Sometime before or after the turn of the twentieth century my Great Grandfather, Alfred Hamilton (standing) and my Great Uncle, George Hamilton (seated) were hauling wagons full of rock from somewhere to somewhere else. I have no idea why. I don’t know who took the picture, or why they took the picture.
Faded old photos imply forgotten stories. Only the photos don’t talk.
I would like to know those stories. What, why, when. I can only wonder. Did they dig those stones out of the ground to clear a field for planting? If so, they may be hauling the stones no further than the edge of the field. Or, maybe they’re hauling the rocks to make a foundation for a new house, barn . . . or for some purpose I could never guess. Whatever the purpose, it must have been worth the effort.
Even taking the photo took willful effort. Nobody in those days was casually snapping pics with their cell phone. That’s what makes me suspect they were recording an event with a story behind it.
Old photos are flirts. They show a little leg leaving imagination to fill in the rest.
I have boxes full of family photo that range from now to long, long ago. The oldest ones are the most intriguing. I see familiar faces and places alongside other faces and places that will forever remain a mystery. Some have handwritten names and dates that are just as mysterious as the images. Who are these people standing next to the people I do know? What in the world are they doing?
If every picture tells a story. My pictures leave a lot unsaid.
Are these relatives of mine? Whose dog, whose pony? Where are they? What’s up with the two-tone house behind? I can only guess. There are many mysteries in my boxes of old photos - and many more photos on the Shipley/Hamiton side of my family than there are on the Billups/Hammack side. Why that should be so is a mystery in itself.
The people in front of the car are an assortment of Hammack and Billups relatives.
I know this because of the written note on the back. Most of the caption has been torn away, so I can’t tell who is whom. I only know they’re relatives from my mother’s side of the family.
I may have heard their names, but I don’t recognize any of them. The picture could have been taken in Missouri, Oklahoma, or Texas. I‘ve no way of knowing which or when.
The photo looks like it might have been taken sometime during the dust-bowl era. Maybe earlier.
I know a lot of Billups traveled west.
Grandad Bill traveled all around the United states, from north to south and east to west. He visited Illinois, Tennessee, Kentucky, North and South Dakoda, Nebraska, Kansas, Montana, Wyoming, Idaho, Washington, California, New Mexico, Utah, Arizona, Oklahoma, Texas, Iowa, Arkansas, Louisiana, Mississippi, Florida, Alabama, Minnesota, Wisconsin, and Colorado.
He also visited Canada.
Despite all that travel, Grandad Bill stayed home long enough to father 10 children, including my mother.
I do know something about this early twentieth century picture of class and teacher.
The picture was taken at Wooderson school in north Missouri. The teacher is my Great Aunt Bessie Hamilton. She taught at many schools over the course of her lifelong career as teacher.
Bessie is one of Great Grandpa Hamilton’s four daughters. Three of those daughters stayed close to home and farm.
Bessie had ambition. She was interested in everything and she worked to inspire her own love of learning in all those she taught. I have written about the wonderful influence she had on my Aunt Maudine’s personal matriculation in my essay: Isadora, Bessie, and Maudine.
This is a photo of my Great Uncle Alonzo on his farm. The team of horses may be the same as those shown in the photo of the wagonload of rocks at the start of this essay. Can’t identify the lady looking out the window.
Don’t know much about Uncle Alonzo either, except that he was the brother of my Great, Great Grandma, Nellie Hamilton, and that his farm was within walking distance of my Great Grandpa Hamilton’s farm.
I know this because my Aunt Maudine has told me about the many walks she and her dear Grandma Nellie made to visit Uncle Alonzo. On one of these visits, four-year old Maudine wandered away and fell into a carelessly-covered well. She was rescued within the hour, but was left with a lifelong fear of water.
Aunt Maudine has filled-in much of the detail missing in my faded photos, though like the rest of the Shipley family, I have to ask specifically. “Who’s this”? Why was this picture taken”? What history has been left unsaid”? Who’s tombstone is this”? And so on.
I had no knowledge of the man, the girl, or the tombstone in this photo for a very long time. I eventually discovered the tombstone’s significance in an obituary posting for my Great Aunt, Lettie Hamilton: “Lettie was buried at Goshen cemetery, East of Mt. Moriah beside the young fellow she was to marry. He died when he was but twenty-one”.
What young fellow? This was news to me. I called Aunt Maudine. She said, “Oh my, yes! Lettie was never the same after her young beau died”.
Aunt Maudine told me the whole story. His name was Roy Clinkenbeard. He and Lettie were engaged to be married. He died, suddenly, of tuberculosis, in 1905. She pined for him the rest of her life.
Once a month, my Uncle Frank would drive her to the Goshen cemetery so she could put fresh flowers on his grave.
She also made Uncle Frank and Aunt Maudine promise to see that she was buried beside him when she died.
Lettie lived the rest of her life waiting for that moment.
I may be the only member of my family to think Great Aunt Lettie’s lifelong wait for her true love romantic. Most thought it foolish and self-indulgent. I thought much the same before I heard the whole story.
Later, after I truly understood, Lettie’s story became a storybook tragedy. Her odd reclusion from life seemed no longer odd, but very nearly, heroic.
I wrote about it in my essay: The Vigil.
It explained why she was the way she was. She was about to be married, and could think of little else. Steadfast, patient, and single-minded, she kept her lonely vigil – while the years rolled on . . . and on . . . and on . . . until 1965.
On January 17th of that year, death came at last, and carried her away to Goshen – and Roy.
No doubt, Roy was waiting for her at the altar.
The note on the back of this photo tells me who I’m looking at. The young fellow top center is my Uncle Roscoe. The younger kid next to him is my Dad, Donald. On the bottom row my Uncle Gordan is sitting on my Great Grandfather Hamilton’s lap. Next over, My Aunt Maudine is sitting on my Great Grandma Nellie’s lap.
That’s all that was written.
The picture was taken in 1933. Don’t know who took the picture.
Nevertheless, it’s a lot more documented than most of my faded photos.
Great Grandfather Hamilton is the same Alfred Hamilton pictured standing on the wagonload of rocks that started this essay.
A handful of written records, a scattering of family stories and a boxful of faded photos. Scant information that masks more than is revealed. Sadly the same is true for most American families. Even so, it’s more record than families around the world, throughout time, have ever left behind.
I’ve dozens and dozens of photos, all of them silent documentation of events thought worth documenting, yet rarely explained.
I’d like to know more. I cannot. I think when I get to heaven I’ll suddenly know what has been obscured in this world.
I’m pretty sure I have that right.