Another prompt by 52 Ancestors in 52 Weeks challenge. It's run by Amy Johnson Crow.
Information on the TopicThis week's theme is "Favorite Photo." This should be a fun week! Tell the story of a favorite photo -- who is in it, when and where was it taken, and why was it taken. Remember, it doesn't have to be a sepia-toned Victorian era photo. It could be a photo you took last week! (We are part of our own family history, after all.)
Back in 2014, my father and stepmother sent me a pile of pictures from his albums. These contained most pictures I had never seen before. Most of them were not dated, so I had to estimate the pictures based upon what was in the pictures.
One of them was of my grandmother who looked very young and happy. Its one of the few pictures I have of her that she's smiling in it. However, it wasn't until I started looking at certain aspects, or clues, of the picture which made it so unique and one of my loves.
My grandmother, Jean Schmitz. Credit: J. Fitzgerald
If you look at he picture, it looks very interesting because of Jean smiling. I wanted to know where the picture was taken. I knew it had to be either in Linden, NJ (lived in 1930) or in Manhattan, NYC (lived in 1934) because those were the areas she lived in when she was around this age.
However, once I magnified the picture in areas, it gave you clues to the year, location and even the year it was probably taken.
Area 1 - The Far Left Background
Credit: J. Fitzerald
The main clue was the car in this part of the picture. I'm thinking it must be around the model of a 1931 Pierce Arrow Model 41 or something around that age. Remember I'm not an expert but its around the 1930s.
The next clue was the house architecture. To me, it looks very similiar to the Hancock House, Lower Alloways Creek Township, NJ or the Thomas Cowperthwait House in Moorestown, NJ . Circa 1930s. Its got the same type of roofline and the sides are straight down and the Hancock House even has 3 windows across the top of the porch.
Area 2 - The Building Behind Grandma
The clue is right there in the picture - Community Center. I went searching for the Community Centers in or around Linden, NJ because my grandmother grew up in the area, her parents lived around that area and it wasn't too far from public transport so even if she lived in NYC, she could still get there.
It took some researching but in 2017, I was in Facebook and one of the posts there showed a building just like the one my grandmother was standing in front of. I contacted them and found out that they used to give classes for pregnant and new mothers and other housekeeping classes.
Then I visited the area in Google Earth. Then compared to what I saw against the picture. Wow! Bingo!
Credit: J. Fitzgerald
Credit: Google Earth
If you look at the way the road is, the roofline of the place behind my grandmother, the stairs, where the trees and sidewalk is - it all matches.
Further, if you look at the sidewalk, it matches the angles in the picture to what Google Earth shows.
Picture credit: J. Fitzgerald
If you look at the left side of the triangle part of the sidewalk in the picture (left) you can see the sidewalk has been straightened but its still fairly small. Its about the same length away from the building in the back as well.
At the bottom of the picture, you can see in the corner where it looks like the bottom was squared off like in the current picture, but now they know how to do curves better.
Picture on right credit: Google Earth
Area 3 - Grandma
The last area I looked for clues was at my grandmother. As I already mentioned, she was smiling and there aren't too many of these where she is smiling.
First clue is the clothing. The hat and hair do is the 1930s because it looks like this which references those in the 1930s. Then you have the skirt and belt (which is hard to see in the picture but you can see the circle of the clasp in the color photo below) which again are referenced in clothing patterns like these. Then you have the shoes she's wearing. If they had a bow on the toe they would be the flats worn in the 1930s like the shoe in this picture (last on right side). Could it be she asked for one to be made with no bow? That I will never know, but again the shoes were around in the 1930s.
The last clue is where she has her right and resting - on her lower back. Women do this when they have back spasms during pregancy like in this picture. My grandmother, when she was younger, was very skinny due to the conditions when she was growing up in Poland before coming to the US. She was always on the skinny side. If you increase the picture, you can see she does have a thickened waist.
If I was to put all these together, I would say this picture was taken April-June 1934 and taken at 605 S Wood Ave, Linden, NJ. She was probably there to get advice on her pregancy or for a checkup.
Sometimes pictures can tell you more about what's going on than what you thought. When I first looked at the picture I thought it was a nice one of my grandmother, but what I didn't realize is my father is in the picture as well - you just can't see him as he's still to be born. Its great to see what my grandmother looked like pregnant.
Credit: J. Fitgerald Colorization My Heritage
It wasn't until 2020 when My Heritage came out with the colorizing of photos. This was one of them that was brought to life with the new technology.
