Travel / Willard Suitcases Documentary / St Crispin’s Day
Yesterday morning I drove out to Ithaca to begin work on the suitcases documentary that I am working on with Peter Carroll and Deborah Hoard.
After a quick lunch at the Lincoln Street Diner, Peter and I drove up to Willard to shoot some B-roll in the Cemetery.
It is a special place to visit in so many ways. When I took this photograph, the smell of mint was intense. It seemed odd that it was so healthy this late in the year.
We are in the beginning stages of figuring out how to document my work with the suitcases. The point of this early filming is to to create a short piece that will help us raise funds. We will probably run another Kickstarter campaign, which I expect will be up in the early part of next year.
It was a beautiful day on the lake. Chilly and breezy, which is to be expected in late October. I can’t emphasize enough what an amazing spot this is. The fact that 5,776 former Willard patients are buried here makes for an emotional experience.
With the help and encouragement of the wonderful Peggy Ellsworth and Craig Williams, we were given access to the Romulus Historical Society to film the interview today. It worked out really well (even though the heat is currently off in the building).
Peter is a genius in setting up lighting for interviews. This is a frame grab from the video. I am looking a bit stern in this shot, but I do smile from time to time. It was a really productive day and I was reminded of how great it is to work with Peter and Deb.
The historical society has a few suitcases that for some reason never made it into the main collection in Albany. It was nice to be able to use them in the setup.
I have driven past this winterized travel trailer on Route 96 repeatedly and finally stopped to take a few photos. I love how the little wheels are covered too!
Today is St. Crispin’s Day. I usually try to drink a load of Cognac to assist me in feeling a connection to the French and English soldiers who died at the battle of Agincourt. If this post is a bit wordy, I’ll blame it on the bottle of Hennessy that seems to be emptying at a rather steady pace. Check out the amazing Olivier in the 1944 version of Shakespeare’s Henry V.
Thanks for following. Be well.
Willard Suitcases / Charles F. / Update
I’ve been busy with the Hope and Feathers exhibit and quite busy with my freelance work, but the suitcases project is never far from my mind.
I am working on an interesting collaboration on Charles’ cases and hope to have some exciting news soon.
He had an interesting collection of ties.
There are quite a few Penny postcards in the collection as well as some interesting hand- written notes. You can see the New York State Museum’s catalogue number (in pencil) on the upper right side of the white paper.
Thank you all for following this project. I will be devoting a ton of time to the suitcases later this month as I continue to develop ideas for getting the photos out to a wide audience. And Peter Carroll, Deb Hoard, and I are beginning to work hard on a preliminary short film which we can send to funders for the larger documentary that we plan to produce.
Willard Suitcases / Editing
This was the first case I photographed. It was the 17th of March 2011. Craig Williams had given me permission to gain access to the collection and I was very excited. I remember setting up my wrinkled background and fiddling with my lights. It struck me at the time that it would be interesting to document the entire process of shooting the cases, including what they looked like after the museum had wrapped them back up after the conservation process.
This is part of what I saw when I finally got the case open. Quite a way to start the project. This is what I posted about that first day.
Today at about 2.30 I finished editing all of the cases that we have shot, and uploaded the final photographs to the suitcases site. This case belonge to Lawrence R. I especially like the headline in the Democrat and Chronicle.
This day has been a long time in coming. We will see what happens with the project in the fullness of time, but I am very excited and happy to have made it this far.
Connie Houde was kind enough to take this picture of Peg and me on that last day of shooting. I think champagne might have been involved.
There are too many folks to thank for all of the support, encouragement, and love that I have felt since I began photographing the suitcases in 2011. But I think of you all the time. Thank you all.
Willard Suitcases / Rodrigo L Final
This morning I uploaded the last of the photographs of Rodrigo’s possessions. His cases were really interesting and you can check them all out here.
Rodrigo maintained a strong connection his native Philippines, and also had an interesting collection of books.
