History and a Home for a Photo from my Collection

This portrait of a young man was one of the first things I posted on this blog in 2009. I've had it since I lived in California. When I was scanning it I realized that the name on the back was rather unique and so I googled it with the town and soon found out about this young doctor's family and life. You can read the original post here.

When I made the post I had uploaded the photo to Flickr. About a year and a half later I got a comment from someone who was related to him. This doctor, Murdoch Bannister, was his great grand-father.

Can you imagine finding photos of your relatives on the web? I keep expecting it to happen to me sometime.

Anyway, I responded to him in a Flickr comment and asked if he would like the photo. As I wrote about in the post a couple years ago when I sent a whole box of postcards back to the family - as much as I love these treasures I would most likely always give them up to have them be with the family again.

It took a long time between messages, but Murdoch Bannister's great grandson, Joe, and I finally connected and this portrait is going back to him and his family in Texas.

As a trade I asked Joe if I could post some of his history about Murdoch Bannister and his legacy. He sent a wonderful account. I hope you enjoy it. And I am glad to send the photo home with his family.

Dr. Bannister had a medical practice in Ottumwa, Iowa for many years; his father (Dwight) was an army colonel who served during the Civil War, and his son (also Dwight, named after his grandfather) was a newspaper publisher and the professor of large animal surgery in the veterinary department at Iowa State in Ames. Dr. Bannister's wife Keota was the daughter of Judge Morris Williams, and was one of the first woman licensed to practice law in Iowa. 

It's not surprising that a picture of Murdoch Bannister ended up in California. Dr. Bannister's mom (Lavinia) was the niece of the prominent abolitionist attorney and newspaper publisher Francis Murdoch, who moved to Santa Clara County, California in 1847. 

The Murdochs and the Bannisters remained close through at least the late 1960s, with cross-country trips and letters, so there was a fairly robust Iowa-California exchange between the descendants of Colonel Bannister's kids and in-laws. 

My mother and aunts remember waiting in my great-grandfather's office for their dad to close up the newspaper and take them home after school. My aunts would pass the time by grossing each other out with pictures from Grandfather Bannister's medical references.
One of our bits of family history is an entertaining letter that Dr. Bannister sent to his family toward the end of his residency (around 1895). 

My great-grandfather's residency had included care of patients in a hospital burn ward in Philadelphia, and the emotional toll of treating severely burned patients was evident in his description of the experience (third-degree burns were effectively a slowly enforced and torturous death sentence prior to the discovery of antibiotics and the development of skin transplants).
Dr. Bannister wrote very movingly of one of his patients, a vivacious teenage girl who had been burned over 70 percent of her body when her voluminous skirt was set ablaze by a stray kitchen spark (this would have been about five years after the date that Murdoch's picture was taken). She fought to live for a full year in almost inconceivable pain before succumbing to sepsis. 

His experiences weren't all grim. He spent a lot of time socializing with his fellow doctors and medical students, and he had a sometimes witty sarcasm. 

He served as an Army doctor in WWI, and he was appalled by the inhuman conditions of trench warfare. He subtly subverted the military bureaucracy by sending soldiers home at their request, by signing medical discharges from service with diagnoses of horrible-sounding diseases with long Latin names.

If anyone had bothered translating the diseases, they would have found that he was recommending honorable discharges for things like untreatable combat-related "severe chronic hangover. 

If you've regularly hunted through stacks of antique pictures at vintage stores and estate sales, I'm sure you've looked at stacks and mounds of photographs of these long-dead and long-forgotten strangers.

So many are nameless and lost, staring out at us in the fullness of youth and hopefulness, that they cannot help but remind us of our own transience and fragility, and of yawning oblivion. I'm glad you found my great-grandfather, and I'm glad that I can tell you he had a good life and was well-loved, and that he is still remembered fondly.

It Took Longer than Expected

Today I am sharing one of the many quirky and odd photos I have with you. Unfortunately there is no information on the back of this snapshot. I'm guessing it's from the late 1920's. And to me it looks like a woman, but who can really tell. Those feet are pretty narrow and small.

I wonder how this went for her/him. Maybe they became a famous magician. Maybe they struggled for 15 minutes and then had to ask the photographer to help them out. If it is a woman it makes it way more interesting. A short Google search doesn't bring up any women escape artists from this time.

I'm posting this today as part of the missing something theme with the blog Sepia Saturday. In this case a face is missing. As well as an outcome.

Visit the Sepia Saturday blog and you can find lots of other blogs posting vintage photos today.

Reward of Merit

I'm eternally charmed by the fact that over a hundred years ago children and adults alike were thrilled with decorative papers as gifts and awards in the late 1800 and early 1900s.  I guess it isn't that different than kids today getting stickers, but I still find it remarkable that pretty cards and cut-outs were treasured so much that children and adults kept them for their whole lives. Today you can still find them and often in great condition because of how much they were treasured.

An Award of Merit was one of the first pieces of ephemera I got. I found it at an old bookstore in Oakland in the late 80's and kept it displayed in my house for a long time.

