Finish the Sentence Friday - Story behind the photo

We have a new prompt this week for this blog hop which has both a host and a co-host. This week we are to share a photo and the story behind it. If you choose to join in with this writing challenge click FTSF - Story behind the photo to link your post. Kenya Johnson at Sporadically Yours is the co-host and Kristi Campbell at Finding Ninee is the host. 

Century old bank book that belonged to my paternal grandpa

The photo of a bank book filled with some dates and balances from over a 100 years ago seem to be an indication of something about the man I called grandpa. The dates in the book don't cover very many years. It appears that some deposits were made and the balances from the statements were noted in the book, but whether this was a savings account or a checking account, I don't know. As to when money was moved into and out of the account it is a little confusing to me.

From the first census record succeeding those years I was able to determine where he and the family had lived. The census records also showed that he had a truck farm, so money in the account is most likely from earnings from the truck farm. I remember hearing stories about my grandparents growing grapes and drying them. They may have had some apricot and/or peach trees too, as many of the farms in the area did. The censuses indicated my grandpa was an employer, so they no doubt had a few farm hands.

Because the census designates the county and the district/town they lived in, I decided to do a Google search about the history of that particular place. This is where things got really interesting.

My grandparents had only a handful of photos from those years of living there, because their house had burned at a time yet to be determined by me. What photos they had were ones they had sent to a few family members, who in turn gave them back after the fire. (Note to self: Share family photos with others.) The number of photos they had fit into a small stationery box. For instance they only had a couple of pictures of my Dad as a young baby and a high school graduation photo of him.

Now we will go back to the google search mentioned above. One of the first things that popped up in my search was a site that had old photos taken of children in front of a school that my Dad had attended. The first photo was thought to have been taken around 1920. My Dad is no doubt in the photo, as his friend who was the same age and was the best man at my parents' marriage had been identified as being in the photo. A woman who lived next door to my grandparents had furnished some information concerning the history of the school for the website. According to the census, my Dad and his brother both attended school in 1920, so that means they both would have been in that photo, unless they were sick or absent that day. Without other photos of my Dad at a young age, it is difficult to know which boy he is in the photo, but for now I am just ecstatic to actually be able to see a photo that probably includes him. Sometimes the path to discovery is not straight!


What is the history about one of your photos, or as in my case, did your photo spur you on to discover other things?