Lillian's Photo Scrap Book, circa 1920

This is another collection from my uncle Walter. His mother probably collected and arranged the images. She appears in a great many of them and I suspect that she shot others. At this point there are empty mounting corners where photos used to be. That's all that's on some pages. Were the photos given away? Lost? The ones that remain seem more precious.

This small black volume is more of a scrap book than a straight photo album. Some of the prints have been trimmed or are arranged at jaunty angles. Some have writing or typing on them. The mounting corners actually glued in a lot of them. If prints couldn't be safely removed I scanned them on the page. Whenever possible I checked if they had writing on the back and scanned the backs of a few. The writing adds context and a sense of their original meaning.

The scrap book isn't in chronological order and the photos aren't grouped in any way that I can figure out. (Apparently, Grandma wasn't concerned with such things.) The dated ones are from 1918 - 1922. I tried to group them according to subject. There are several photos from an outing where some of the girls wear polka dot head scarves. My guess is that the shots from aboard a ship--possibly a ferry to the East Bay--are from the same trip. Some of the faces and clothing appear in both places.

There are a few shots of Lillian's brother, Hennie, in the army that are dated less than two weeks after the end of World War I. It wasn't until the COVID-19 pandemic struck a hundred years later suggested that I realized that the masks were probably to keep safe from the Spanish flu. If you look closely at the family sitting on the ground, "Photo_Album_009," Hennie is in uniform (on the far left side).

There are several shots described as "Burning Humboldt, Jan. 1922." Lillian and her brother, Fred, (and others in the family?) attended Humboldt Evening High School. Lillian is listed under "Stenography" in the "Graduating Exercises" program, dated 6/16/22. (The graduation program was tucked inside of her yearbook!) A 1/20/22 article in the Oakland Tribune describes the fire (see www3.gendisasters.com/california/9815/san-francisco-ca-hi...). In one of the outing photos one of the girls wore a hat with a letter H on it--for Humboldt?