Recently, I made a trip out to Cushing, Oklahoma for a little mini family reunion. My grandpa grew up there and his brother, Uncle Mel, still owns property out there. While visiting at the house, we started flipping through some old family photo albums.
The world should be aware, I have a thing for old pictures. I can remember the exact moment I started falling in love with photography. My great-grandparents had just passed away, and I wanted to go to their house with my mom and grandmother and help organize all of their belongings. I was young, maybe about 11 or 12. Side note: You learn a lot about people when you go through all their stuff this way. We found photographs from trips all around the world, places that even my grandmother wasn’t aware they had ever visited. So cool.
Anyway, as we went through stacks and stacks of black and white photos, my imagination was running wild. I’d never spent that much time just looking at pictures, and each one seemed to have its one story. These pictures captured moments of another time, and these people–my family–had lived in a completely different world than me. I wondered what they were thinking in these moments. What was happening just before or after that photo was taken? Were they feeling happy in those moments, or were they feeling grumpy, bored…who knows. I wondered what they would think if they could see me gushing over these albums. Would they be surprised that I was so interested in their lives? Would they be amazed at the progress we’ve made, or appalled at how much we’ve changed? I just love that photos tell stories. And old photos have these secret stories we’ll never know, like some whispering secret code we’ll never crack.
I’ve been obsessed with photos <especially old photos> ever since this trip. Looking back, this is where my passion for photography began.
So while I was in Oklahoma not long ago, looking at more old family pictures, this passion only became more ignited. My uncle Mel still lives just down the road from their church <built in 1848!> and so we went to go visit. My great grandpa built the furniture for the church <pictured below> and donated that land it sits on. Pretty much all the relatives are buried there in the church cemetery, which used to be COVERED in wildflowers instead of grass <who let the wildflowers go?!>.
Another side note–I love love love cemeteries. I know. Weird.
My grandpa, great uncle, and great aunt were all there with their families, telling stories like, “This is where I’d ride my horse, Trouble, to school…well, we didn’t always make it to school…” and “Uncle Erich lived here with his family, and Diedrich’s side lived just a mile or two that way. Every once in a while, I’d play hooky and stay over there for the day, but Momma eventually found out.” I love hearing little stories like that, and being able to look at the land and the old house, and picturing that moment happening right there. It’s just plain cool to me.
Uncle Mel is a big time fiddle player. It’s the first thing I think of when I think of Uncle Mel <well, his fiddle and his cattle>. So, of course, we all enjoyed the concert at the end of the day. By the way, that last picture at the bottom–about 180 years of marriage between those 3 couples! Now THAT’s a picture that tells a story!
I do hope these photos tell stories that I’m unable to tell. I hope that someday, my great-granddaughter goes through my belongings and finds pictures like these and her imagination goes nuts with secret stories. Maybe that will never happen, but I can dream, right? At the very least, I hope you enjoy them today.
With joy, Lizard.
