73 Photographs and memory

In my genealogy group yesterday the discussion was about photograph albums and scrapbooks with a review of the book Suspended Conversations; the Afterlife of Memory in Photographic Albums by Martha Langford. The publisher's abstract states: ". . . photographic albums tell intimate and revealing stories about individuals and families. Contrary to those who isolate the individual photograph, treat albums as texts, or argue that photography has supplanted memory, she shows that the photographic album must be taken as a whole and interpreted as a visual and verbal performance that extends oral consciousness."

We were asked to bring along our own albums as an illustration of the author's thesis that albums are for the retelling of family histories and traditions. One woman brought along an album that contained photos and memorabilia of her parents (born in the 1880s) and grandparents. Showing us the wedding photo of her grandparents, she told us the story of how she almost didn't come into existence.

After their marriage (her grandmother was about 16) her grandparents walked with other pioneers from southeastern Wisconsin to Minnesota, with all their belongings in a horse drawn cart. The horse was owned by another man, and he left them stranded on the road when he took the horse and went on without them when her grandmother was about to give birth to her first child. Her husband went in search of help and found a family to take them in. Meanwhile, the group that had left them stranded were all killed in the New Ulm Massacre.

Her grandmother gave birth to a healthy baby, and five more through the years, and they married and had families (many photos), and finally one of the youngest of the grandchildren of this couple who had married during the Civil War and missed a massacre through the thoughtlessness of others, retold the story through a photograph album.