There were several items pressed between the pages of a few of them.
This hat was pretty cool and the white object at the bottom seems to be shark’s teeth strung together into some sort of necklace.
Peg and I shot our last suitcase on Monday the 9th of November 2015. I will be editing that work in a day or two, and that will be it as far as what was in the New York State Museum collection. Craig Williams seems to remember that there are a few cases that never went to the Museum that are in the Romulus Historical Society. If so, we’ll try to track those down and photograph them. I photographed the first case (Freda B) on the 17th of March 2011, and this has been quite an amazing ride. I just want to thank all of you who follow the project for all the good wishes, support, and interest. Now that the editing is just about done, I’ll be spending much of my time moving on to the next stage. I’ll also take a minute to thank Peggy Ross again for her continued help. I couldn’t have done this without her.
Willard Suitcases / Rodrigo L again
I am back to editing more of Rodrigo L’s papers. This is an amazing photo postcard. / Rodrigo lived in Salt Lake City during his high school years. Many of his yearbooks are in his collection as well as a ton of materials related to his Pilipino experience in the US .
He came to the American West sometime in the early part of the 20th Century, which makes me wonder what his experience adapting to his new life was like.
You can check out the latest at the suitcases site.
I have just three more shoots to edit. I have a feeling that when I finish that part of the project I will be very emotional and a little bit at sea. Still lots to do though, including finding a publisher and museums / galleries for exhibits. I started shooting the cases in March of 2011. It has been quite a run. Thanks for following.
Anna Lucille Earley, Willard Nurse
I got a call a few weeks ago from Craig Williams telling me that a trunk had been discovered in the attic of the Covert Funeral Home in Ovid, NY that belonged to a woman who was a nurse at Willard in the early part of the 20th Century.
At that time Craig wasn’t too sure of many of the details but thought I might be interested if anything came of it.
Craig has been working at the Romulus Historical Society with Peggy Ellsworth who worked at Willard and has been a great friend to the suitcases project. Peg has been the go-to person for all things Willard since the institution closed in 1995.
Last Friday Paul McPherson who is the current director of the funeral home brought the trunk to the historical society for Craig and Peg to have a look. They were really enthused and Craig called to see if I could take a few photos as he unpacked the items and started to conserve and catalogue the collection.
The contents of the trunk are in great shape, and it is amazing to see how well preserved the items are.
I love seeing these old commercial products in their early packaging.
There were several mounted photographs in the trunk, as well as this envelope which contain a large number of photographic negatives.
Craig scanned a few and the quality is amazing.
The Willard baseball team was almost certainly made up of staff, and not patients. But one has to wonder if any of the patients ever made it onto the diamond.
I think this scan was from a print. In addition to having worked at Willard as a nurse, she was a graduate of the institution’s school of nursing. Craig and Peg are looking at the images to try to figure out which one in the photos is Anna. None are identified on the back, so it might be quite a job.
The above photo is especially exciting, as the building in the background is the sheltered workshop where the suitcases were stored in the attic and were rediscovered in 1995. The collection of cases dates from 1910 to 1965 and Anna was at Willard starting in the late teens, so it is very likely that she worked with some of the owners.
As we found in many of the suitcases there is a broad range of items in Anna’s trunk; she had saved things that can tell a fairly complete story of her life, and more broadly, what life at Willard was like in the 1920s.
This box contains a lot of personal correspondence, including some very interesting postcards.
It took a minute to figure out this one.
It became clear once we saw the “soldier’s mail” postmark. Let’s hope H. C. Norris made it through the war safely.
As a nurse at Willard, she would have lived on the grounds and received her mail there.
This inscription is especially touching and a bit mysterious.
Craig and I didn’t have much time to go through the notebooks, but this is a huge trove of original source material that will be interesting to study once everything is catalogued.
Perhaps the most intriguing is this small diary from 1918 which contains day to day accounts of Anna’s life at Willard. To the left is a playbill for “Farmer’s Daughter” which played at Hadley Hall on the Willard grounds.
