Posts Tagged ‘Florida’
Clubbs Junior High Homerooms …
These were taken back in 1957 at Clubbs Junior High School on 12th Avenue in Pensacola. I know that I have posted other photos from Clubbs before, but I just ran across these negatives the other day. I still have boxes of negatives to go through and decided that 2018 was the year to finish that project. Whether I will or not, we will just have to wait and see. There is no information on any of these groups other than they were ” homerooms “. I guess if someone has a yearbook they might be able to go through it and see if they were used. However, I do not know if they were taken in 1957 for the 1958 school year or just happen to for the 1957 year. There are around fifty or so groups, but I only cleaned up a handful of them. Mostly the ones that required the least amount of Photoshop. The negatives are not in the best condition … sixty-one years have not been kind to them. I really have no comments about any of them, since I was only four in 1957 and did not know any of the kids. One of the male teachers looks familiar to me, but other than him all of the others are complete strangers. With out further ado …
The man in the top row, far left of the last photo is the only person of all of the photos that even looks remotely familiar. This photo was taken on the north side of school next to the cafeteria I believe. Some of the other groups were taken on the front steps of the school that faced 12th Avenue. They tore this building down and replaced it with the N B Cook School for Performing Arts or something to that effect. So if you are driving around East Hill on 12th Avenue looking for this old building, you are 15 or 20 years too late. If anyone went to Clubbs in 1957 or 58 and recognizes anyone, please feel free to comment. I would be interested in hearing from you personally, so please speak up. I plan on getting back into the swing and posting here a regular basis for 2018 and the future. I still have a lot to share. I just apologize for not having any information to share about any of these photos that I post. Well, not any information but just a little. I also found some Clubbs sports teams that I will scan when I get a chance and post so please check back. Happy New Year ….
Blue Angels Group Photos …
The date on the back of the photo is 6-29-59. Not sure that this is the date that my father made this photo or just a random date assigned by the Navy. I only have prints of these images. The Navy purchased the negatives and they in turn made press releases and publicity photos for autographs. That is the reason for no lettering on the prints or that is what my father told me. Back then the Blue Angels did not have a staff photographer or publicity officer for the team. In fact, from what I have learned, those two jobs were not added until many years later. It would be interesting if anyone seeing this post might be able to enlightened us with any details on any of this. Below is one other group photo of the Blue Angels that my father took at this same time …
The third man kneeling from the left is Lt. Robert ” Bob ” Rasmussen who is a Pensacola resident and it is his jet in the background. I guess that this group includes the two alternate pilots that fly with the group, but that is just a guess by me. If I am wrong I apologize in advance and like I mentioned before, if anyone has any stories to share about this group from 1959, please feel free to comment. I probably should have done some ” googling ” on the 1959 Blue Angels before I created this post, but as usual I did not. Like I have said before, I am just a photographer and not a historian and I leave the important information gathering to others. Thanks again for looking and please check back.
PS – I will most likely be adding to this post when I do some ” googling ” … Thanks – Frank
PPS – OK, I went to the official Blue Angel’s web site and their official photo is not one of these images. The image that they show is one of the pilots wearing their leather flight jackets and not just in their flight suites as the photos here that my father took. Maybe these were just too informal or something along that line. But for whatever reason, these were not used. I did google around and neither of these images popped up on the internet anywhere, which to me is something of a surprise. At least I feel that I am adding something relevant that people have not seen before when I post to this blog. Again, please feel free to comment and share any of your Blue Angel stories …
Delchamps in Downtown Pensacola Florida …
I posted over on my personal blog about this image if anyone is interested. A link to my blog is listed over in the right side margin. Thanks for looking …
Pensacola Fire Department …
This is in the square at Palafox and Government Streets sometime back in the 1920’s. That is the Escambia County Courthouse in the background. Look at the facial expressions on the fire fighters … also look at all of the activity in the background. Everyone is busy and going someplace. Even though this is a black and white image ( toned actually ) it seems that black or some dark color is the predominant color for suits, dresses and cars back in the 1920’s. As usual I have no clue who any of the fire fighters are or what they are doing, but it doesn’t matter. Here is one more from a different direction …
Here you see the TT Wentworth Museum in the background, that at one time used to be the Pensacola City Hall. Even I can remember going down to the City Hall back in the late 1960’s and up into the 1970’s and doing business there. So it must have been in use up until the new City Hall down on Main Street was built back in the 1980’s. I have some photos that I took when they were building the new City Hall over on my other blog that I have showing my photography. If anyone knows anything about either of these two photographs, please feel free to comment. Thanks again for looking and please check back … Frank
Cotton Pickers ….
