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August 15, 2007 |
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Found in the Walls
FOUND by Darren Garcia
in San Diego, California
I was taking down the lathe and plaster in my house (built in 1927) and found this photo. It was held in the walls with a nail. A really old lady was walking by my house last year and said she used to play with the girls that lived here in the 30's. Sadly, I couldn't find the picture to see if she recognized any of them.
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We collect FOUND stuff: love letters, birthday cards, kids' homework,
to-do lists, ticket stubs, poetry on napkins, telephone bills, doodles -
anything that gives a glimpse into someone
else's life. Anything goes...
Wow. Found. So pure :) it's nice. Ive always wanted to find something in the walls of an old house or something, that someone deliberately put there so someone could find it in the future. I've always been tempted to do this, but afriad that someone wouldm't appreciate it as much as I know I would.
Uh, someone correct me if I'm wrong, but I don't think these ladies are sporting 30s (or even late 20s) fashion...
Finally! An excuse to tear down the plaster in my funky old house and remodel from top to bottom - just to find a "find."
Carolyn is right - the clothing is more in keeping with the 1890's. Perhaps the old lady played with the children of one of these women.
Wow this is the coolest find. And it is sad that the really old lady didn't get to see the photo. Maybe one of these ladies was the mother of the girls she played with. Sure makes you wonder why it was hidden in the wall.
Good find. Some of those women look so severe.
makes me wanna churn butter...
Now this is a true find.
why what could be more sporting than a photograph taken at the tea party of the gathering of dear friends? ah a memento for the bonds that hold one to another. life is but one passing memory and for something to capture a time that will always be cherished is priceless.
ahh creepy. it reminds me of the pictures of dead people that relatives would take back then. they would position a person's corpse, dressed and all, then take a picture, and have death books.
you can see the stands behind their heads to keep them from moving becasue of the long exposure.
I love that the one in the top left managed to keep a little smile on her face, despite the long exposure. She looks so sweet.
i wish i could find something like that in the walls of my house too..i tore down part of my living room and found a bunch of old newspapers but nothing great...i tried to take down part of the newspapers and they just tore into pieces..how did u manage to get that picture out so preserved?
I LOVE how each one of these women are unique in their beauty - each personality shines through each face - in contrast to the homogeneity girls attempt today.
I was thinking the same thing, Reminiscing. L, I don't see anyone looking severe, there's a softness about them all. Normally in pictures like this everyone *does* look severe, so this was a nice surprise. They look like they'd be FUN to be around - kinda mischievous, when you look in their eyes.
CAROLYN, IT HAS TO BE EARLY 1900S
I think people hid things in walls all the time-like a time capsule. Maybe it was good luck? Maybe they assumed their homes would stay in the family forever? Cool Find.
really nice find. I agree with "tin foil"- I always think I would appreciate things like this more than anyone else I know!!
I love, love the middle girl on the bottom row. Her expression is just too funny! Let's get this over with for Christ sake.... Great find. And yes Reminiscing - they are beautiful. And they look content, don't they?
The nice lady in the middle of the front row looks like what would happen if Sandra Bullock got beat with a wet chain.
I MEANT 1900-1910. AFTER ALL, "EARLY 1900S" COULD BE INTERPRETED AS ANYTHING UP TO, SAY, THE EARLY 1930S. CARRY ON.
It looks like the two women on the left, sitting and standing are sisters, and the other two in the front row also, then the other one standing in the back seems solo. I wonder if they were cousins. Maybe just friends. Though, friends weren't often photographed together in those days when pictures were planned and few and far between. I wonder if the one in the middle is wearing a darker color to signify anything, or just coincidence? So many questions. I love old photos.
notice that there's only one women wearing black and also that she's the only one not smiling and she has some wierd dracula looking neck band around her neck
she looks pissed off
YEAH, THANKS
This is my idea of a perfect find. We can make up our own stories of who they are, what their relationships are, what the occasion is, and why some of them are smiling. Perfection. I love it.
MY IDEA OF A PERFECT FIND
http://foundmagazine.com/find/1524
OH! I love this find!
I really enjoy old pictures & the story of how it was found is just too cool.
