January 18, 2007 Issue                                       

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©2006 The Chestnut Hill Local

Old photos, dying memories need to find rightful owners
by JIMMY J. PACK JR.

I never knew my maternal grandmother. Helen Johnson died before I was able to contain any conscious memory of her. The only moment I remember at all that involves her is my mother dangling my body towards an altar so that a priest could rub ashes on my head. The imposing sight of a shiny berobed priest reaching out and coating my forehead with black dust so traumatized me that my eyes exploded with tears and the adrenaline kick-started a heartbeat that made me see a black sky of white popping dots.

As I was withdrawn from the priest’s sight, a woman licked her thumb and with gentle force rubbed the ashes off my head and held me close to her. I always thought the woman was my mother, but my memory forced that image into my head.

This past Christmas my mom informed me that the woman who cleaned my forehead was my grandmother. I was only two years old. How could I possibly remember something from that age?

These photos were recently found in a discarded box by the Local’s Jimmy J. Pack Jr. The photos, all at least 50 years old, are of members of the Shaffer and Zimmerman families, who were living in Germantown at the time. There are many, many more photos like the ones you see here. We would like to locate any family members, no matter where they are living now, to whom this cache of photos would undoubtedly mean a great deal.

And what is your earliest memory? Is there anyone in your life who can corroborate its truth? Perchance it is just a dream?

Without our memories, what are we? Who are we? We are all lucky to live in an age where holding onto memories is as easy as the push of a tiny button on top of a digital camera. And we can send that image around the world, to thousands of people, with no effort at all. We can record short movies of ourselves on cell phones. And almost everyone has a family member who owns a video camera.

But not so long ago this technology was all science fiction, far-fetched inventions to which only Captain Kirk and his crew would actually ever have access. If we were really lucky, someone we knew might have a camera and, even luckier, he/she’d know how to use it.

How often do you go back and look through those photos? How many of them hold memories for you? How many of those photos hold memories of people you love?

To me a more important question has been bothering me for a few weeks. What happens to the photographs of people who have died?

I’m sure we have all browsed through an old family photo album and seen pictures of people and places we do not recognize. These photos are pretty much useless when it comes to our memory. Or are they?

I recently came across a large box of photos that someone had thrown away. They weren’t mine; they weren’t even related to my family. But when I opened the box, I felt as though I invaded someone’s privacy and at the same time, saved a life. My hope is that I can bring this life back to its family of origin.

There are two last names in the box: Shaffer and Zimmerman. After looking through the box, I feel as though I am a part of this family that existed back in time. The matriarch and patriarch are Mr. and Mrs. Francis Zimmerman. They lived on East Bringhurst Street in Germantown. I know this because John T. Zimmerman sent them a Victory Mail letter on November 7, 1943, wishing his family a “Merry Christmas and a very glad New Year.”

I know about the death of Charles Zimmerman on May 27, 1956. His requiem mass was held on Thursday, May 31, at the Assumption Church at 10 in the morning. This is all on the back of a card that has an image of Jesus Christ holding a child in his arms. The prayer on the card reads, “O gentlest heart of Jesus, ever present in the Blessed Sacrament, ever consumed with burning love for the poor captive souls in purgatory, have mercy on the soul of thy departed servant.” Was Charles a child waiting for his soul to be delivered from purgatory into heaven?

I know that the Zimmermans had a child named William who spent February 11 to 16 of 1946 at the Children’s Heart Hospital of Philadelphia. Francis Zimmerman diligently paid bills to the hospital for board all the way until August of the same year.

I know that “Robert Shaffer was in attendance upon the Sunday School of St. John the Baptist Church in Germantown on November 9, 1952.” And that a Zimmerman family member was a Boy Scout. His Second Class Record was completely filled out, and he was fully Scout-certified to hike, find his way around in case he was lost, cook a meal, prepare a fire and was very observant when it came to tracking and identifying wildlife.

Mrs. Laura Zimmerman received a postal telegraph from a man named Bud on November 9 (not sure of the year). It says, “Congratulations But I still think it was a dirty trick.”

So much of a life presented in this box and the more I dig, the more memories I find. But I only rest on the surface of these memories. I’m not involved with them at all, and yet they mean a lot to me because I know that someone, at some point in time, was part of something that meant so much to someone else. These vagaries, the some-things and the some-ones, carry weight because the Zimmermans and the Shaffers are a part of the cycle of humanity, just as I am now. Every day I help create memories for and with people, and I worry that when I am dead, I’ll become a box of ephemera used to make stupid advertisements and greeting cards, or my photographs and documents will be used as clip art or, worse, end up in a paper bag, part of the Philadelphia Recycles program.

The photographs in the box are too numerous to count, but they make me wish I had known the Zimmermans. They had a pudgy little Boston Terrier who was forced to sit in a woman’s Sunday church hat and beads. And while the poor dog suffered the indignity, he was clearly loved; he’s cuddled and talked to by many men and women.

In October, 1962, the Zimmermans went “down the shore” (as Philadelphians say it) and spent vacation time around Queen Anne Victorian houses.

There’s an undated photo of an old man standing in front of a sign for Richard’s Restaurant — Dutch cooking, complete dinners for 85 cents. If only I could have that dinner now.

In 1949 there was a Halloween party at the shore. Four children — Carol Ann, Patsy, Mary and Sandra — wear masks. Two wear masks that hide only their eyes while one wears a bunny mask and another a goofy clown mask.

They went camping at a lake in 1952 and have many photographs of their children. My favorite is one with three boys at a table outside sitting on the sides of their overturned wagons as seats.

There are photos from World War I, World War II. One of a man dressed up as a Mummer, banjo in hand, headdress resting on the ground in front of him. There are couples holding one another, kids playing games and families posing for group photos to prove they were here and that they meant something to one another.

As I brood over the photos, I can’t help but wonder what kind of person would throw these photos away. What kind of society do we live in where family photos mean little more than the eggshells from this morning’s breakfast?

Do these photos have any meaning to you? If so, please contact me here at the Chestnut Hill Local at 215-248-8800. Or email me at jimmyjpackjr@chestnuthilllocal.com. Maybe you can help put some young people in touch with their past.