Very often, notations on the reverse of these found photographs are obscure or too brief or illegible. Most often there is nothing at all.
But now and then there is a message from the past that sparkles.
Back in March of 2009 LOST GALLERY had a full page of photographs and their very interesting reverse sides. There have been many new additions to the collection since then.
Here is a new group of those photographs with mysterious, funny and sometimes puzzling reverse sides; tiny bits of history, reaching out to us over the decades and sometimes centuries.
Actually this photograph was printed backwards. It has been corrected here.
On Reverse
George
Ted
Paulus
J. B.
Hubert
Jaye Georges
Baby Boy
he sure is a (-?-)
for Herbert
On Reverse:
Coming home from
skating mother, myself
Fran Sibew & daughter
Inge
Arosa, Jan. 1928
On Reverse:
Bad Manheim
(or something like that)
On Reverse:
This one you can
keep. got two,
keep the kids
On Reverse:
Apr 6, 1918
Age 16 months
Winslow McKinney
To Grandma
On reverse:
Tim on his
pony Kinnets House
next door to our
mobile Home on
Old Bunk Road about 1956
On the reverse:
Oh, Johnny, Oh!
Little Acorn
A
On the reverse
Oct 1936
On reverse
The home of James Keaton
built in Munroe County
West Virginia 1780
My Great, Great, Great Grand Father.
J. C. Rhoades
My Great, Great, Great, Great, Great Grandfather
2nd J. C Rhoads son of Lawson E Rhoads.
On reverse:
Aunt Mary's
Summer
Home in
New Brunswick
Back View
On Reverse:
The house
C. A. Kee (C. A. Klee)
Home
On reverse:
Sept the 28 1902
everett Lo and Co Co
Hall W A Walker (Just a guess. What do you think?)
(across end)
Sept 28 1902 Everett
On Reverse
looking through
mts. from Lake
Cresent
can keep.
On reverse
Jan 17, 1905. Geo. R. Fortney
On reverse
Miss Olive Straw
Highspire
PA.
I found her on Ancestry.com. Olive P. Straw (1901-1957) was born in was born and lived her entire life in Pennsylvania. She married Marlin Cletus Rouch (1900 – 1975) and they had one child Phyllis A. Rouch.
Note that the post card back can be dated to between 1904-1920's according to
Playle's Real Photo post card
identification site.
Metro Postcard site dates this card 1903-1905
There are now more than 4,000 photographs in the Lost Gallery.
The most popular photographs
An album of the most requested photographs in the Lost Gallery.
Area 51 and a Half 
You are probably not authorized to see these.
Don't take my picture! Oh! You DID didn't you!
This is a collection of photographs that disappear on the way home from the photo processing shop.
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THE KIDS 
It is always a mystery how a photograph of any of these precious children could end up lost or abandoned.
Here are a few.
You will probably say "Ooh..." at least once.
Dee and the Business School 
The beautiful Dee. A curious story, What do you see?
WHAT'S GOING ON HERE?
"What are they doing?"
Love these! This site just lost my detailed comment so will be briefer on my thoughts now:
ReplyDeleteI think Inge's mother is Fran ("coming home from skating") photo.
The "Bad" photo I believe says "Bad Manheim" also spelled "Bad Mannheim," a place in Germany.
Winslow McKinney's middle name is apparently Clarence. http://search.ancestry.com/cgi-bin/sse.dll?gl=ROOT_CATEGORY&rank=1&new=1&so=3&MSAV=1&msT=1&gss=ms_r_f-2_s&gsfn=Winslow&gsln=McKinney&msbdy=1916&msbpn__ftp=&msddy=1995&msdpn__ftp=West+Columbia%2c+Texas%2c+USA&cpxt=0&catBucket=p&uidh=000&cp=0
"Home of James Keaton" photo: Last lines written by the 2nd J.C (not I. C.) Rhoades, guess must be grandson or grandnephew of the first written J.C. Rhoads (2 more "greats" in the second caption.) J.C. Rhoads the 2nd is the son of Lawson E.(not "&") Rhoades,
"The House": I believe the name is Kee, not Kell or Klee, because the loop on the K I believe is just a flourish common then.
The couple on the stone trestle: The date along the top is 1902, and the name written sideways is Everett, so both angles agree. My guess is they rewrote the important info at another angle so it would be visible in another form of framing or filing.
Love old photos! :)
Natalia
http://big-ol-families.blogspot.com/
Thank you very much! I really appreciate the assistance! I have never been good at translating handwriting. These people go to the effort of passing on facts for the generations and then use a scrawl that is difficult to decipher. I am making your suggested changes now. And, yes Winslow's name is apparently Clarence. I put his photograph on Ancestry.com in a small tree, in hopes of finding a historian in his family. He's too cute to be a lost photo. I love old photographs too. They have such stories to tell. Thanks again! Feel free to offer your expertise any time!
DeleteI am far from an expert but have tried to decipher a few captions on photos that I've put on my blog as well, and found this great link with several different old examples of each letter of the alphabet. I found it very helpful. http://www.moonzstuff.com/articles/oldhandwriting.html. Once I even asked a German friend to decipher some old German which is very different again. Thank you for the reply. There doesn't seem to be a way to notify of replies so I only saw it now as I remembered to check. :)
DeleteSincerely
Natalia
http://big-ol-families.blogspot.com/
Thanks again Natalia. The handwriting site should be very helpful on these projects. It looks like they have gone to great lengths to gather examples. I have another page of these cryptic reverse sides that I just finished April the second. I'd be glad to have any suggestion you may have on that one too.
DeleteI don't know how the email notification works; there doesn't seem to be a feature for me to opt in or out. BTW, your comments are not being lost, they do come through. They have to go to moderation before being published.