It really makes you wonder about all of the times they spent in that house - the laughter, the tears, the hardships, the parties.
I bet these chicks knew how to be rebellious once in a while and have some fun. Thanks for such an interesting find.
What a lovely old photo. They are all unique and beautiful, and if they could speak, I bet they'd all have fantastic stories to tell. I love the difference in hairstyles & fashion too.
Beautiful little grain of historic sand.
Photographs are my favorite kind of find. Clothing to me looks like the 1910's. Perhaps the little girls that the lady played with were the children of these ladies? Or another faimly entirely. Unless you home has had only one owner, it's hard to know the history.
The reason that they all look so 'severe' and serious is because this was probably taken with a pinhole-type camera. That means that the exposure time for an indoor photograph would be well over an hour, and that's how long they had to sit perfectly still.
It would hurt to smile for an hour, so people would try to pick comfortable facial positions while still looking formal.
The girl on the lower left looks like this girl I went to school with and with whom I now work. :)
Ah, and that reminded me: we were tearing down a wall in my old house (built in the 1920's as well) and found a bunch of stuff: the arm of a doll, an old (water-damaged, unfortunately) newspaper clipping, and a postcard from Niagra Falls. It was pretty neat...I have the postcard somewhere, I think.
They are a coven of good witches. Their picture was put in your wall to protect your house from evil spirits. Congratulations on removing it. You are entering a world of pain, Darren Garcia, a world of supernatural pain.
At first glance I thought it was a group of men at one of those old-time picture booths you see at the Fair. Ya gotta admit, a couple of 'em do look like men in drag.
THIS PICTURE WAS TAKEN BACK WHEN EVERYTHING WAS BLACK AND WHITE. THEN AN AMAZING THING HAPPENED WHEN TED TURNER FOUND A SCIENTIFIC FORMULA TO TURN THE WHOLE WORLD TO COLOR. AFTER TED TURNER PERFORMED THIS HEROIC DEED TO ALL MANKIND, SOME PEOPLE WISHED THE WORLD WAS STILL BLACK AND WHITE SO THEY INVENTED BLACK AND WHITE FILM TO RECREATE THE WAY THINGS LOOKED IN THE OLD DAYS. THAT IS WHY TODAY SOMETIMES YOU STILL SEE BLACK AND WHITE PHOTOGRAPHS.
DID YOU SHIT THAT OUT OR STEAL A THIRRD GRADER'S BOOK REPORT?
Toast, the "wierd dracula looking neck band around her neck" is perhaps a large hair bow.
Love this find.
Bottom right is Jimmy Carr.
I hope I find something like this in my 1928 bungalow.
My grandfather had built his house in the early 1940's. After he died and my grandmother moved out, the house was actually bought by a friend of my aunt's. They moved in and promptly started remodelling... and found some items stuck in the bathroom walls. These included many childhood items of an uncle who died before I was born, like his Boy Scout ID card. No on in the family had any idea grandpa stuck this stuff in there, but there it was, like a little gift from beyond the grave (two graves, in this case).
I think we can safely call these young strapping beauties "handsome women." Great specimens. Great wall find.
we never found anything this neat when we opened the walls in our house--an old pair of gotch (ew), a few playing cards, scrabble tiles, and a smoke detector cover; mind you, we didn't open any of the original walls, so who knows what's behind the lathe and plaster. We did find a tiny little cross pendant, very plain, very old-looking, behind a baseboard though.
Salt, I thought the B&W thing was funny yesterday, but today it's just redundant.
i don't think it's SALT that keeps posting that shit.
Maybe it could be the FOUND Softball team.
IT WASN'T FUNNY YESTERDAT
and no, it wasn't funny yesterday. whoever is impersonating should get a better sense of humor to properly emulate SALT.
i would actually like to retract that statement. SALT cannot be emulated, he is one-of-a-kind.
The vintage floorboards of my apartment sport a number of inviting slim gaps into which I am inspired by today's find to slide the following:
A photo of Jhumpa Lahiri
A quote from Andre Gide—“If one desires to discover new lands, one must consent to stay a very long time at sea.”
