{"id":21286,"date":"2016-01-09T11:08:24","date_gmt":"2016-01-09T16:08:24","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.scottedelman.com\/?p=21286"},"modified":"2016-01-09T11:08:24","modified_gmt":"2016-01-09T16:08:24","slug":"in-which-i-think-ive-solved-the-mystery-of-two-newly-discovered-photos-of-my-father","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.scottedelman.com\/wordpress\/2016\/01\/09\/in-which-i-think-ive-solved-the-mystery-of-two-newly-discovered-photos-of-my-father\/","title":{"rendered":"In which I think I&#8217;ve solved the mystery of two newly discovered photos of my father"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>I brought home thousands of photographs after <a href=\"http:\/\/www.scottedelman.com\/2016\/01\/06\/my-mother-january-14-1936-december-30-2015\/\">my mother died last week<\/a> , and for the most part I recognize the people in them and know the circumstances under which they were taken.  But a few are a mystery. Some because they&#8217;re of friends and relatives I don&#8217;t remember, others because they&#8217;re of events in which I didn&#8217;t take part.<\/p>\n<p>For example, who is this guy to the left of my father? What is that scrap of paper he&#8217;s handing over? Why was this moment worth memorializing?<\/p>\n<p><a href=\"https:\/\/www.scottedelman.com\/wordpress\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/01\/DadMcGrawHill1.jpeg\" rel=\"attachment wp-att-21288\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/www.scottedelman.com\/wordpress\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/01\/DadMcGrawHill1-300x215.jpeg\" alt=\"DadMcGrawHill1\" width=\"300\" height=\"215\" class=\"aligncenter size-medium wp-image-21288\" srcset=\"https:\/\/www.scottedelman.com\/wordpress\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/01\/DadMcGrawHill1-300x215.jpeg 300w, https:\/\/www.scottedelman.com\/wordpress\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/01\/DadMcGrawHill1-768x550.jpeg 768w, https:\/\/www.scottedelman.com\/wordpress\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/01\/DadMcGrawHill1-1024x733.jpeg 1024w, https:\/\/www.scottedelman.com\/wordpress\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/01\/DadMcGrawHill1.jpeg 1284w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 300px) 100vw, 300px\" \/><\/a><\/p>\n<p>And then there are these two, happy to be holding that same scrap of paper. <!--more--><\/p>\n<p><a href=\"https:\/\/www.scottedelman.com\/wordpress\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/01\/DadMcGrawHill2.jpeg\" rel=\"attachment wp-att-21289\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/www.scottedelman.com\/wordpress\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/01\/DadMcGrawHill2-300x212.jpeg\" alt=\"DadMcGrawHill2\" width=\"300\" height=\"212\" class=\"aligncenter size-medium wp-image-21289\" srcset=\"https:\/\/www.scottedelman.com\/wordpress\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/01\/DadMcGrawHill2-300x212.jpeg 300w, https:\/\/www.scottedelman.com\/wordpress\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/01\/DadMcGrawHill2-768x542.jpeg 768w, https:\/\/www.scottedelman.com\/wordpress\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/01\/DadMcGrawHill2-1024x722.jpeg 1024w, https:\/\/www.scottedelman.com\/wordpress\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/01\/DadMcGrawHill2.jpeg 1355w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 300px) 100vw, 300px\" \/><\/a><\/p>\n<p>What&#8217;s going on here? I had no idea. <\/p>\n<p>The backs of the photos were stamped with the name &#8220;Henry S. Davis,&#8221; but there&#8217;s no other information to help explain their history.<\/p>\n<p>As I studied the photos, and puzzled over them further, I suddenly remembered another scrap of paper which had once been in my father&#8217;s hand, one <a href=\"http:\/\/www.scottedelman.com\/2015\/01\/27\/missing-my-award-winning-father\/\">I&#8217;d  told you about<\/a> slightly more than a year ago&#8212;a telex informing Dad he&#8217;d won the Jesse H. Neal Editorial Achievement Award for work done while he was the Art Director for the  magazine <em>Engineering &#038; Mining Journal<\/em>.<\/p>\n<p><a href=\"https:\/\/www.scottedelman.com\/wordpress\/wp-content\/uploads\/2015\/01\/BarnetEdelmanAwardTelex.jpg\" rel=\"attachment wp-att-18232\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/www.scottedelman.com\/wordpress\/wp-content\/uploads\/2015\/01\/BarnetEdelmanAwardTelex-300x255.jpg\" alt=\"BarnetEdelmanAwardTelex\" width=\"300\" height=\"255\" class=\"aligncenter size-medium wp-image-18232\" srcset=\"https:\/\/www.scottedelman.com\/wordpress\/wp-content\/uploads\/2015\/01\/BarnetEdelmanAwardTelex-300x255.jpg 300w, https:\/\/www.scottedelman.com\/wordpress\/wp-content\/uploads\/2015\/01\/BarnetEdelmanAwardTelex-1024x871.jpg 1024w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 300px) 100vw, 300px\" \/><\/a><\/p>\n<p>Could the man in the first photo be the McGraw-Hill telex operator delivering the news to my Dad? Could the men in the second be executives of some sort, proud that their employee and magazine had won an award?<\/p>\n<p>I have no way of proving it. But Dad seems about the right age, and  in the absence of any positive identification of these men, I&#8217;m going to say yes, that&#8217;s exactly who they are.<\/p>\n<p>Whether I&#8217;m right or wrong, it sure is good to see new pictures of Dad.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>I brought home thousands of photographs after my mother died last week , and for the most part I recognize the people in them and know the circumstances under which they were taken. But a few are a mystery. Some because they&#8217;re of friends and relatives I don&#8217;t remember, others because they&#8217;re of events in [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[65],"class_list":["post-21286","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized","tag-my-father"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.scottedelman.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/21286","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.scottedelman.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.scottedelman.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.scottedelman.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.scottedelman.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=21286"}],"version-history":[{"count":5,"href":"https:\/\/www.scottedelman.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/21286\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":21300,"href":"https:\/\/www.scottedelman.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/21286\/revisions\/21300"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.scottedelman.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=21286"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.scottedelman.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=21286"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.scottedelman.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=21286"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}