Anna’s Student’s Note Book is pretty interesting.
Her hand writing is very readable. I didn’t see any crossed out sections as I flipped through the pages.
This small brooch is pretty.
The trunk itself is is great shape.
Anna is buried in the Holy Cross Cemetery in Ovid. Craig took this photo of her gravestone.
The Romulus Historical Society will be putting an exhibit together of the trunk and contents sometime soon. The museum is located in the town of Willard and is only open until the end of September. It is not clear if anything will happen before then, but Peggy is eager for the collection to see the light of day. I’ll update here when I know details. There is obviously a ton of work to be done researching Anna’s life, but this is really an amazing find.
Special thanks go to Paul McPherson for contacting the historical society with this incredible look into the life of Anna. A find like this really brings history alive. It will be interesting to see what develops once everything is conserved and catalogued. And as always thanks to Peggy Ellsworth for her tireless work in remembering the patients and staff at Willard, and to Craig Williams for keeping me in the loop.
Willard Suitcases / Margaret D / 2 March 2015
I just uploaded another batch of photos to Margaret’s page. Check it out if you get the chance. (Make sure you click on the “view all” button; the default view is 25 per page.)
I think this little Devon Violets vase is beautiful.
This lone pill was wrapped in the paper on which it is placed. It is difficult to read the pencil writing but it looks like amid(something) barbital.
Having seen other photographs of her, I am quite certain that it is Margaret in these shots.
Have a great weekend everyone, and thanks for following.
Willard Suitcases / Margaret D / 17 February 2015
Quite a few of the Willard residents brought small carved dogs with them. This looks like a little Skye Terrier. The thread collar is quite touching.
The doggie theme is repeated here. I believe that this is a strong thread wrapped around this paper that is used for bead work.
There were thousands of these small (glass?) beads.
I often tried to document Peg’s work and the care we took in putting everything back the way we found it. These beads were difficult to wrangle, but I am pretty sure we got them all back in the bag.
This photo really gets to me for some reason. Check the comments for a description of this process as my pal Dhyan will probably chime in. She has been following the project since early days, and I really appreciate her knowledge of anything to do with fabric and yarn. Thanks Dhyan!
Here’s some string wedged into a hair comb. So many questions.
I think we decided this is a post card of the well known dancer Ann Miller. (Peg’s mom helped identify her if I remember correctly.) I was pretty sure it was Bess Myerson.
I have started using the date of shooting in the title of these Margaret posts as it is the only way to differentiate the various posts from one another. Check out the full uploads of Margaret’s things here. There is a LOT more of her to come.
Willard Suitcases / Beginning Margaret D
I have finished editing everything we shot in 2014 and have finally moved on to 2015. Margaret D came to Willard with pretty much her entire household, including her car. I have posted about her before, including this link which talks a bit about her life before Willard.
She was a nurse who lived in the Ithaca area, and came to the institution with a number of highly starched uniforms and hats.
Peg and I shot this trunk in February of 2014 and we finished photographing all of her possessions 4 months later. Quite a collection.
I will continue to post updates here as I work my way through all of Margaret’s things.
It is exciting to think about completing the editing process on the project. Once my schedule opens up I’ll be able to really push exhibits and publication. Thanks for following, and to those of you who have been in direct contact I really appreciate the feedback.
Willard Suitcases / Michael D’A
It was clear to us when we were setting up Michael’s shot that the wrapping contained crutches.
They were in remarkable shape for being so old.
Michael came to Willard from Manhattan State Hospital on Ward’s Island, but unfortunately we don’t have a date for his admittance.
As I was editing the photographs this morning, I couldn’t remember precisely why I took the closeup shot below.
As I looked closely the faint marks on the crutch stood out. I wonder if he was making them in order to count days at Ward’s Island before he came to Willard.
You can see the latest here. Thanks for following.
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