A promotional postcard for Pilobolus performance company
A matchbook from Hell’s Kitchen eatery in Minneapolis
A sticker of Snoopy as Joe Cool
Enjoy, future, XXOOOO
I think by the time this photo was taken it wasn't necessary to wait an extented time for the picture to be taken. That flash powder stuff was in use for photos by then.
I also thought that maybe a couple of them were sisters and perhaps the rest cousins. What a great find!
delani in mesa:
What stands behind their heads?
They all have the same nose. I think they are all related. Probably all sisters. They didn't have good birth control back then, did they.
YOU'RE WRONG
Old thing. I hate old things. I want all new things. New things will make me happy.
I want founds so new they haven't even been lost yet.
YEA, IT TOTALLY WASN'T FUNNY YESTERDAT!
YOU KNOW, EVEN THOUGH I AGREE THAT IT WASN'T FUNNY YESTERDAY, THAT WASN'T ME WHO POSTED "IT WASN'T FUNNY YESTERDAT." I DON'T MAKE SPELLING ERRORS.
Here SALT goes again blaming his own error on the imposter. How queenvenient!
Not sure how anyone is getting men from this picture. They are ALL women. Mannish women, yes. But women nonethless. Not a man in sight. Sorry.
This picture is not vintage at all. It is leftover from a casting call for the movie adaptation of Willa Cather's O, Pioneers! They were going to turn it into a musical called O! Pioneers!
OH, DON'T YOU, SALT IN THE SAT?
ALSO, WHILE WE ARE ON THE TOPIC OF SPELLING ERRORS, IT IS IMPOSToR
WHOEVER IS REPOSTING MY POST FROM YESTERDAY, JUST KNOCK IT OFF.
JUST TO BE CLEAR, I MAY NOT MAKE SPELLING ERRORS (THANKS TO SPELL-CHECK, I COULDN'T DO IT ON MY OWN), BUT I DO HAVE INCREDIBLE LAPSES IN LOGIC AND PROPER GRAMMAR USAGE.
dick in a box, that is the funniest comment I have seen in an age. Thanks for giving me a laugh and brightening my day!
Hyacinths - I love that idea. I know of a stairway in my 110yr old home that I too could leave some tidbits of time behind. Great idea.
Writer-Rejected - Your comment hit it on the head.
This is a great photo - I can not imagine sitting still for an hour just to take a picture. no way.
Looks as if the lower left and upper right ladies could have brackets behind them to hold their heads still. Might be something else though. I think this is bright natural daylight, not flash, so they probably had to hold still for a few minutes, not hours! I guess the photographer was a friend or relative, as they mostly have very natural smiles. Love the upper left girl’s twinkly direct gaze at the camera – she must have been lots of fun.
I would think the one in the middle is in mourning, hence the black dress, the strange black bow in her hair, and the locket round her neck, which probably contains a photograph or perhaps a lock of hair from her deceased husband.
Great pioneering spirits! Would be wonderful to know their stories.
Great find!
I think they are sisters.
You can almost tell by looking at them too, which sister took on which 'role' too:
Back Row (L to R)
"Pretty/Cute One " and "Funny/Adventurous One"
Front Row (L to R)
"Motherly/good cook One", "Homely Awkward One", and "Smart/Responsible One"
Kind of reminds me of Little Women.
Writer-Rejected: You cracked me up too w/your comment "Handsome" women...that pretty much says it, and we don't use that phrase much these days.
I think what you see behind their necks are bows in their hair, tied at the nape of the neck. Why would they need stands to hold their heads up. Humans usually walk around all day holding our heads up, even for an hour at a time.
The one in black reminds me of Jerry O'Donnell/O'Connell...
If you look real close to the chick in the front row on the left, it looks like there is a tiny arm throwin' some devil horns coming out of her neck. ROCK!
I forgot to add that her sister in the upper right corner has on a bum set of Mickey Mouse ears. NOT ROCK!
That man in the middle doesn't look very happy. Someone put a bow in his hair. What did people have against smiling back then?
Turbo - You're right! It looks like a rockin' demon hand. Those ladies obviously knew how to party! WooHoo!
While this is one of the coolest finds I've seen, (and I feel kinda bad to say this) the first thing I thought of when I saw it was "Got Milk?" Look at the woman on the top left and the bottom left and middle... total milk-stashes! Gotta love bad lighting.
