the image and I would assume that it was during the zenith of his popularity, most likely the 1920’s, but perhaps as late as the early 1930’s is my guess.

Baby is playing with a baby doll which is always a touch of irony for me – and this doll looks remarkably like the kid. The Felix surveying all around him is a very classic chalkware or composition model. Oddly, I don’t actually own this particular very popular item – in part perhaps because they are fragile and I have a general aversion to large, easily broken items. Still, in considering him here and online this morning, I will say I should wait for a nice example and grab it. He would look splendid surveying the living room or bedroom in New Jersey. Let’s see if I achieve that goal in coming months.

These Felix-es are touted as carnival prizes, but I have never really accepted that as their origin. There are slightly cheaper, more slightly off-model versions which I assume fit this bill, but these always seemed a bit nicer than that. Evidently some have mobile arms and this fellow looks like he might be a candidate for being such a high class item.

The kid, as far as the viewer can tell, wears only shoes (nice sheepskin trimmed ones, perhaps all the better to start to walk in?) and we’ll assume a diaper. He or she is sitting in such a very nice sunny spot it gives me a cat-like yen to locate it and curl up in it – and nap. The curtains are helping the composition of this photo considerably, creating a pattern through out and catching the sun up in front. The shadows play nicely across the baby and around him. These are massive windows (I vaguely assume that the child is on the floor so they go all the way up!), and the sun streams in at the front and is in deep shade in the back of the room.

As I write it is in fact a sunny Sunday morning here in Manhattan, a relief after a week of pouring and sometimes teeming rain, so perhaps I am sun sensitive and craving as I write. I doggedly remind myself of April showers bringing May flowers, but we are soggy here and revel in the relief. Next weekend I will go to Jersey and check out the garden there and try to turn my mind to spring and summer. Time to put the lettuces in I think, or soon anyway. Growing things and time out in the yard will be the best harbingers of the season and the remedy for the blues, not to mention a visit with the New Jersey kitties.

Cathouse

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Pam’s Pictorama Photo Post: A dollhouse setting and a kitten in doll’s clothes – what’s not to like? I was speeding along my feed in Instagram when I stopped in my tracks for this one (sold by @baileighfaucz) and had to buy it. She has a beautifully curated stream of photos, virtually all for sale and I am often tempted. It is only fiscal responsibility that binds me, until I find one like this I just have to have.

There is something about the scale of the furniture in this picture which appeals to me. The kitten is too big for the space but only by a little, like a fluffy oversized giant kitty in his or her space, unable to sit in the tiny chair or at the little table. The wallpaper (wall covering?) is closer to kitty’s scale, just a little too big for the furniture. Somehow the little landscape is precisely above the cat’s head, right in the middle of the picture.

Beau last week, very reluctantly wearing a party hat.

There are many textures between the fabric wall covering, the blanket or towel on the floor, a little lacy tablecloth, and the cat’s dress. There is that little landscape which we can read as a painting or even think about it as a window to the outside. I like to think the thing next to it is a calendar, but I think it is another picture. The wrapped white box (is that a tiny mirror atop it?) reads as a refrigerator to me although it could be a clothing cupboard too.

Kit is right in the middle of this evenly divided picture. It is well lit, but a bit heavier from stage right or our left, casting shadows on the carpet for the chair, cat and other objects. (It is also quite overexposed drifts all the way to a white out in the lower right corner.) This kitten is a solid citizen, fluffy and gray. He or she looks barely patient with this process.

Miltie sporting Winsome’s hat.

Kim has gently suggested that it isn’t nice to dress our kitties up and take pictures of them, so I mostly contain myself on the subject. Winsome and I have made a few attempts at cats in hats in New Jersey recently. There is part of me that would love to be setting them up in dioramas and taking their photos. Perhaps it was my profession in a past life – or maybe I was the cat!

Pams-Pictorama.com Collection.

The Pictorama collection does not tend to a lot of this genre of postcard (I think of them as the equivalent of the Dogville Comedies for cats, for those of you who are in the know about those) – kittens dressed up and posed in various scenes. The rather superb one of kittens in a faux balloon above was the only that I could think of off the top of my head. (That early post can be found here.)

There were several others from the same set, but while tempting none of them were quite as engaging for me and no others were purchased. While professionally made, there is a charmingly homemade quality to this one (for the record, there’s no identifying photo studio, nothing written on the back and it was never sent) and I think the photographer just happened to hit it right on the nose.

