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I have in my possession some extraordinary documents. Most of our efforts as genealogists center around locating records of birth, marriage and, death. But these are personal milestones: university diplomas.

But what makes diplomas extraordinary is not just the date--though it places them in a societal context--but also the names: my grandaunt Ella Richardson, and my mother, Madge. Both women, at a time when women did not typically earn degrees.

Ella and her sister Florence both attended Carleton College in Northfield, Minnesota, which was just a few blocks from the family home. Ella earned a BA and graduated in 1906. Seated one person away in the front row of the class picture is her sister Florence; behind them are Ella's future husband Bernard Street and his brother Claude; the four were the subjects of a double wedding the following year. In the Carletonian's senior number (edited by none other than Florence and Claude), the class picture is flanked by portraits of the valedictorian and salutatorian; Ella is the valedictorian. 

Ella went on to become a schoolteacher of German and History--until of course, she had their first child. In 1918, when she was six months pregnant with their fifth, her world fell apart when her husband was killed in a hunting accident. The family rallied around her, and she spent the next couple of years regrouping in her parent's new home in Sutherlin, Oregon. She eventually returned to Minnesota, where she lived out her days and is now buried near her dear family.

At a time when women might begin college, only to drop out once they had earned an "M.R.S." degree (witnessed by the number of wedding invitations from sorority sisters pasted in her junior year scrapbook), Madge bucked the trend. After having finished her Bachelor's in Dramatic literature from the University of California Berkeley in the early 1950s, she asked her father for support to pursue a graduate degree. He agreed, on one condition: that she prove she could support herself for a year. I recall her dexterous fingers on the typewriter (later the computer keyboard), and she told me she had had a lot of practice. She had met her father's requirement by working for a year as a secretary for Del Monte (the canned tomato folks). Satisfied, he paid for her graduate degree, this time in anthropology with a focus on ancient Egypt. Her thesis sat on a shelf next to a fat book on Hieroglyph Grammar in my childhood home. 

I keep family documents on the shelf in my office. On the wall near them hang three diplomas with my own name on them. The roots in my tree are thick with extraordinary women, and I have the documents to prove it.

Language barrier

My mother was the family historian, and when she passed on, I inherited dozens of sepia-toned photographs. And then there were the "contemporary" albums of her family's new house with her 1955 BelAir in the carport, and dusty kids in keds camping in the Redwood forests of California. And the envelopes of odd-sized school pictures, because even back then you had to buy 24 wallet photos in order to get two 5x7s--one for each set of grandparents. 

But of all the boxes of sepia corseted women, mustached gentlemen, and posed children, my favorite is a blurry film snapshot taken by a cousin at our wedding reception. My father, who spoke no German, is deep in discussion (about ankles? Argyle socks?) with my husband's Aunt Elfriede, who spoke no English. He was a Navy guy who grew up riding cable cars in San Francisco; she was a farmer's wife in a village in Swabia. And yet they are clearly connecting. When I asked each of them what they had found to talk about, they deflected. Dad said something about not needing language to understand each other. 

They are both on the other side of the rainbow bridge, and perhaps now, free of any language barrier, she and my father can continue the conversation. 

A Photographic Footnote

by Madge Richardson Walsh, 1985

In the trunk of family papers and mementos which my aunt left me several years ago, there were a dozen “case” photos, or what are loosely called daguerreotypes – portraits on glass, bound in ornate gilt brass frames and set in velvet-lined molded cases. All the pictures had been identified by my schoolteacher great-aunt (bless her!) in her copybook handwriting, and all of them were in excellent condition except one. Its condition was deplorable. It was, of course, the one most interesting to me, since it was a rare and early (1857) family picture including my grandfather and my great-grandfather, the Rev. George Warren Richardson.

According to my great-aunt’s notation, there were supposed to be five people in the picture, but only three could be made out: the dim figures of great-grandfather George, his wife Caroline (Fay), seated, with my grandfather David as a very young child standing by his father’s knee. The head of a fourth figure, that of the nursemaid and housekeeper, was barely discernible in the background; and the fifth figure, of another child, had completely disappeared.

The ambrotype in its deplorable condition

    The other case portraits were of collateral relatives and frustratingly clear – lovely tinted tintypes and glass ambrotypes. Why did the most important one have to be the one in such poor condition? Nevertheless, I copied it along with other family photos; the results were predictably disappointing, and I set it aside as not worth reproducing.

Some time later, I had the opportunity to attend a seminar on the archival care and conservation of photographs. It was conducted by expert Peter Palmquist at the Reading Museum and Art Center, Redding, California. The second day’s session was for family historians; we were to bring examples of what we had, especially problems.

My problem picture was an ambrotype, a successor to the true daguerreotype, but similar in process and appearance. The emulsion is fixed on the glass plate as a negative image. By providing a black background, the viewer sees the image as a positive. Ambrotypes are usually backed by a coating of asphalt or simply black paper. Although there are risks, many times such pictures can be relatively easily restored by using new black paper (acid-free, please – photographic print paper is good). Handling should be kept to a minimum; the brass encasing the glass becomes brittle as it is bent and unbent, and tends to break. There is also the possibility that the whole picture will disintegrate.

The problem with my picture proved to be more difficult. Peter volunteered to take the thing apart, if I was willing; I might lose what little could still be seen. But I felt it was worth the risk, the portrait being unusable as it was (and I did have a copy of it).

So, with all of us holding our breath, Peter carefully pried the packet out of the case, and gently unfolded the brass enclosure. The packet was a sandwich of two pieces of glass, a plain clear one on the bottom, and the glass with a negative image on top with the emulsion side inward. Between them as filling was a scrap of black velvet cloth: here was the reason for the poor quality of the picture – the velvet had crocked, depositing little particles of fuzz all over the emulsion negative.

Peter lifted the glass negative carefully off the velvet and held it up to the light. We could see immediately that the image itself was intact and whole, and all five figures were clearly visible. It was quite a moment, as we all exhaled!

Peter was able to remove the fuzz and make some excellent 8 x 10 prints for me, using the original glass plate negative. From these large prints I can make my own modern negative. This rare portrait of his family and George Richardson himself as a young paterfamilias may eventually grace his autobiography as its frontispiece; and the glass negative is safely back in its brass gilt frame and molded case, wrapped in soft cloth and none the worse for wear.

The same picture, restored