Sverige, The Travelers Collection

To recap, a few months or so ago, I bought an envelope of prints.  The dealer told me that they all came from the same source.  Going through the photos, I noticed that this family did a lot of travelling, so it's designated the travelers collection, and, of course, can be seen in total by clicking on travelers collection in the labels section at the bottom of the post.

Written on the back, "Tommarp-Sverige"  Sverige is what the Swedish call Sweden.  Tommarp is a small town on the very southern tip of the country.  In 2010, it's population was all of 284.  I think Tommarp must have been the ancestral home of our travelling family.  I can't think of any other reason why anyone would have gone there and taken this picture.  I'd love to know if that car is an early Volvo.

See The USA....

...In Your Chevrolet.  I always liked that ad campaign.  Too bad they don't use it anymore.  Anyway, the license plate is from Minnesota, the photo was purchased in California, so some how or another this image saw a bit of the USA.  I like the idea that it was taken in California, rather than being mailed to some friend.

Mission Boys

Written on the back, "Some of the stuff we work with: Remy and Florian and Michael-who, with Raphael the Novice, make a quartet that is hard to beat intellectually and spiritually-in India.  ASPS  22/8/53"

I'm not real big on missionaries.  Yes, I do understand that many of them provide health care, food, and education in countries where many people go without those things.  But the way I figure it, if someone wants to switch religions, they'll do it without outside interference.  

Anyway, I'd like to recommend a book.  Head Hunting In the Solomon Islands by Caroline Mytinger.  And no, it's not what you think.  It's a very vintage, probably out of print, travel book about two young American women who bum their way to the south seas, earning money painting portraits of the local colonial grandees so that they can also paint portraits of the native islanders.  (At least Caroline paints.  Her companion Margret plays the ukulele.)  The book has it's fair share of racial and ethnic insensitivity, par for the course for a book written in the 1930s and published in 1942, but it also has some interesting insights on the British colonials, and their odd sense that the islands and their peoples were property to be used and exploited as needed.   I'd check thrift shops and used book stores.  So much more satisfying than Amazon.  Remember, Jeff Bezos is not your friend.  

Two In the Country

A very battered print.  Mother and daughter from the twenties would be my best guess.

Romeo and Juliets

The woman on the left looks like she's having a good time.  The woman on the right looks like she'd rather be somewhere else.  From the twenties would be my best guess.

The Army Hospital Album 15

It's time to leave the army hospital album for awhile.  I wonder if the kid was happy to be visiting dad, or was he terrified seeing him in a hospital?

Click on army hospital collection in labels to bring up the lot, and look for more from this collection in the next three to four weeks.

The Army Hospital Album 14

My eyes hurt!  I was out riding my bicycle, got an eyeful of dust, and it took a couple of days for my eyes to flush out all that grit.  It's a good thing I wasn't in the army hospital.  All that second hand smoke would have made things worse.  Just think, way back in the 1950s, doctors and nurses would offer a smoke to a patient to make them feel better.  How things change.

Click on army hospital collection in labels to bring up the lot.