A Big Kitty Family Affair

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Pam’s Pictorama Photo Post: I guess Pictorama rules are made to be broken, although there aren’t really many. Generally speaking the cardinal rule of Pictoama is that I own the object under discussion. I had barely set the parameter when I broke it back in the earliest days of this venture. (That post, devoted to some wonderful Norakuro toys can be found here.) However, since then I have pretty much stuck to my guns on that and if I have done it subsequent before today, I cannot remember when.

From a very early, not in my collection post!

However, I have an excellent reason for bending the rules today. An email came to me via the blog asking about what I call the giant cat chair photo postcards. I own several of these – many fewer than my photos of folks posing with Felix which seem to have started earlier (a few Felix tintype posts here and here), gone longer and reached the shores of Australia where folks posed with him in Katoomba among other resorts. (One of these posts can be found here.) I even have evidence of a giant Felix who appears to be directing traffic in Kualo Lumpur. (Here!)

Pams-Pictorama.com collection. Felix in Kuala Lumpur.

However, folks with the big kitty seem to have been exclusively in Great Britain. (We were simply backward here in the US, weren’t we? I haven’t seen the slightest evidence of any of the above. Nary even an early Mickey. Huh.)

Back to our story. Chay Hawes, a denizen of Great Britain wrote to say, My mum was looking through some albums and said “here’s my dad on this weird black cat thing at the seaside” (he’s the boy in the middle of the cat leaning towards his mother) so I typed “weird black cat photo margate” and amazingly your site came up as the first hit. I didn’t expect to find out about the cat so quickly! (Pictorama is always here to help with the important things. Posts about Margate and black cat goodness, including this very kitty, can be found here and here.)

Margate as a beach resort seems to have been redolent in photo ops and looking over my collection and former posts there seems to have been more than one of these giant black cats, an outsized Felix and an odd unidentified clownish character at a minimum. Black cat luck seems to also be particular to sailors so perhaps its seaside location upped the ante on black cat fortune.

I have a bit of a weakness for these, especially as plates, but not in my collection.

He asked if there was anything in particular affiliating black cats with Margate. There are copious postcards and bits of souvenir china which feature the felines and boast good luck. While I can find nothing which specifically ties good luck black cats to Margate, I am reminded that the Brits are well ahead of us in their affection for black kitties. I believe I have opined before on the subject of black cats representing good luck there whereas we take the very backward position that they are bad luck.

One of many Margate lucky black cat postcards. Not in my collection.

One particular superstition I discovered this morning is that in parts of England if a bride receives a black cat as a gift on her wedding day it is believed she will have luck in her marriage. I say let’s all move there! Happy black cats must abound. They are also thought to bring prosperity in Scotland if found on your doorstep or porch. (I’ll add that with Blackie and Beau in the family, we know we are lucky and prosperous indeed!)

Not a great photo but here Blackie and Beau meet for the first time last summer. Recognition that they are indeed both black cats seemed to be in the air.

I believe that Mr. Hawes’s photo is the first that I found in the wild so to speak – not being sold but a family photo, still being enjoyed by the family. It is also rare in that it is dated and noted on the back as below.

Chay says his mom is good about labeling photos and they have nice albums full as well as some wall space devoted to them. It has inspired me to do more with some of the family photos found in Jersey as I organize the house there. Mom and I went through many, but of course have found a bunch of them since she died and now no one to help me identify the folks within. (In fact, heading to NJ now.)

Back of postcard is nicely noted.

Few of my photo postcards of this genre have any notes and none have been mailed. I go on record by stating that I controlled myself admirably and did not beg him to sell it to me. It is a gem though!

The photographer was having a splendid day in the way he set the kids up on the chair, presumably between their parents. Mom wears a lovely fashionable outfit and an especially nice hat. Dad sports his cap and a pipe. Dad is in front of some sort of sign I am a bit curious about. The children all have a remarkable family likeness. It really is a wonderful family photo! The kitty might be a different actual one than any of the others I have as his white mouth (almost bejeweled looking!) and toes are very prominent – claw paws on this kitty. He has nice whiskers as well.

Chay also noted that his still young grandfather was shown clad in uniform a few short photos later. A sobering reminder that our family photos are snatches of time, a story told in pieces but a story nonetheless.

It gives me great pleasure to know that this photo resides with the family and enjoys status as part of family lore. Thank you so much Chay for writing in and sharing this photo!

