Life in Sepia

I went into an antique store in Carrboro the other day, not looking for anything in particular, but just to browse. I don’t frequent antique stores, because, frankly, I don’t generally like old things. But, every once in awhile, I’ll pop into such an establishment, mostly in the hopes of finding a really good deal on something unique. To be honest, I hope to find an Antique Road Show caliber priceless work of art, which I could score for a nickel. No such luck this time around. This particular store was the size of a small closet, did not have any art, and was populated mostly by porcelain china - not something in which I have interest. I did a quick loop around, said hello to the merchant, and was walking out the door when a tin full of photographs caught my eye.


One of the first photographs I saw was of this fellow. I looked at the back of the photo for context clues – who he was, where he was, what town he was in, what year the photo was taken, etc. However, all I found was the curly cursive of a woman’s hand which read “Daddy at work.” It was not immediately clear to me what daddy did for work, however. On one hand, he appears to be wearing a white collar of a modern day Catholic priest, so that was certainly an option. However, it was a very old photo, and it was certainly possible that everyone wore big white collars to work back then. I tried to make out some of the book titles on his desk for clues, but to no avail.

Still, I was taken in by the photograph. I certainly like black and white photography and this particular photo had a unique sepia tonality that appealed to me aesthetically. Oddly though, what really drew me in was that I found myself identifying with the man in the photograph. Was he a lawyer? A writer perhaps? I have this silly dream of one day having a really sweet library with leather bound books. I suppose I always placed myself in a scene like this. Strange. I needed to find out more about this guy, so I kept leafing through the photos.


Here is our protagonist in a group photo, again sporting his big white collar. Apparently, he was quite the hit with the ladies! We also get our first glimpse of the family dog – an Irish Setter.

Here is his wife, presumably, teaching the dog to shake. I take it that she is the woman whose handwriting appears on the back of some of these photos.
On the back of this photo are the words “Mother and Dad.” You will note how men’s fashions have remained completely unchanged for quite some time. I’ve never, in my lifetime, encountered anyone wearing her outfit, however. He has a distinct jaw line and big ears. She has bags under her eyes. But notice the way she leans towards her husband. They have been married a long time, I suspect, but still, if you glance at it quickly, you may mistakenly think they were holding hands. I think that’s neat.

It occurs to me that this family is quite wealthy. From some of the other photos I gathered that this family goes on vacation quite a bit and it appears that they even had several horses. Also, a lot of these photos are candid snapshots, taken at a time when only those in the aristocracy would have had cameras. Plus, they had an automobile! A convertible no less! Check out the fashionable headwear. The guy in the back is wearing a leather Indiana Jones hat, while the driver is ready for safari. Notice any other clues in the photo? Take a closer look.



Find it? New York license plates. That’s a big clue. Also, it gives you the year: 1919, suggesting that license plates used to be issued yearly and proving that these photos are nearly a hundred years old. We’re getting somewhere now.


Here is some extended family, perhaps. You’ll again notice the varied headgear. It appears to me that the guy to the left is expressing some concern that the camera may steal his soul, while the little boy appears in desperate need of an outhouse. I would also like to point out the dirt road, the high socks, and the older boy’s kerchief. Sharp.

This house features prominently in many of the photos. I take it to be their residence. The two-tiered wrap-around deck is pretty neat. Also, the type of trees will remind us that we’re in New York, where deciduous trees dominate, as opposed to this part of North Carolina, where evergreens have run amuck.

Here’s another photo of a house. I’m not sure if it’s the same house as the previous photo, only from the rear and after Autumn. They do both have twin chimneys and two-tiered wrap-around porches though. Here’s the best clue so far though: on the back are the words “Taken November 10, '19 Peekskill, NY"

Here’s the strange part. I’m in an antique store in Carrboro, North Carolina looking at these photos taken in Peekskill, NY. According to google maps, that is a distance of 556 miles, which, by modern conveniences, it would take an approximate 9 hours and 23 minutes to traverse. I have no idea how long it would take by the standard of 1919, nor can I fathom a guess as to how these photos ended up so far from home. However, you may remember that I, too, grew up in New York, only a 30 minute drive from the scene of this photo! Not only that, but some of my high school friends lived in Peekskill, so I would often go up there to hang out and rouse rabble. I knew I felt a strange connection with our protagonist. We’re practically neighbors, though admittedly 100 years removed.

Here’s the final picture I’ll leave you with. It’s the latest one I could find. It has a stamp from the Westchester Photo Finishing Company dated May 8, 1942. On the back is written “Bernard, Bobby, and Richard.” The boys are all grown up, and the young contemplative Bernard from photos previous is now a proud papa, his face lightly weathered by time.

One more note of interest. I found a pair of photo jackets belonging to two separate now-defunct photo studios in Kingston, NY - Pennington Studio and Safford & Scudder. My guess is that "Safford" is John Milton Safford and "Scudder" is Robert Scudder Newton, each prominent medical doctors from Ohio that moved to New York in the late 1800's and co-wrote a rather famous work "A Practical Treatise on the Diseases of Women." Admittedly, I have no guess as to why their names were used for a photo studio.

Finally, one of the sleeves carried the slogan “Pictures taken NOW will be priceless 25 years from now.” I found that pretty ironic because nearly 100 years later, they sat in a tin box with a sign that read “Photos: 50 cents each!” And that was before the merchant took a liking to me and told me she’d sell them to me at half price! Considering that the photos cost 6 cents a piece to develop back in 1919, and factoring inflation, I’d say I made out like a bandit at 25 cents each.

Oh, I also got a last name off the sleeve – Chappell. Bernard Chappell is the man in the photo.

This whole episode reminds me of a Jack Gilbert poem entitled “Relative Pitch,” in which a man stumbles upon a ruined mansion in Virginia. He tries to imagine the way the house used to be and restores it, wondering if he “discovered maybe the kind of life the house was.” He concluded, “Strangers leave us poems to tell of those they loved, how the heart broke, to whisper of the religion upstairs in the dark, sometimes in the parlor amid blazing sunlight, under trees with rain coming down in August on the bare, unaccustomed bodies.”

And other times, it seems, the poems that strangers leave us are in sepia.