Archive for February 2014
PK Younge Class Photo …
This is my father’s fifth grade class photo at PK Younge School on Palafox Street. This is the class photo that I mentioned in an earlier post that has the author, Shelby Foote, in the group, but I do not know which one he is. My father is the third boy standing up on the top row, left side. I do not know who the small child standing next to him and I doubt that she is old enough to be in this class. The only thing that I can think of is that maybe she is the teacher’s child and wanted to be in the photo. Having your photo made was a rarity for this time … I would guess that this is 1926 … that they included her for that reason. I do not know if the Escambia County School Board would even have records going back this far. If anyone has any knowledge of this, please let me know. I would be interested in knowing who the rest of these kids are and who the teacher is . I also have a photo of my father’s class out front of the school in Muscogee Florida and I do have the names of the students in that class. There are some names that are familiar to old time Pensacola families like Vaughn, that some of you might recognize. Thanks for looking and if anyone knows about the school board records from the 1920’s, let me hear from you. Please check back … Frank
Cole Wedding …
These images are from a ” Cole ” Wedding that my father photographed back in the 1950’s. I had posted an image of two twin girls standing in a hallway of the San Carlos Hotel in an earlier post. I am trying to catalog all of the negative envelopes that I have left, which is several thousand. I have cleaned my darkroom and I have been looking for some interesting negatives to print, also. I do not know what order I am going to post them in, so we will just have to see what I come up with …. here comes some images:
Here is the bride and groom in the reception hall at the San Carlos. The bride’s last name was Cole, since we usually save the negatives under the bride’s maiden name. The groom must have been Jewish ,,,I can not remember the name of the ” tent ” that the couple gets married under. The bride must not have been Jewish, other wise they would have been married at the Temple. Besides, Cole does not sound Jewish. Here is a couple out in the hallway that my father had photographed the twins in …
As usual, I have no clue these people, but it does not really matter. To me, that wallpaper and carpet really clash, but someone obviously thought that they went together. I would almost say that the decorating ideas came from Las Vegas, but this hotel was built before Las Vegas was even a twinkle in the mob’s eye.
Note my father’s 5×7 view camera is in the background. All of these images were from 4×5 scanned negatives, but he did take a 5×7 camera with him to weddings. I have a handful of 5×7 negatives from most of the weddings that he shot in the 1950’s. I thought that I would include this photo because of that camera in the image.
I can remember going to dances back in this reception area back in junior high school … this room was located on the top floor of the San Carlos and was a fairlly large room. The last one is of the girls standing by a wall-sized mirror out in a hall. You will recognize the two twins from an earlier post of them in the hall-way the couple above was photographed in …
I want you to notice how large the mirror is and the gold moulding used as a frame. When they shut down the San Carlos in the 1970’s, the owners sold off all of the furnishings through out the hotel. I remember someone telling me that he had bought some of the tapestries and ended up selling them to an antiques dealer in New York. I wondered sometimes whatever happened to the mirrors when I think about the tapestries.
That is all for now … if you have any comments about any of this, let us hear from you. Thanks for looking and please check back … Frank
The Maternity Ward at the Old Sacred Heart Hospital …
This photo of my mother and I was made on 14 Aug 53, I was born on 11 Aug 14, so I was 3 days old in this photo. This is the type of photo my father would take of the mother and her new born baby and would sell it to the mother or her family. I posted a folder in a much earlier post that he would insert this photo in … it has a photo of the front steps of the old hospital on the cover. So, he had a fairly lucrative photography ” side-business ” at the hospital while he was the x-ray technician. The next photo shows one of the nuns and several nurses standing around the bed talking to my mother and looking at me ..
Now, looking at this photo, you get the impression that they were in my mother’s room standing around talking and enjoying themselves. Well, back then, there was no such thing as a ” private ” room ,,, you were in a ward with other mother’s and their babies. The next photo shows after everyone had left …
Yes, that is another mother and her baby separated by a cloth curtain. I wish I knew who this mother and her baby are … notice that the mother has her purse sitting on the night stand next to her bed. I wonder how many mothers today would like this arrangement? Yea, I did not think that many would. Back when I had my tonsils taken out in 1959 at the old Sacred Heart Hospital at the tender age of six, I was stuck in a men’s ward with ten other men. It was the worst experience that I had ever had up to that time, but that is another story in itself and I do not have any photos from that time. Also, it would take me forever to give you the full run down and I hate to type anyway so you will be spared that story. I also have a bill that my mother received from her stay at the hospital that I will have to find and scan ,,, you will enjoy the simplicity of the bill. I think they charged her twenty cents for two aspirin was one of the lines on the bill. If you have been in the hospital lately and received a bill, you will wish you were back in the good old days … sort of, for a moment anyway.
Thank you for tuning in and I hope you enjoyed the program … this is sort of like looking at old episodes of the Andy Grifith Show, only minus Barney and Goober. Thanks for looking and please check back. If any of you can remember your stay in a hospital ward, let us hear them … Frank
Frank Hardy Made My Photographs Two 
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