They say a picture says a thousand words…but this one seemed to have very little to say for quite some time. It was silent, sitting in a drawer, waiting for its moment to speak. I found this photo one day while I was rummaging through my Gramma’s boxes of photos looking for inspiration for an art project. I didn’t end up using it and I haven’t thought too much about it since that day. But this photo peaked my interest for this assignment, I had a sudden desire to end its silence.

I began to develop my own theories about this photo, and scoured it for information . My Gramma had written “Penny 1939” lightly in pencil on the back. This was my first clue, the baby in the photo must be her. My Gramma was born in 1939, so this picture must have been taken before she was a year old. The back of the photo also reveals that this is a Kodak print, a “Kodachrome Print” to be specific. The Kodak company was founded in 1889 in Rochester New York, where my Gramma has lived her entire life. And a Kodachrome is a color reversal film that was introduced by the company in 1935, becoming one of the first successful color materials used for both cinematography and still photography. Its amazing to me that this technology was fairly recent at the time the photo was taken. Ironically Kodachrome was prohibited in the United States in 1954, the same year my Gramma got married. This photo holds some of Kodak’s history inside it I think. It represents how much has changed; not only the technology but also the status of the company. When this photo was taken, the Kodak company were innovators, the front runners of the industry, and now they are struggling to keep up the changing times. Perhaps this parallels a fate that befalls many people as we grow older.

However, what truly intrigues me about this photo in not its association with Kodak. This photo is a window into a rarely discussed portion of my families history, and I had no idea about it until very recently. While studying this photo I naturally assumed that the women hoisting my Gramma up into the air must be her mother. Like most I have never met my Great Grandmother so I had no evidence to support my theory. But the joyousness of the scene and the love I saw in the women’s face seemed like an irrefutable claim to motherhood. But I was wrong, and when I learned the truth I watched the picture change before my eyes.

I asked my Gramma about this photo and she told me that the women holding her was not her mother, it was her nanny. It was certainly not uncommon for well off families like my Gramma’s to have nannies, so that did not shock me. Here’s what did…there are no pictures of my Gramma’s mother at all…anywhere. My Gramma’s biological mother has been intentionally erased from our families history. According to my Gramma she had an affair and despite the threat that she would never see her children again, ran off with the other man. Its amazing how an object as simple as a picture can show so much change. Somewhere between my Gramma’s birth and the moment captured in this photo, my families history changed forever. Just like the photo changes for me when I became privy to the truth of its story. What does that mean about my poor little photo? Is the love I say in it initially a falsehood? Does this photo mean betrayal and resentment in the eyes of someone else. I have had this photo for years, and now it means something so different then it once did. The meaning you feel for an object affects the entire way you preserve it. And when that meaning changes so does the object. The photo feels different between my fingers now, it looks different to my eyes that know so much. But my interest in the photo dramatically increased with the presence of this new mystery.

The thought of a mysterious Great Grandmother intrigued me. What kind of women was she and do I have any of her in me? But research is an amazing thing. My Gramma told me that years ago when I was young she found her mother and they began e-mailing. She won’t say much about it, in fact there is only one thing that stands out in my mind. My little brother has bright red hair, and for his entire life we had no idea where he got it from. As it turns out my mysterious biological Great Grandmother had bright red hair.