Grandma's Album

Two years ago while visiting my parents I scanned a photo album that had belonged to my grandmother, Mary Henderson Gardner. The album had already fallen apart and many of the images were missing. I scanned entire pages. I woke up this morning feeling motivated to work on restoring these images. In college 30-years ago I took a photo restoration class and then worked for a photographer restoring and hand color pictures. Now, with great photo editing programs out there, it is so much easier to do photo restoration. I hope that the process of doing restoration and colorization by hand does not become a lost art.

The pictures from the old album were taken in the mid-20's while my grandmother was a college student at Utah Agricultural College (now Utah State University--go Aggies!) into the 30's after she had gotten married. None are labled, but I am working with my dad and Aunt Mary to try and figure out who is who. I wish I had sat down with my grandmother and had her share the stories that accompany each photo. 

A childhood memory is of sitting with my maternal grandfather, Francis Severin Johnson and having him tell me about pictures he had in an album. It was after we had moved to Utah in 1970. I would have been 8 or 9. I already knew I wanted to  take pictures when I grew up, but as I listened to him, I decided I also wanted to visit people and listen to their stories and take their pictures (both with a camera and the pictures they showed me) and make a book. Oh, if only....huh? If only I had been able to orchestrate that mammoth of a goal as an eight year old. If only, someone had listened to me tell them my idea and had decided to help me. I can't image the treasures I would have both saved and created.

The following are a few of the pictures from the photo album of Mary Henderson Gardner:

 This is an example of what the average page looked like. As someone who loves Family History and photo restoration, please, my advise is to never remove photos from an old album. With today's technology it is so easy to scan the pages and crop out the picture you want. Then you can print that picture. By ripping pages from an old album you are destroying important historical documents. Even if it is a picture of an unidentified woman and child, like this one, or a  photo of your favorite aunt (who never did anything important in her life), ALL old pictures have historical significance and should be preserved for future generations.

The above two images are of my grandmother with her classmates at USU in the mid-20's. In the image above she is the young woman 2nd from the right.I wish I  knew who the other girls are and I especially wish I knew who the man was. I am guessing a professor at USU.The girls certainly seem to be friendly with him.

My great grandfather, Dr. W.W. Henderson was head of the Biology and Zoology dept at USU at the time of his death in 1945. I'm not sure what his title was in 1925.  This could be him. I think I need to place this image side to side with photographs of WW and see if the resemblance is close enough.

 There are three photographs of this young man. I picked this one because I love the car. I have tried to ID him and I am fairly certain he was not one of my grandmother's brothers (they would have both been too young at the time) and he is not one of my grandfather's brothers. The three images have a significnt feeling in the album, so he was important to my grandmother. Was he a beau? Grandma and I were watching the news one night in the mid-70's and the head of some airlines was shown. Grandma told me he had been her beau, "The one who got away." Could it be that guy?  Or is it one of her brother-in-laws?  She had five sisters. Sadly, I doubt I'll ever know.

 College Fun

 This is my favorite image from my grandmother's album.  It is obviously taken with a different camera and is of better quality than the other images. My grandmother is the girl on the left/middle. I love this image because it is so classic. It could be a group of young adults now. I love it because it shows my grandmother, who I only remember as being old and legally blind, as a young, vibrant young woman. The girls are wearing pants and boots and are out hiking in Logan Canyon. This is the roaring 20's. This is a time when women were finally being given the right to vote. What an exciting time to be a young college student.

Another hike in Logan Canyon with her college friends--or it could be the same day? My grandmother is on the far right--looking a little boyish. She seems so serious.

Grandma once shared with me that she had wanted to get a degree in medicine, maybe become a doctor. However, girls at that time got teaching certificates and/or got married. She got a teaching certificate and taught until her marriage in 1931 at the age of 25. After her children were raised, she did become a surgical nurse.

This is the last College picture I will share from her album.

As a comparison: This is Dr. WW Henderson. (My dad scanned this and it is from his files) Yeah.... this could very likely be the man in the images above. What do you think? This could be the same man 20-years later.

William Williams Henderson is a significant person in the history of Utah State University. He was also very active in the LDS church and is given credit for creating the LDS Seminary and Institute Programs. He wrote many articles about Mormon doctrine and history.

While teaching at Brigham Young College he was told to stop teaching the theory of evolution, or Darwinism. He refused, because he felt his students had the right to hear and compare the theories of creationism and evolution. He was immediately excommunicated from the church. He petitioned the president of the church (I believe it was Heber Jeddy Grant) and was quickly reinstated. 

One of my goals is to be granted access to his papers that are archived at USU. I have inquired about them and was told they are not open to the public. I understand that one document states that he no longer believed the doctrines of the LDS church. I'd like to read more about that statement.