And It’s Spark Plug

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Pam’s Pictorama Photo Post: Possibly one of the strangest sub-genres here at Pictorama are a clutch of photos of people posing on Spark Plug who in 1922 made his way into comics fame when he made his entrance into the Barney Google strip. The patched together equine captured the reader’s heart in that initial episode and he joined the ongoing cast of characters. His distinctive appearance made him a picture perfect photo foil and evidently photos posing with him proliferated in addition to sheet music, Halloween costumes, games, candy containers and toys ranging from wind-up’s to more cuddly soft versions.

Not in Pictorama Collection. This sheet music is widely available.

I stumbled on the first photo in a Hake’s catalogue years ago and bid on it. That photo went very high and much to my disappointment I didn’t acquire it. It stayed with me however as these things sometimes do and I started to look for them.

I manage to acquire my first one back in 2018 and it is similar to the one I lost at the Hake’s auction. (That post can be found here.) It is a pro photo, much along the same lines as the concept of people posing with Felix, although the Spark Plug photos are not postcards and are generally regular prints which are 5×7 or larger. If you read that post you will find an interesting exchange with the descendent of the fellow identified in the picture who found the post while doing genealogy research on his family.

Pricey Chien litho toy for sale at the time of writing.

The next photo didn’t show up until ’21 and it is a postcard where Spark Plug is an almost abstract design. Lodged as he was in the public consciousness however you merely had to make a nod to his appearance and label him and you were good to go. (That odd little gem can be found here.) This acquisition marks the third in the series.

Today’s entry into the archive is what appears to be a very competently homemade version of the pasted together pony. Junior, in comic splendor complete with glasses, nose and mustache all of a piece under his topper of a hat, must be concealing his legs under Spark Plug’s body and stubby faux limbs are astride the horse. Spark Plug’s identifying patch is evident on the side and, as is always helpful, he is clearly labeled on one side. His head, while a tad small for his body, is a credible reproduction.

Next to him is another kid, in blackface, with a faux banjo. Something about him reminds the viewer of the jockey statues that used to be in evidence as outdoor decor. Behind them are adults who do not appear to be in costume – the maid notwithstanding but after some consideration I have decided that she is just working in uniform, not in fancy dress. She is pushing a cart of something fluffy and like the other adults she is in somewhat soft focus. They form a distracting blur behind the costumed kids.

Another pricey item for sale as I write – interesting that a somewhat forgotten cartoon character still fetches thousands for toys today!

This photo is approximately 5×7 and printed on a super light paper which is curling with age. The back is entirely blank and there’s no evidence that it was in a photo album at any time, perhaps it was framed. While the pictorial quality is somewhat lacking this photo nevertheless is another interesting entry into the Pictorama archive.

Five Females

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Pam’s Pictorama Photo Post: Sometimes a photo just socks me right in the eye and I have to buy it. Admittedly this happens most often when the pictures have cats, but sometimes a non-cat photo hits me just as hard and this was one. It wandered into my Instagram feed where @baileighfaucz.h announced a sudden photo sale.

Baileigh has brought us some wonderful photo here on Pictorama before. (Some of those posts can be found here and here.) So I always settle in for a good peruse when I see a sale.

Pams-Pictorama.com Collection.

A makeshift photo studio seems to have been set up and these ladies pose in front of a sheet. The fact that we see beyond the edge in the upper right actually improves the composition by drawing our eye up I think. The light coming from the left side creates a shadow on that side, almost like another person and depth under them. The light plays on the folds of the pressed cotton dresses they sport, as well as the folds on the sheet behind them.

Pams-Pictorama.com Collection.

I had a post back in March of 2021 which can be found here and featured a clutch of photos from the same period, taken outside and more casual – but all of women lined up. What was it about photos of the time and lining folks up?

At first glance I thought maybe the four women in white were in uniforms, but a careful look at the tops of their outfit show that each is noticeably different. The woman out in front, far left of the viewer, has a bib that made me think apron at first, but at a closer look is likely the fashion of her top. All the white skirts are very similar, but aside from the one bib, there are different collars (high neck with a pin; dark side bow and a mannish tie) which are all quite distinct.

Pams-Pictorama.com Collection.

Of course the woman in black (or very dark dress) stands out. At first I thought she was older than the rest, but closer examination reveals that she is not. Is it black and is she in mourning perhaps?

Despite the similarity created by their dresses and hair dressed in the style of the time, under greater scrutiny they do not look to be related. Black dress and the woman behind her have the most serious expressions, although only the woman in the middle attempts a true smile.

Our gal in front steals the show however – she was clearly born with an attitude the camera loves. Hands on hips, she sports a saucy look at us, all the way forward to this century. She doesn’t quite smile, but she is the one you come away remembering.