Just think - 100 years from now, we'll all look as strange as these lovely ladies!
By the way, the one at top right looks like Matt Kenseth (NASCAR #17).
HOW DOES FLOYDTHECAT happen TO KNOW THAT I AM IN THE DFW AREA?
actually, everyone is correct this time. according to the columbia guide to standard american english, both spellings are acceptable:
http://www.bartleby.com/68/64/3164.html
sorta like "grey" or "gray".
suffice it to say, she just does.
I WAS UNAWARE.YOU THINK YOU KNOW MY SECRETS
But we all know Floyd is wrong, anyway. You REALLY live and desperately work out in Lubbock.
Are you a juicer? You sure seem like it.
I WAS REFERING TO HIM CALLING ME 'SHE'
KEEP UP.
I THINK YOU LIVE IN LUBBOCK SEEING AS NOT MANY PEOPLE ARE FAMILIAR WITH THAT PART OF TEXAS... UNLESS THEY LIVE IN TEXAS
Sent a piece of stereo gear down there once for repair at a specialised shop, that's all. Love the name, but wouldn't want to live within 500 miles of where BOOSH was born.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/George_W._Bush
EDUCATE YOURSELF. TELL ME WHERE HE WAS BORN
Given your locale and obvious ethnocentricity, I'm not surprised at your assumption that I'm an American.
My guess is that you didn't know that the Prime Minister of India is Manmohan Singh, much less where he was born.
Nope, but I bet I could look up where he was born on wikipedia... in this age of instant gratification. Bet you don't know where I was born... and try looking that up on the internet. Oh, and if we're going for trivia, I bet you CAN look up who the president of Israel is and where he was born.
YOU'RE ASSUMING THAT I ASSUMED YOU WERE AMERICAN. THE WAY YOU SPELLED 'SPECIALISED' MIGHT HAVE HINTED TOWARDS YOU LIVING ELSEWHERE
FOOL
Geez, are you some bitter retired guy or woman with nuttin better to do with your pension?
This is a wonderful find, but they are all sooooooooo serious. I wonder if the photo was taken after some sort of calamity. Or maybe in the middle of the dust bowl.
And that poster was right about the sign of the devil coming out from behind that one woman. You should have an observation of the day prize.
And that salt poster sure got faced!
NEITHER, I'M A GOD
I love this photo… the Devil horns sign could be that of a ghost. Maybe the photographer caught something supernatural by accident! LOVE this FIND!
The clothes look so uncomfortable ! I guess they just were used to it , but imagine , no jeans , tank tops , wedges , or flip flops .
Worse yet Nikki, imagine no washing machines!
I think they're all sisters. I have 4 sisters and we 5 all look quite different. I wonder what their names might be? No Brittanys or Parises in this group. (Please don't judge my plurals. Thank you.)
How uncomfortable those women look with those high collars, I'd be choking on my own dresses.
SALT, I'm sorry to inform you, you do make spelling errors. Hay is for horses. Check it out at www.myspace.com/saltinthesea
Concerning the found item... Old photos creep me out. I can't explain it.
I know someone who looks strikingly similar to the woman in the lower right, perhaps this woman has been reincarnated (!) (right).
Hurrah for these women and whatever their connection was, sister, cousins, the multiple wives of one polygynous man, kinitting circle, the first feminists, whatever.
I think women's fashions often are uncomfortable. I personally hate square toed shoes and super pointy toed shoes. Ugh. I would never wear them.
THAT'D BE A REAL NICE BURN, WINDY, IF I HAD REALLY BEEN THE ONE TO POST THAT COMMENT AND IF I SPELLED IT 'HAY' ON ACCIDENT RATHER THAN TO GIVE THE READER THE IDEA THAT IT'S READ IN AN OBNOXIOUS VOICE
I wonder if one of the ladies in the photo tucked it away into a wall as her new home was being built. Kind of a way of saying goodbye to her old life, as a young, carefree maid, and hello to the life of wife/mother/lady of the house.
It's interesting that a couple of different people have said that old photos creep them out. I love old photos (yep- something of a retro fanatic I am.)
