Wednesday, March 9, 2011

Out of the Closet






A charming old postcard photograph I had bought
somewhere many years ago during my antiquing days.
Written in pencil on the back:  Your cousin, Hazle Kimble, Ohio
It is addressed to:  Miss Effie Kimble
Bucyrus, Ohio



This morning in the deep dark recesses of my closet, I had a job to do ... tackle my laundry basket that is overflowing.  To me it seems the most appealing clothes have to be washed on "hand washable", "delicate" or dry cleaned so this required extra time and several piles.  While I was sitting on the floor separating the clothes, I was eye level to one of my drawers full of some of my antique treasures. Distracted, I opened the drawer and found a letter I wanted to use on a future blog. The letter was in a pile of old photographs I had rediscovered recently in another closet.  These future blogs are going to take some time so I thought I would post a few photographs today that I found while I work on the drafts of the others.

The three most interesting photographs are badly faded and foxed. I had my doubts that I could do my "magic" on them to help the images.  I apologize for the poor quality but I still thought they were worthy of sharing and that they still had a little life in them. These photos were known as cabinet cards, they reached their peak in the 1880s.  I later found out in my Googling, these photos are most likely over 100 year old!  I'd be faded and foxed, too, at that age!






Della Fox, (1870-1913), was also a popular performer
in the days of vaudeville.  Her bobbed hair became the
rage and was imitated by young girls all over America.




(Oops, forgot to crop this one)  Had no idea that
Weber and Field were referred to as "the mother of all
vaudeville teams".  Known as a "Dutch" act, there
was a lot of information about them on the web. 




Love this one!  When I was searching her name,
 I was getting a message about blocking popups, I avoid co$tly popup$.
I do think there is information about this actress out there.



I had no idea I would be able to find out anything about these mysterious people in the photographs.  I learned something today.  I have had these old pictures for years, on the back of one was as sticker that said, "3 for $1".  A little history for one dollar.  You can't put a price tag on history!

Back to the washing machine, I have my "delicate" and "hand washables" waiting to be "line dried".




8 comments:

Clint said...

So---now I know why the laundry didn't get done :)

Besides, I was gettin' used to that pile of laundry. It's so much easier to just buy new clothes each week than have to wash the dirty ones.

Oh, yeah---very interesting post!

Cindy Ellison said...

Thank you, Clint. Clint just did a Google search and could have possibly found this young girl's brother. He found a Kenneth E. Kimble, age 96 who was born on August 24,1911. His passed away on November 25, 2007. He was born in Bucyrus, the same address on the back of this postcard photo. Very interesting!

Franz said...

I have always been fascinated by the old photographs tell a story
Wonderful!

Ciao,a hug!

Shady Del Knight said...

These are marvelous photographs, Cindy. I wish I could hop in my hot tub time machine and visit those people in that time period. The web has an incredible amount of information available, yet it's difficult or impossible to authenticate all of it. My mother once showed me a diary that she had acquired somewhere along the line. It belonged to a man who lived at the turn of the 20th century. In fact the entries in the diary were from the first few days and weeks of the year 1900! It was fascinating to read about his daily life and to realize how much toil was involved compared to today. Thank you for a wonderful post, Cindy!

Cindy Ellison said...

Thank you, Franz. Hope you are getting lots of painting done, I need to see your latest work!I need to get busy painting!

Shady Del, thank you for stopping by. It is special that your mother shared an old diary with you, it made an impression on you. I love old diaries, was reading one of mine just yesterday.

Anonymous said...

once again, ((( cindy )))) your posts amaze me to no end!
Say, my grandma and great-grandpa were in vaudeville in Chicago.... until the flood, I had photos of them, in black-face, no less. But alas, the flood of 2010 washed away these photo menories. Perhaps my sis still has some copies. I'll find out.
Thanks for taking us into- and then out of, your closet
Oh, and Clint? Are you serious? Purchasing new clothes all the time is a great alternative to washing them?
Wow and lol....
:-)
HIS
patti

Nova said...

I love old pictures, and specially when somebody can tell you the story behind them

Thanks for sharing

Greetings
Petra

Mandy said...

Hello Cindy.
I did see your comment in guestbook Nova.
So, what nice Fotos here. Congratulations.
I'm coming back.
Greetings from Belgium.