Showing posts with label vintage photo. Show all posts
Showing posts with label vintage photo. Show all posts

Tuesday, December 25, 2007

More Unknown Soldiers


More unknown soldiers. On the reverse, the caption "Ft. Benj Harrison 9-24-10. Getting ready for inspection. Frank." Postmarked 9/27/1910
This is about actual size as displayed on the blog. Clicking on the photo enlarges it. The preserved detail on these old photos can be impressive.
How many of these men went to their deaths in unknown battles?


Sunday, December 09, 2007

Vintage Photo. Brothers?

I don't know who they are. The photo was in Emma Herrman's collection from Quincy, Illinois. They look like brothers.

Friday, December 07, 2007

Elephant Ear vintage photo

I think this would be Colocasia esculenta. no details on the location of the photo, or the lady in it. Probably from 1920s, I'm guessing.
Posted by Picasa

Saturday, March 17, 2007

Unknown Soldier 1907

There is no identification on the photo. It was taken in San Francisco, probably 1907. Look into his eyes. It's haunting.

I don't know why I've been posting these photos. Some are at least 100 years old. I dont know the people in them, not even their names. They do something to me.

The soldiers, in some of the photos, may not have survived another year after their photos were taken. Or they may have lived 65 years more. No way to know. I like the photos of people with their favorite shrub, or in their garden, because they remind me of... me. Actually, the same with the soldiers, too, since I was one (over 30 years ago).

To some extent, I look at these and think, their lives were not so different from our lives today. Then I think, yes they were, it's a different world entirely now. Then I think, what about tomorrow? If we waste the gift of this green earth, who will be there to remember those who went before? Will it matter?

Nothing to do with gardening, maybe a little about being greener - a protest against the Iraq war is planned for downtown Portland tomorrow. I wonder if an old veteran like me should be there?
Posted by Picasa

Monday, March 12, 2007

Church Ladies (unidentified place and date)

Probably Quincy, Illinois, 1920's or 30's. I'm only guessing that it's a church.
Posted by Picasa

"Of all the things I've lost, I miss my mind the most" - Mark Twain, via thinkexist.com

Thursday, February 08, 2007

In the veggie garden

Who is this lady? Early 1900s, probably about 1910. Posted by Picasa

Friday, February 02, 2007

353 year old fig tree in Brittany (1610-1987)















From a post on the gardenweb fig forum, this fig tree was planted in the Brittany region of France at the religious order of the Capuchin (a Franciscan order) and apparently survived until the community needed a parking structure (ouch!).

The automatic translation from the French is difficult to read but here is a link.

Apparently, it wasn't a delicious fig although the author may have been biased ("Herbaceous and little sweetened savour these fruits, made us find them hateful by comparing them with our excellent figs South") .

From the photos, it looks like it was grown on a massive arbor. The Winkler Mission Grape vine at Davis California is a similar, but much, much younger, grape version of the same concept (covering a 60 X 60 foot arbor)



Posted by Picasa

(Some comments on using old photos. I am not a lawyer, but I did look up copyright law in Wikipedia. According to that source, works published before 1923 are all in the public domain. In addition, in most countries, if the author has been dead more than 70 years, the work is in the public domain. All works created by the US government are in the public domain. So these photos should be OK to post.)

Sunday, January 28, 2007

Nice Hydrangia

What a large hydrangia. Postcard mailed Dec 25, 1938 from Berkeley, California.