Tag: antique photo

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Charles Baxter, in his vestments

Unfortunately for Mr. Baxter, he’s got too common a name for me to reliably track him down. Most photos are from the Winona, Minnesota area, so I’m fairly certain Charles hails from there. This photo of Charles, in his vestments, was taken in 1916 (as was one of him out of vestments), so my guess is he was born in the 1890s — he’s probably not around anymore, sadly. The back of the photo indicates he’s wearing his “vestments”, consisting of an unadorned white chasuble over a black alb or cassock, with a light-colored fringed stole with the Cross Pattée embroidered at the ends. Having the stole draped to the side would indicate that Charles hasn’t completed his ordination yet — it’s worn symmetrically by ordained priests & ministers usually. His book is rather thin, and is probably a prayer-book. Vestments are similar between the various Christian lines, so I can’t decisively identify his church. Still, I hope he continued his education, and got his stole moved to the center.

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18 Miles To Norfolk

We’re going to Norfolk! My guess is that these sailors were on the way to Norfolk Naval Base in Virginia, ready to work on the steel-clad steamships that dominated the US Navy in the earliest parts of the 20th century. Given the style of car and the uniforms, Norfolk was probably a short stop: World War I was probably the ultimate destination for these lads.

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Brick Building By the Railroad Tracks

The back of a nicely-made brick building, in an unknown town. Excellent brickwork, ball finial at the corner, backing the railroad — but no identifying signs on this site. I did my best, scanning and rescanning at highest resolution, using PShop tricks to try and coax out the words on the overhang, on the far right side, with no luck. It’s just not readable. I know I called it an ‘old brick building’ in the filename, but it was definitely not old at the time of the photo: taken in the 1920s or 1930s, it was probably 30 years old, at the most — if it still stands, it’s around its 100th birthday these days. [more]

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Minnesota Kaiser – 1947

My great-uncle (not the guy in the picture) had a Kaiser Frazer — he owned it until he needed to clear out his farmstead, at which time the Frazer moved out to my uncle’s farm, where it has sat for almost twenty years now, progressively and slowly turning into a pile of rusty dust. Kaiser wasn’t a big manufacturer, and there weren’t a lot around, so I was rather surprised to turn up a whole bunch of pictures of another Kaiser taken within twenty miles of where my great-uncle lived. How’d that happen?

Grandpa Vernon, as always, had the answer: there was a Kaiser dealer out that way, so there was ample opportunity for local farmers to buy ’em. In the post-war booming, accompanied by REA, improved roads and transportation, and new farming techniques, farmers did pretty good for themselves, plenty enough to warrant spending a bit on a nice new car.

So, as you might have noticed, I’ve been scanning and uploading more of my Early 20th Century Minnesota Farmland series — if I were more organized, I could point out the new ones better, but, sadly, there’s just so many of them. New images are primarily the last 1/4 of the Black Album, and all of the Red Album.

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Girls With Their Long Wieners

Yes, I realize this is going to result in a huge number of very inappropriate Google searches, but the image is just so darn amusing. I’ve started a category of odd and amusing photos, of which this is one of the initial members. These young ladies are a sunday school class from somewhere in central Minnesota — and they’re quite proud of their wieners. As would you, I guarantee.