Of course it was never talked about! But, piecing together it appears that my Dad was quite progressive and probably relatively wealthy until the financial crash in 1929. His money in the bank was lost but he kept the farm through the Depression.
He bought his first car in 1914, an Overland. It must have been one of the first cars in rural Brooking County, S.D. But, this post is about another of his early purchases; a Kodak Camera.
That camera is in my possession. (It's pictured below.) Open the case, slide the focus lens out, peer down through the aperture and squeeze the plunger on the cord to take the picture. Recently I was looking at the camera and puzzled over how it opened. After a bit of trial and error I decided to wait for Tom, my cribbage partner. Tom has a definite mechanical bent. When Tom and Anita came to play cribbage I presented the camera, with its dilemma, to Tom. Immediately intrigued he rose to the challenge of opening it.
As Tom and I puzzled, maneuvered, wondered, tried this and that with no success Anita went online. She soon discovered that there was a secret button on the side that opened it. It takes a woman.
This was long prelude to what I am going to write about. Because Dad was the owner of an early camera he's seldom on any pictures. One of summer's favorite times for me was when the relatives would gather at our farm on a Sunday afternoon. Uncle Oscar and Aunt Julia came with several of their eight children, Uncle John and Aunt Susie came with their family, Uncle Alfred and Ragna with theirs and Holters came with six kids. Before the afternoon was over they all lined up for Dad to take a picture. Day would say "Smile." When the picture was taken he'd say "Now resume your previous expression.." 😀
Every year, on our birthday, Dad would take a picture of each of his four children. Very often we'd be in front the large cottonwood tree in the yard. Both the child's and tree's growth was recorded.
Takk for alt,
Al
No comments:
Post a Comment