The surprises that the antique desk held, were more than a few pictures of known relatives and cars. There are baptismal records, a few notes and of course those strange negatives held in a small paper case. There are also the architectural plans for a spacious home that was to be built in Park Ridge, never completed due to the stock market crash.

As we continued to pick through the negatives, there were some which had us really guessing. Not only do we not recognize any of the people in the pictures, we can merely guess who they were, it appeared that they might have been engaged in some larcenous activity. Well, you never know with relatives right?

Upon closer inspection, we decided that is was not what it seemed.

After all, who would take a picture of a couple of guys doing some safe cracking? It seemed a bit odd, perhaps it was a play. 

Although that safe does look like it might have been blown...do you really think a burgler would  crack a safe in a suit, with a hat on? Maybe he was just passing through, and they thought he did it!

Now that does look a bit like a gang doesn't it? Or some nice boys taking a walk on a lovely day perhaps? Maybe one of their friends is a budding photographer? There was a relative that was in the balloon corps in World War I. Maybe he took the pictures too. That was a my husband's grandfather Walter, I believe. 

Now there is a couple of mugs on a corner.  Hey, is that the same guy who had his hands up before, and now crossed in two pictures, I think so. 

This picture definitely looks like a staged portrait too. Look closely, he has a pipe in his hand. 

The safe-cracker? A Fuller Brush man? A salesman of some sort? Looks like he has a cigarette in his hand.

Same guy, different coat, looks like he's got a cigar..... 

Here is great Aunt Minnie's husband Henry Fleischmann, with his pal and brother in law Great Uncle Tom, aka Herman Faber,  sitting under a life boat. On some kind of sea going adventure I guess. Now that could be the safe cracker with his bag of tools....perhaps the get away scene...

Great Aunt Minnie

This picture was not from one of the negative which we used the computer program to develop. It was a one of the loose photos. My husband said that Great Aunt Minnie went to live with brother and sister Great Uncle Tom and Great Aunt Louise after her husband passed away. When my husband was a boy until he was in his early 20's his father Henry and he would travel into the city to take Aunt Louise grocery shopping and visit with these elderly aunts and uncle once a week. They lived in the German area of Chicago and shopped at those markets. The first time our sons volunteered to help at Maifest for DANK, he went with for their shift in one of the tents. He spent the time retracing his boyhood steps, passing all the German stores and remembering. He said no one could make an apple pie like Great Aunt Louise. A few years later our daughter was the Queen of Maifest and we all went back and saw the shops and remembered these dear relatives. 

Well, rest assured someone in the family was quite the photographer. In another post I will share more pictures in curious finds from the antique desk. Sometimes I think the interests of one generation to another pass down and remarkably we also have a photographer in our family. You have seen some of his work on my post, A Photographer's Pictures

 http://open.salon.com/blog/sheilatgtg55/2010/08/03/a_photographers_pictures

 MOVIES MADE IN CHICAGO DURING THIS TIME PERIOD 

http://chicago.about.com/od/artsculture/a/movies18961940.htm

This is a link to a list of movies made in the Chicago area from about 1896 to 1931.  

 Copyright 2010 SheilaTGTG55