Was real-life sepia in the 1940s?
My mom sent me a picture via text late one evening. At first glance, the woman in the picture was me; but I never remembered having bouffant hair. Upon further inspection, it turned out to be an image of my grandmother in her early thirties. And our resemblance was striking enough that even I was initially confused.
In the 1940s, someone in the Potter family had a home video camera. The film of family and friends had been stored away for ages and had recently been transferred to a DVD. This Thanksgiving, I spent the afternoon sitting on the couch watching over an hour of silent footage of family nearly seventy years ago.
My father ran commentary on the film to point out the folks I never met, such as my great-great-Aunt Willa Dean and great-great grandpa R.J. It was fascinating to see the faces of those I never knew, yet recognize very specific features in their faces and body language that still stand out in our family today.
What tickled me most was seeing the family I am familiar with in my lifetime, such as my grandpa and great-grandma. To see a lanky boy of about ten, with ears sticking out and an obnoxious grin that just screams ‘trouble’ and realize it’s the same man with the white beard I’ve known all of my life is a little difficult to process. But then I’d see the same twinkle in his eye when he laughs and recognize it through the shaky sepia film and know without a doubt who it was.
I have heard for a long time about the apparent similarities between my twenty-year old cousin and my great-grandfather, Harlan. Harlan has long been a startling and intriguing mystery – the hard-working and successful man that everyone speaks of with deep respect and awe. Because Harlan had passed away by the time I was born, I only have photos to draw from; but the resemblance to my cousin is striking. Same nose, same hairline, same stature – same genes. There’s always been something about my cousin that makes me think of him as an old man in a young kid’s body and I have, in my curiosity to know my great-grandfather, envisioned that my cousin is the window to our family’s ancestors.
At one point on the screen of my parents’ television, there’s a giant American flag hanging from the ceiling of the front porch of a quintessential mid-West 1940s home. A man walks out of the front door and down the stairs of the porch, under the flag. He’s in a suit and tie and he turns his feet sideways to take each step down. Of all the men in the group he joins, he is the only one not in a hat.
Almost unnecessarily, Dad points out, “There he is. There’s Harlan.”
As Douglas Brooks is one to say, what is it that you recognize when you look at a photo of yourself as a child that allows you to identify the image without a doubt as that of yourself? Considering that is not what you look like any longer and that it’s an image of you – not actually you – it’s a phenomenal event. We never truly see ourselves face to face. Even when we look in a mirror, it’s the reflection we take back. There must be something beyond the skin, beyond the shape of the eyes, beyond the crooked smile that we’re able to point out as ours. We’re never able to look ourselves dead in the eye other than through the means of some external thing to point back at us.
Seeing my great-grandpa in action and seeing the marked mannerisms of my cousin gave me chills. I do know my family. I do know the million different parts of me. I recognize them as parts of my own heart. It’s from those parts that I piece together who I see myself to be – the inheritor of strength, dignity and laughter.