Photos I've Collected

Over the years I have amassed a huge box of old black and white photos.  

I 

mean

HUGE

I have family scrapbooks

 and

 photos I've bought at antique shops

 and

 those I've found at estate sales

 and 

many that have apparently just attached themselves to me

 in some magnetic and random fashion. 

I love history and fashion

 and 

studying the way people lived a hundred or more years ago,

but

really

where did all these photos come from?

I have primarily photos of women and children.

There are hard faced, tough, prairie women

and

sweet, hopeful brides

and

careworn, weary mothers with eight or ten children gathered round them.

I have gun slinging gals

and

nuns

and

sets of sisters with starched pinafores.

There are curls

 that some momma rolled up in rags the night before

 and fussed over for hours

while a patient papa blacked his boots

 and slicked down his hair, wishing his stiff collar was not choking him.

I've got a truckload of  straight laced, prim and proper matrons,

posed in formal studio settings

with several generations of progeny staring somberly at the camera.

They wear their best clothing, tight, starched and uncomfortable.

There are families who've included their strutting chickens, huge hogs and favorite horse

in their photo

presumably to impress or reassure kinfolk back east that they had made it out west and were prospering just fine on the prairie.

There are women mountain climbing

and

women sightseeing

and

a woman posing with her prize mule.

I'm not quite sure how I came by all these,

or

what I want to do with them,

but

apparently

I can't get rid of them.

There's something so poignant and appealing

about the history these photos hint at

that

I'm holding onto them

just for the pleasure 

of

imagining

what stories

they might tell!