Sold by House of Mirth Photos, Easthampton, MA, U.S.A.
Association Member:
AbeBooks Seller since 3 January 2020
Seller rating 2 out of 5 stars
Nineteen photographs and accompanying text tell the story of a man returning to his roots. In the summer of 1954, Dudley Laufman left his New England home to visit his grandfather in the prairie country of Illinois. Pictured on the opening page is William Laufman, aged 90, photographed at the Masonic Home in Sullivan, Illinois. This 10" x 12" scrapbook album contains fourteen pages, with two loose photographs laid in, four empty spaces where photographs were once mounted, and four blank pages at the back. From the outset, Laufman s writing makes clear how unfamiliar and striking the Midwestern landscape felt to a New Englander. Beneath a photograph of the landscape on the second page appears the caption: "I never saw so much open space and so much open, flat land." That sense of wonder carries through photographs of prairie views, farmsteads, roadside scenes, and the expansive flat country itself. In the accompanying text, he reflects on the long, hot summers that dry creek beds into roadways and make bridges seem oddly misplaced. One especially memorable image shows cattle at a low water crossing, paired with his explanation of how such roads function in summer. At the heart of the scrapbook, however, are the family photographs and the deeply personal narrative that ties them together. Newly discovered relatives appear throughout, alongside Laufman s account of family connections and chance encounters. The buildings associated with his ancestors are documented as well, including houses that, as he writes, ".one time or another belonged to a Laufman." One caption notes, "The tar paper shack was Uncle Jule Laufman s house," while another reads, "Here is the house my father was born in. the front lower left hand room was where he was born." A particularly wonderful passage recounts an unexpected meeting with Harlan Laufman, described by Dudley as the most exciting part of the trip, when two branches of the family unexpectedly crossed paths while both were in Illinois "relative seeking." Laufman returned again in 1955, and the final typed page, signed and dated by him, reflects a deepened emotional attachment to the landscape and to the place of his ancestors. Though he ultimately affirms his identity as a New Englander, he closes with the moving lines: "I love the mountains and I love the sea, and I belong in New England. But a little bit of me, a very small part of me belongs in Illinois. Because I love it there too." A touching and unusually self-aware mid-century family history scrapbook, combining original photographs, typed narrative, genealogy, vernacular architecture, and regional reflection. Wear to the album as expected, with the two loose photographs and four now-empty photo spaces noted above, but overall an appealing and highly personal ancestral document.
Seller Inventory # 1625
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