The Road to Sunrise - Personal Project
I thought I’d share with you a little information about a project that my husband and I have been working on, off and on, for several years. I’ve always been fascinated by vintage photographs. You have to wonder about the people - who they were, what life was like for them, etc. Well about 15 years ago I purchased a collection of four albums of vintage photo negatives at an antique store in Denver for about $50. They sat on a bookshelf at my house for about 10 years with me occasionally looking them over. I knew it would be a big project so I needed a good chunk of time to commit to it. (I've only been able to work on this during my slower months of January and February each year which is why it is such a long term project).
Around 4 years ago I started scanning the negatives, very meticulously, in order to keep them organized and to assign the proper information to each and every one of the 605 negatives in the collection. The negative albums have lined paper with a line for each negative so details about each negative were noted. Most of the negatives are 4x5’s, meaning 4 inches by 5 inches.
It appears that all of the images came from the same family, most likely the same photographer whom we believe is Edward Alexander Millar, Jr.. He himself appears in a few of the 605 images, and his initials are written on the cover of Album A so my assumption is that they belonged to him. I scanned all of the photos with my phone after building a miniature “dark room” with four walls over a light box. The top of the four walls had to be covered also, with a heavy piece of black paper with only a small hole for my phone camera lens and I had to make another black sheet of paper with a cutout to fit each of 5 or so different negative sizes. More on the whole process later in another post…..
Luckily, the photographer stored each negative in a negative album with notation pages so every negative had an assigned number and description so we know what is going on in each photograph. Unfortunately, he often used people’s initials rather than spelling out their names so it was hard to figure out who these people were. But, after hours of looking at details, researching on-line, and deciphering the photographer’s notes we were able to find out where the photos were taken, who a few of the people might be and where to look for more information.
This led to an airplane trip to Coronado, CA to visit the Coronado Historical Association (CHA). The CHA was thrilled to see a sampling of the images we have and they graciously helped us with more research right there on the spot.
They knew the house in our photos and they were able to tell us the history of the house and the names of the people that had lived there which was in fact The Millar Family and their in-laws the Geary Family. (The patriarch of the Millar family is Edward Alexander Millar Sr., who has his own Wikipedia page - look him up!) They also told us that the in-laws of the Millars are the Geary Family, a prominent family name in San Francisco to this day.
The grandfather of one of the subjects of many of the photos is Governor John White Geary, who was the first mayor of San Fransisco and a Union General in the Civil War. He also has his own Wikipedia page and there have been a couple of books written about him, one of which I am reading now. Fascinating stuff! Several generations of both the Millar and Geary families lived in this house, probably together and at different times.
After spending several hours at the CHA, Ray and I actually walked up to the house where the Millars and Geary's had lived in the 1920’s, ‘30’s and beyond and knocking on the door! We met the very charming current day owners of the house who gave us a grand tour and we both swapped our stories about the house. Some highlights of the image collection are: family portraits, candids of family gatherings, holidays, vacations, outing to local parks, the beach, and the zoo. Also included are images of family around the house, parties, the yard, visits from friends, interiors of the house, pets and stills of friends’ houses.
One of the biggest highlights and the subject of hundreds of photos are mining operations in Joshua Tree National Park, before Joshua Tree was actually a national park and mostly before it was even a National Monument. Yes, we paid a visit to Joshua Tree Park with a sample of images too. They also were happy to see them. More on that, too, in later posts. Stay tuned!
NOTE: For the photos below, the titles are as written in the book (sometimes with an extra note by me) are under each photo, not at the top (although it appears that way). And some more info is below this group of photos so keep scrolling!
The BIG Question that remains unanswered: How are the photos of the mining operations connected to either the Millar Family or the Geary Family? We can’t find any records saying these families owned the mines. Maybe they contributed financially? Maybe they did own the mines under a different name. Maybe the families had nothing to do with the mines and the photographer had a buddy who owned the mines and he went along to document the work?
And, is the main photographer really Edward Alexander Millar Jr.? I’m pretty sure he is since his initials are on the cover of the negative album. I’ve noticed that one of the Geary’s has a camera in his hand in several photographs so maybe he took a few of the photos. We do know the mines did not produce any type of fortune that is worth mentioning. Oh well, you can’t win ‘em all!
Ray and I have also spent many, many hours rebuilding the family tree for both of these families to see if we can find any descendants to share these images with. We are getting close!! My next step is to publish all the photos together in a large photo book that will include the story as well. I can’t wait to complete that part of the project!
I will continue to send out new posts about this project along with more photos and information we have found so if you are interested in history and photography keep your eyes open!
And if by chance you know anything about these particular families, or know someone who might, we’d love to hear from you. We found out that one of the Geary boys (Edward Millar Geary) lived in Denver and died in Aurora. But we have yet to firmly identify any modern-day descendants to share this treasure trove with. We know there’s someone out there, possibly a distant branch on the family tree or even a friend of the family, who’d love to get a glimpse into the past.