This was taken back in the 1920’s by an unknown photographer. I wish that I knew something about the guys in the photo or the photographer who made the image, but as usual, I know only what I see. It looks as if it could have been in just another cotton field somewhere on Hwy 87 in north Santa Rosa County. Maybe they are brothers, maybe two strangers who just met on their first day in the field, whatever the the case may be, they have a long, hot, hard day a head of them. Notice that their bags trail another few feet once it touches the ground. They look pretty fresh at this point, so I imagine that their day has just begun. I read somewhere that pickers were only paid a dime for a full bag and on a good day they were lucky to fill two of these bags. Twenty cents for eight to ten hours in the hot sun and one hundred degree heat. That sounds , well, you know how that sounds … I wonder how many lined up to work on this day? We see two men that did. The cotton crop in this field looks thin. Must not have had much rain this growing season. My father used to tell me stories of him and his brother Ben going to visit their Aunt and Uncle in Pineapple Alabama. My father was young, maybe eleven or twelve, and he would go out in the fields and pick cotton with all of the workers. He loved it. Ben hated it. Ben could not wait to get back to Pensacola. I have horn that was given to him by his Uncle who would use the horn to call in the workers at the end of the day. I am sorry to say that I did not take very good care of horn, but I will photograph it and post a photo later. Usually at this point in my post I would say something like … If you want to share your experiences picking cotton, we would love to hear them. But, for some reason, I do not think that I would have many comments. Thanks for looking, and if you like, you can share experiences picking peas, string beans, radishes, etc, etc. Or you could tell us about your backyard garden. Again, thanks for looking … Frank
Gull Point Community Center Play …
The negative envelope read ” Gull Point 3/26/56 “. Nothing more. The envelope contained around 40 4×5 black and white negatives. No names. No contact number. I found the envelope around fifteen years ago, along with tens of thousands of other negative envelopes and just set it aside from all of the other envelopes. School plays must have been a big thing thing in the 1940’s and 50’s, however when I came along in the 1960’s, they were a thing of the past. At least for me … I cannot ever remember being in a play or ever watching one at an elementary school, junior high school or high school that I attended. The only time that I ever got dressed in a costume ( besides Halloween ) was to dress as a carrot and walk in in a Fiesta Parade back around 1962 with my first or second grade class from Episcopal Day School. It was in the summer and it was hot. I was miserable, but I walked the whole parade route without passing out or fainting. I wish I could find a photo of us carrots walking up Palafox, I know I have one somewhere or someone has a photo of a pack of carrots trudging up Palafox Street in a parade. Now back to Gull Point … here are a few more photos that I have worked up …
If anyone out there remembers attending a play out at Gull Point Community Center in March of 1956, please let us hear from you. I do not know if this is the community center or if there was an elementary or junior high school back in the 1950’s ( before my time) and I am interested. The more I look at the photos, these look like elementary school kids and not junior high students. I will work on some more of these negatives in the future, so check back. Thanks for looking and as usual are comments are welcomed and appreciated, so knock yourself out. And one more thing – if anyone has any photos of a group of carrots marching up Palafox in the 1960’s, please contact me. Now the more I think of it, maybe we weren’t a bunch of carrots, but a bunch of oranges!! Well, either way, carrots or oranges, think of me…
Liberace and Friend … Updated ……
I posted this photo years ago and I did not know who the lady is. Someone had mentioned a name for her when I posted this on the first blog that I had on Blogger six or seven years ago. But I cannot what they said her name was and when I “googled” it nothing came up. So I did not pay that much attention to it. Recently, I have been reading a book by author Steve Fischer entitled ” When The Mob Ran Vegas “. On page 113, there is a photo of Ruth Gillis and it said that she was one of Liberace’s show girls when he played the Riviera Hotel in Las Vegas. I am not going to bother trying to get permission to see if I can post it here, you are just going to have to take my word for it. On the web there are several photos of her with various other entertainers, one being Ernie Kovacs and here is a link to the photo. I have tried ( not very heard though ) to find some other photos and information on Ms Gillis, but have not turned up much. I do not know a date for the above photo and if I had to guess I would say that it would be 1955 or 1956. In the book it says that she started as a show girl with Liberace on April 20, 1955 at the Riviera. I was hoping that someone might have remembered seeing Liberace in Pensacola when he came here, but I have not received any comments from anyone. I might have to go down to the PNJ and see what it takes to go through there microfilm files. If anyone has any thing to share, please let us hear from you. Thanks again for looking and please check back … Frank
Bronson Field …
These are some negatives that I purchased on Ebay of local air base Bronson Field. I am not exactly sure where Bronson Field was located, but I want to say it was located somewhere near Perdido Bay. I might be completely wrong there and the people that I purchased them from were not exactly sure either. I cropped this negative to show just the flight line and the plane that is taking off below …
There is one other negative that I received and it shows the control tower along with the planes …
And like the one above, I cropped out everything and just showed the flight line …
The photos are nothing really special and you can tell that they were taken by an amateur, but the old cars and planes are interesting. If anyone runs across anymore images like these on Ebay or anywhere else, please let me know. I used to look on Ebay, but you can end up wasting a lot of time with just the shear volume that is on the site. Most of it, to me, is a lot of junk / mess that people think are really valuable and exciting and I am not good at filtering it out. Also, if you run across something at a flea market locally let me know. Thanks again and if anyone knows something about Bronson Field, let us know … Frank
Water Skiing on Bayou Texar …
I have posted some photos from this ski show that the ski club had back in 1979. I ran across these photos a while back and have been sitting on them for a while, so I thought that I work them up to post. I remember getting some comments when I posted the other ski club photos and thought that you might enjoy looking at them. As usual, I do not know who any of the skiers are since they are younger than me. I would guess that the boy and girl on either ends of the group above might be Bonifay children, but as usual, I could be wrong. Here are some of the group skiing …
That is all for now. I have not gotten a lot of images worked up to post, but I am working on a few as I write this. Please check back and feel free to leave any comments that you might have … Frank
The Fisherman …
I just called this one ” The Fisherman ” for lack of anything else. I ran across it the other day and thought that it looked somewhat interesting, especially the sky. It looks like it could have been made over in Gulf Breeze along the Sound or maybe even the Bay. One thing that stood out to me was how clean the beach looks … now a days you can not go too far in any direction without running across beer cans, plastic bottles and anything else that people throw in the water or leave on the beach after a picnic. I have a good number of images worked up that I plan on putting up in the next few days, so please check back. I hope everyone had a nice Thanksgiving, we did. Thanks again for looking … Frank
Frank Hardy Made My Photographs Two 
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