the writing on the back

One of the many reasons I love vernacular photography and very old portraits is the writing that often accompanies them. Leyna’s parents sent us a cabinet card of her great great grandmother (I think that’s the right number of greats) and more fascinating than the front to me was the back:

Writing on images that identifies a person is usually written in a detached third-person, simply listing the person’s name— “[first name] [last name] on his third birthday”— so that others who view it will know who is depicted.  This note is different.  I imagine all sorts of stories: ones of youthful pride and possession (my mother) or ones involving loss of memory and the struggle to remember (my mother?) or ones where the writer has an uncontrollable need to classify and mark everything, like a variation of OCD.  I’m not really sure what my point is other than to marvel at one of the many ways photography sparks my imagination and helps me think about how strange and interesting people are.