Ethel Raebel

 

That's the name that's written on the back of this wallet sized photo.  Whenever I have a name on a photo, I do a quick Google search just in case I can find something out there.  I found two Ethel Rabel's, one married in 1907, and since it was rare for women to keep their maiden names back then, well, it's possible, but unlikely that the Ethel Raebel from Wisconsin is the woman in this picture.  The other Ethel Raebel, from South Dakota was married in 1940.  Anyway, the hair and clothes look like they could be from the 1930s, so a possibility. 

Veda & Cambell

 

There was a time when many people carried family pictures around in their wallets.  The type of photo labs that I used to work in was more about large industrial accounts, but all of them did a certain amount of over-the-counter personal work.  Anyway, we had this very old, beat-up wallet-size easel that we used so little, that sometimes it would get shoved away in some corner, and when we had to make a wallet-sized print like this shot of Veda and Campbell, we'd have to go searching for the thing.  

Dorothy

   

Well, it's a wallet-sized photo, and when I worked in photo labs, I hated printing that size.  You don't know how hard it is to dodge and burn an image that's this small.  So, she looks young, so there's a real probability that this is a school photo, and it's also been hand-tinted.  

Another Melvine Album Page

Since I've been complaining about antique sellers cutting up photo albums, I might as well continue with the theme.  Awhile back, I purchased an album page built around a little girl named Melvine.  I've found two more pages from that album, I'll be putting up both sides of one page now, and save the other one for latter.  Click on Melvine in labels at the bottom of the post to see the other page and read something about her home town, Buffalo, Wyoming.

This time, I took the time to look up Melvine and Buffalo, Wyoming.  What I found was about a Melvine not pictured on this page, but it's such a unique name, and since Buffalo is such a small place, they've got to be related.  That Melvine died in 2015 at the age of 106.  She was born in Verdel, Nebraska.  When she was 4 years old, she and her family moved to Idaho.  In 1919, in a pair of covered wagons, they moved to Wyoming.  Melvine began her work life at a young age, as a cook, and continued preparing food for a good portion of her life.  She even wrote a cookbook.  What was really fascinating, at her death, she held the world's record for the longest survivor of breast cancer.  She was diagnosed at the age of 49.  Quick math, 57 years survival.  She was one of five children, the mother of two, the grandmother of five,  she had 14 great grandchildren, and three great great grandchildren.  Of course, that count was at the time of her death, and there may be more of the great great variety by now.   Time to state the obvious, one of those many family members is the Melvine of this album.

The four wallet photos in the right hand column are labeled, "8th, 9th, 10th, 11th"  Clearly class photos.

Affectionately

I think my translation is correct, "For Mary Virginia, Affectionately Dora."

Stamped on the back of this wallet sized, hand tinted, portrait, "Las Flores 764, TELIF. 6683, TUCUMAN."

Tucuman is a province and city in Argentina.  

Elizabeth Newsberry

I swear!  I'm not obsessed with all things German.  I don't know whether it's coincidence, a German tendency to take lots of photographs, or easy access to really well made German cameras, but I keep finding pictures from Germany.

Crailsheim is a town in the German state of  Baden-Wurttemberg.  ( My, that sounds familiar.  Navigate back a few posts to The Pforzheim Album Collection for more photos from Baden-Wurttemberg.)  The city was pretty much destroyed during World War 2.  It was a major rail center as well as the location of a German airfield.  After a major bombing campaign, the American army over ran the town, only to be pushed back by a German counteroffensive.  After the Nazi surrender, Baden-Wurttemberg and Craisheim ended up in the American zone of occupation.  McKee Barracks, opened in 1946,closed in 1994, was built on the outskirts of Crailsheim.  But was Elizabeth Newsberry a war bride, or was she a dependent who joined her husband while on occupation duty?  There's no date on the photo, but the car looks old enough that I'm thinking  it predates the return of civilian government.

Crailsheim was the birthplace of Hans and Sophie Scholl, the brother/sister founders of The White Rose, a non violent anti-Nazi resistance movement.  They were arrested in 1943, found guilty of high treason, and executed by guillotine.  Hans was born in 1918, Sophie in 1921.

In 1934, Kodak bought Nagel Kamerawerks, a pioneer in 35mm photography.  From 1936 to 1966, Nagel built the Kodak Retina camera, one of the well built German cameras mentioned in the first paragraph.  I'm referencing the Retina because it was built in Stuttgart, the capitol of Baden-Wurttemberg, and because I own a Kodak Retina model IIIc, manufactured from 1954-1957.  I still use it.  It works perfectly.

The Pforzheim Album 13

The hidden picture.  A few posts ago I wrote that I had finished with the non real photo postcards.  I was wrong.  When I took out the top image for scanning, a wallet sized photo popped out.  Why was the second photo in this post hidden away?  I like the idea of some covert meaning, but the probable answer...It was too small to fit in the album pages mounts.  There is a photographer's stamp on the back.  "JOS. FIRNKES FOTOGRAF LAHR I. BAD.  KAISERSTRASSE 69"  Of course, when this photo was taken, the Kaiser was long gone.  Part of the treaty that ended World War 1.  In the group photo, take a close look.  They posed in the mud.

Wallet Photos

When I worked at the photo labs, I hated printing wallet photos.  It wasn't that they were harder to print than any other photo, it was, that when I was done printing, I had to spend time with a razor blade and  T-square trimming everything down to size.  The labs that I worked didn't really cater to that market, but every once in awhile....Let's just say that trimming out 100 wallet prints has to be one of the dullest jobs on earth.

Fun fact, credit cards are the size that they are because of wallet photos.  It didn't take long after the invention of photography for wallet makers to realize that people would want to carry photos of their family and friends around in their pocket.  When credit cards came along, it was obvious, that if they were made the same size as a wallet photo, there would be a ready made slot for them.  Today, as all those photos get transferred to smart phones,  all that's left in the wallet are credit cards and a driver's license, also the size of a wallet photo.