Cool find. Up in the right top corner, is that a spot on the wall or a weird hairdo? That girl in the bottom middle looks like she's thinking, "aw, shit, another picture."
This is clearly a meeting of an early American lesbian society.
You know, I love to lurk here and rarely comment, but the last few days....GAH!
People are just trying so freakin' hard to just enjoy the finds - why are the rest of you just ruining for everyone?
Isn't this a Found Comment link here? I mean, this isn't a forum for random insults and discussions - IS IT?
I don't remember it always being this way, but I just had to say it because it's really bringing the purpose of FoundMagazine down to a really low level imo.
As for the picture - well, I don't have a whole lot to say because of all the crap I've had to wade through to get to the text/comment box.
I love the old clothing, but am thankful when I look at this - that women aren't wearing all of this stuff now.
I also wonder what their names were?
Cool find. Up in the right top corner, is that a spot on the wall or a weird hairdo? That girl in the bottom middle looks like she's thinking, "aw, shit, another picture."
I liked reading all the interpretations of who these women were and what possibly could ahve been going on during the picture. At least today wasn't too bad for bickering.
SALT, it is *you* that spells Hay, on *your* myspace. Other errors in your blogs, too.
YEAH, AND LIKE I SAID, IF YOU'D READ THE PREVIOUS COMMENT I HAD LEFT, I MEANT TO DO THAT TO MAKE IT OBNOXIOUS. AS FOR THE REST OF MY MYSPACE, IT IS VIRTUALLY FLAWLESS.
NOW, GET OUT OF MY FACE, HAG
SALT - i wasn't refering to you as "she", i was saying "she" as in myself. (i.e. -floydthecat just happens to know that you love in the dfw area. yes, i am a she. ask clover.)
FLOYDTHECAT IS SALT.
FLOYDTHECAT IS SALT.
pepper, i assure you that i am not SALT. clover? special sauce? i need help here, girls.
Pepper is wrong. floydthecat i know, SALT i do not, but i enjoy both.
Very cute group of girls, I would guess circa 1890 from the style of their dress.
Toast- the girl in "black" isn't necessarily in black, early photography took colors odd (pale yellow is one color that turns black when photographed, amoungst other odd things)
Even at the longest exposures in early photography (when they started photographing people) it wasn't an hour. A few minutes, yes. I'm not really sure by this era, but 1850s-60s it was only a matter of about 5 minutes tops.
i don't think the spot is her hair or a spot on the wall, its a spot on the photo, like the one on the right side in the middle. they remind me of the hudderites that live around here, but i doubt these women steal from Wal*Mart
Are people on this board really pretending to know the difference between clothes from 1880, 1890, 1990, and 1910?
Well, 1990 would stick out a bit!
Seriously, if you were a historian of costume or a theatre designer you certainly would. Big differences. I mean, *you* would know the differences between 1960s/70s and 80s, or even 1962 and 1968?
Having said that, the ladies in this photo might have been stuck out in the countryside and a bit behind the times, having to make do with the old stuff they had rather than keeping up with expensive new trends. But I bet they read the fashion magazines!
That's why this site is endlessly fascinating, don't you think -- all sorts of expertise (history of photography and costume, social history, psychology) as well as othere people's memories, wild surmise, hilarious fantasy scenarios and just plain stupid comments... (like this one)
Andrew- Lol, yes, I can tell the differences. Going on the fact that they are mostly in white dresses, which was fashionable and not cheap to upkeep (colors being a much more frugal choice), and that they are all young, I would say they are keeping up with the fashions, and places them between 1893-1898. It would help date them more precisely if I could see the rest of their dresses.
In a summary of the differences of clothing from 1880-1910, 1880s dresses had small bustles on the back, draped skirts in the front, and often a waistline below the waist. 1890s moved to a large A-frame skirt, narrow sleeves, and the emergence of the "white blouse and skirt" look as opposed to dresses. Later in the decade large Leg-o-Mutton sleeves appeared. In 1900, the all white dress appeared, 1910s the skirt became much more narrow (called a hoble skirt) and the hemlines rose to about mid calf. The bodice of the dress became less fitted and would often blouse over the waist band. Mind you, these are gross over generalizations of the time period, but it's the big picture look. ;-)