So the pic I have posted above is one of the more recent additions. As soon as I saw it I felt an immediate sense of who these two people were. Solid mid-Western folks that we might once have called the salt of the earth. Of course we often just don't know a lot about the people who appear in the photos posted and such seemed to be the case here. The photo is one of a set obtained off ebay and as the caption from Shorpy tells us, it's of "Howard & Rena, April 1952." Visiting Claude's farm somewhere in Minnesota." And that should be the end of it....
But it isn't.
Incredibly (do read the comments) one of the regulars managed to track down census records and got a probable ID on the couple and who they were visiting. Then he makes some phone calls and actually tracks down relatives of this couple, who I suspect must be surprised to discover Howard and Rena now prominently featured on the internet. But the surprises keep coming...
First, and not surprisingly, Howard passed away quite a while ago (memory eternal). But Rena IS STILL ALIVE at 101! Any way...
Read it all here.
P.S. I agree with some of the comments over at Shorpy... I want that hat and tie.
3 comments:
Zooming in on Rena's dress, I'm certain she tailored it herself. Lovely work, but the seams are almost too nice to be store bought.
The crispness of the colors in the photograph reminded me of a website I came across recently which had photos that were originally in B&W but then colorized:
http://boredomtherapy.com/colorized-history-photos/
The research power of the Shorpyites is pretty awesome. They routinely identify locations of old photos and every vehicle that comes along.
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