Most Rewards of Merit are about 3.5 x 5, some are smaller like a business card and some are larger like a 5x7 size. This one below is large and a unique image for a Rewards of Merit card. It just says the name Ethel on the back.

I listed some of my collection of Reward of Merit cards in the Etsy shop today.

college days

I love these two postcards. I didn't get them together, but they are connected in my mind by content and the image of the Gibson girl style on the cover. They both look like college girls to me.

On this card above, the sender wrote the caption at the bottom. I love her message inside. This was written in June 1911. Sent from Adele in Cleaveland to a Mr Stanlee Bates in Garretsville Ohio.

Mercy I thought college fellows always kept things going. 
Don't talk about the weather. I am simply melted. 
Am off for the day on a picnic at the beach, to bad you aren't here to go along. 
Was real glad to hear from you.

Adele

This one above was also sent from Cleaveland Ohio in May of 1908 to a Mr Roy Davidson in Cedar Rapids, Iowa. It says on the front:

Don't say anything but Frank is almost engaged. 

He has the diamond ring but has not given it to her yet. 

She is a lovely girl.

Dear Cousin, this will show you what 

I am doing nowadays. [undecipheral word, looks like "Diging"]

Your cousin, Mary D

Well, I just realized I posted this top postcard last year about the same time! Oh, my. I am running out of memory about these things. Oh, well, let's call it an encore. The bottom one is new.

summer traditions

I hope your summer has been good. August is so close and it seems hard to believe. I have done some summery stuff, but never as much as I want to. Right now I really need to buckle down and work on my zines for the zine sympoisum. Last year at this time I was doing my zine about postcards.

Last week I got to help out two different couples who were planning a wedding very soon and they wanted a guest book of all vintage postcards that people write messages in and then place in a mailbox. It was so fun to pick out ones that were pretty and appropriate. One of the couples wanted 160 with a general theme of travel. I got a mix of mid-century and early century, photographs and illustrations. I think the collection was a nice variety of pretty and kitschy. Here is picture I took before I sent them off.

If your interested in this service, you can find out more on this Custom Vintage Post Card for Weddings Etsy listing.

My garden is blooming like crazy. You, too? I am in love with my hydrangea bush this year. It was double in size since last year and has a ton of big firework-like pink blooms. This plant started as a potted blue version from Trade Joe's. When I put it in the ground it bloomed the next summer as pink.

I've been admiring all the hydrangea bushes I've seen all around town, too. Some are quite big. When I was kid we had a blue one on the side of the house and I kind of always thought of it as a big weed. It didn't seem like a flower to me because it was a bush. Now, I see the appeal of them.

I recently got this vintage postcard from 1911 because of the hydrangea bush. Lovely! 

This postcard was sent in Jan 1911 from Ann in Anaheim, California to her mother in Minneapolis, Minnesota. Most likely this is the house she lived in, in fact probably where Ann lived before she moved...or maybe she is just on vacation.

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I recently bought a photograph on Ebay, which I seldom do. I like double exposure photos and this one just looked too neat to pass up. It shows a typical summer day for some.

This beach looks a little too crowded for my tastes, but it sure makes a neat picture.

What are some of your favorite summer traditions? I hope you can enjoy more of them before the summer is over. 

Vintage Postcards for Weddings

Something new that I've noticed in the last few years is that couple's are trading traditional wedding guest books for unused vintage postcards. Most often they are used in place of guest books, but I've also seen them used as place cards and RSVP cards, too. I think it's an awesome idea and such a fun way to use vintage postcards.

from the website diynetwork.com, found on pinterest

A few days ago I got an email on Etsy from someone looking for vintage postcards for her wedding.  Through my postcard club I do have access to lots of postcards. She told me the regions she wants and I'm going to gather them for her.

from the website globaltheknot.com, found on pinterest

From weddingphotography.com, found on Pinterest

I don't know why it never occured to me to offer this on Etsy before, but now I have a listing! 

It's really just a placeholder to get people's attentions, since every order will be different. If you're looking for a large lot of vintage postcards, email or contact me on Etsy and let me know how many you need, the regions and your due date. Ideally I'd have a couple months notice to get them all together and to you.

Click on this to see the Etsy listing

I've started a Pinterest board with lots of vintage postcard wedding inspiration.  

Here's a pretty image of vintage postcards being used as place cards. 

from the blog BridalHood, found on Pinterest

So many things that you can do with vintage postcards! I'll leave you with this great pin from a couple who used them for their RSVP cards.

I'm so glad people are using and appreciating the vintage postcards! If you are getting married soon, Congratulations!

beach weather

Everyone in Portland knows (although they seem to forget each year) that summer doesn't really start here until July 5th. Although we have had many nice sunny days we also have had a record amount of rain, which I loved. A couple days of hot sun and then a couple of rain is perfect for me. But, soon it will be dry till October.

In honor of summer almost coming to Portland I wanted to share with you these neat old beach photos that I have had for a very long time. I got both of these when I was still in California, so that's over 12 years ago.

This one says L.A. Beach 1930

Hope you can have some time this summer to relax and enjoy the day like these people seem to be doing.