I was at the thrift store, looking for puzzles. As I headed to pay, I walked by the picture frames.
This family portrait caught my attention.
It’s sweet, I felt sad. A lady was looking at picture frames too. We both looked at each other and shared our thoughts. This was an expensive picture frame. The painting done is such a lovely way.
She snapped a picture and did a Google search. This family portrait Is from 1920, so about 106 years old.
NEXT THOUGHT — Who donated it? Children or grandchildren? Maybe not even a family member. Hard to know.
Anyhow, life is interesting. When people pass, many things end up at the thrift store.
Someone will buy the painting for the picture frame and throw the painting away, most likely.
Well, for a few minutes, this lady and I paid our respects.
You never know what you might see in a thrift store…
Brilliant Viewpoint 
That’s nice of both of you to pay your respects like you did. I follow a blogger who does a lot of genealogy research and has written several books on that topic. While she researches her own family tree, she does something else interesting. When she sees vintage photos, mostly professional portraits, she buys them and as a hobby she uses all her resources to find any living relatives of the person(s) in the portrait. If she’s lucky, she contacts the person and sends them the portrait. If not, that’s fine too – either way it becomes a blog post.
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Wow, that’s fabulous, allows your friend to research and also do something wonderful for a family.
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Yes, it’s so nice of her and her little biographies on these found photos are fun to read as she really digs up info that you and I could never find just by Googling, etc. She is almost always successful tracing family members
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I had a similar find, one time. A multi-generational photograph. I still kick myself for not buying it even though I have no connection to the people.
https://thehapswithherb.com/2023/02/27/priceless-memory-for-sale-18/
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Well, Herb, we are kindred spirits. Thanks for sharing your post, you had the same feelings I had. Also, as you mentioned, back then it was not easy to take a photograph, develop the film, it all took effort and money… UNLIKE now, we take so many photos and many are nonsense, but we aren’t always looking back at our cell phone photos, so they don’t have as much feeling to them.
I was thinking… that’s how they make old movies we watch… go to thrift stores and find old things like this, right. Thanks for sharing. That was a HUGE family too.
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My son, a single father, stopped at a random yard sale and found a framed photograph of his daughters when they were little. Almost spooky.
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Wow… that is spooky. From what I remember, don’t you write some spooky stories? Maybe I’m not remembering correctly. There is a story here, HOW did it get there??
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Yes, I have written a few spooky short stories. How did they get there indeed? I must incorporate this into a story one day.
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I am another who gets sad about abandoned photos. It never hurts to keep in mind that there will come a day when nobody alive remembers us.
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It’s nice to know you paid your respects. You can certainly find a massive variety of items in charity shops, ranging from everyday clothes to amazing vintage treasures and collectables and even unexpected personal items that somehow feel too personal to donate. Thanks for sharing, and have a good day 🙂 Aiva xx
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It always makes me sad to see the sets of good china that graced many a Christmas and Thanksgiving in the thrift stores.
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