The Face in the Photograph

HANK PHILLIPPI RYAN: Some time ago, I came into possession of a lot of old family photographs. Some of the people I recognized instantly, but some of them I had never seen in my life. That I remember at least.

And there was a moment when I realized there was no one alive I could ask. No one who could tell me who these people were. It was absolutely chilling. Dozens of story ideas, of course, swirled in my mind. Meanwhile, our dear friend of Jungle Red Leslie Wheeler was writing a story about the same kind of subject. Old photographs.

But a different take altogether.

Isn’t this the most fascinating thing?

A Photographer’s Daughter
   by Leslie Wheeler

In my first Berkshire Hilltown mystery, Rattlesnake Hill, an old photograph is central to the story. It’s Kathryn Stinson’s quest to learn the identity of a nameless beauty, her family’s “Dark Lady,” in a photo an ancestor carried with him from Massachusetts to California that brings Kathryn to the Berkshires in the first place. My third book, Wolf Bog, also revolves around photographs—a whole trove of them instead of a single shot.

These photographs document the gilded childhood and young adulthood of a girl whose wealthy, doting parents gave her everything she could possibly want. One box contains snapshots of the fabulous parties she threw as a teenager, where local boys mingled with the offspring of the wealthy. Yet the fairytale-like world ends tragically with the disappearance of a local boy, and the young woman’s death in a car accident soon afterward. Kathryn becomes convinced that the party photos hold the key to why things ended so badly.

Why so much focus on old photographs? For Kathryn, it goes with the territory. She is, after all, a curator of prints and photographs at a small private library in Boston (think the Boston Athenaeum, where a former neighbor of mine held a similar position). It’s also true that I grew up surrounded by family photos, many of them taken by my photographer mother, who in the early days did her own developing in a small room off my bedroom.

Young Leslie!

Mother had a strong artistic streak. An art history major in college, she became an interior decorator who created beautiful spaces in the various houses my parents occupied. Late in life, she turned to oil painting, but for most of my growing up years, she served as the photographer for family trips, birthday parties, graduations, weddings, and countless other occasions. She was a perfectionist, always striving for just the right shot, and was known to ask my father to suddenly stop the car when she spotted a bit of scenery she wanted to photograph.

Leslie's vintage holiday card

Mother’s need to have everything looking its best extended to my older sister and me. It turned the photo sessions for the annual holiday cards our parents liked to send into ordeals. She’d have us pose in the living room with the family dog, while she adjusted special lights and tried out different camera angles. This always seemed to take forever. By the time she was ready, our smiles had long since faded, and her telling us to “say cheese” fell on deaf ears.

Looking back, I think that a big reason Mother turned to photography was so she could hide behind the camera rather than be in front of it. A beautiful woman who, nevertheless, didn’t like the way she looked, she once went so far as to cut herself out of a photo with my father at a costume party.  

Leslie's mother's wedding photo

In the photos where she does appear, she’s rarely smiling, while my father often has a big grin on his face.

I take after my father: if someone points a camera at me, I’m going to smile.

Like my mother, though, I’ve continued the tradition of holiday photo cards with my own family, but I hope it’s not the ordeal for those involved that it was for me as a child. And family photos hang on the walls in my house, perch on my bureau and bookshelves, and fill scrapbooks and boxes I keep in the closet. I have my favorites that I never tire of looking at. 

One of them is a photo of my mother as a young woman. It was taken by a cousin of hers, and in it she’s actually smiling.

Readers, do you have favorite family photographs? One of the commenters will receive a copy of Wolf Bog!

HANK: It’s fascinating how many MORE photos we have these days, since everyone is always taking photos of everything. But in the past, they were scarce. And remember taking your film rolls to be developed? You never knew what you would get! What are your memories of old photographs? And do you smile when someone point a camera at you?  (And do you do holiday photos?)

And a copy of Wolf Bog to one lucky commenter!

LESLIE WHEELER

An award-winning author of books about American history and biographies, Leslie Wheeler has written two mystery series. Her Berkshire Hilltown Mysteries launched with Rattlesnake Hill and continue with Shuntoll Road and Wolf Bog. Her Miranda Lewis Living History Mysteries debuted with Murder at Plimoth Plantation and continue with Murder at Gettysburg and Murder at Spouters Point. Her mystery short stories have appeared in numerous anthologies. Leslie is a member of Mystery Writers of America and Sisters in Crime, and a founding member of the New England Crime Bake Committee. She divides her time between Cambridge, Massachusetts, and the Berkshires, where she writes in a house overlooking a pond. Visit her website .

 

ABOUT WOLF BOG

In the drought-ridden Berkshires a group of hikers that includes Kathryn Stinson discover the perfectly preserved body of a local teenager, missing for forty years, at Wolf Bog.

Who was he and what happened between him and Kathryn’s close friend, Charlotte Hinckley, to make her distraught and blame herself for his death? Searching for answers, Kathryn learns of the fabulous parties held at a mansion up the hill from her, where local teenagers like the deceased mingled with the offspring of the wealthy. Other questions dog the arrival of a woman claiming to be the daughter Charlotte gave up for adoption.

But is she really Charlotte’s daughter, and if not, what’s her game? Once again, Kathryn’s quest for the truth puts her in grave danger.