Willard Suitcases / Charles F
I mentioned earlier this week that I was hoping to get Charles F’s photographs uploaded by the end of the week, and here is a sample. To see the rest of the collection, please go to the Willard Suitcases site.
From the little I know about Charles, he came to Willard somewhat later in his life. I have no way of knowing if the portrait in the above photograph is he, or someone near to him, but whenever I think about his life, this image comes to mind.
The tassels on his tallit are especially evocative to me.
I believe that this is the publisher of some of his books. I did a search for it but came up empty. Any help would be welcome.
His starched collars were still in quite good condition.
I have no way of knowing if he was in the military, but I would guess that this canteen was army surplus.
Here is a close up of his naturalization papers, which date to October of 1896.
Many of the suitcases in the collection contain scraps of paper with hand-written notes on them. I find that these can be especially interesting.
One of Charles’ cases had this selection tools (and a razor).
Please check out the rest of my photographs of Charles’ possessions on the suitcases site, and thanks for following.
Jon Crispin's Notebook 
Druk Sikora i Mylner is the name of the publisher, literally Sikora & Mylner Printing. It’s Polish and located in Warsaw in Nowolipki, which is both a street and a district in Warsaw. The 6 at the end probably indicates it means the street. Given it’s a Jewish publisher it’s highly unlikely it survived the Second World War.
jamtur01, thank you very much for the information. I am always thrilled to get your comments. All best, Jon
I am guessing that you probably don’t have a favourite suitcase as I think it would be near impossible to photograph this collection if you thought too hard anout that, but me, I now have a favourite and it’s Charles F. Being that he was a Polish Jewish man, he would have already had a stigma attached to him but to have a mental illness of some sort would have been horrendous. I would love to find out more about him. Congratulations on your work, it has me hooked.
Dear convictsrus, thanks so much for your comments. I really appreciate them. Sometimes I feel like I am working in a vacuum, and it makes me so pleased to know that you are interested enough in the collection to comment. I am really grateful for your interest. Jon