THE BOOM OF PHOTOGRAPHY

By

Karen Utter Jennings

            Humans are visual beings. We like pictures to help illustrate what we are reading or listening to. When photography was born, it is no wonder that humans bought into the new invention. The first photographs our ancestors saw amazed them and they marveled over the detail the photographs captured.

            The word photography means “light” and “to write.” The earliest cameras were actually boxes that used light to project images through a small hole onto surfaces. Rather than recording an image, they were projectors of light.

            A French inventor, Niepce, made the first permanent photograph in 1825 and Louis Daguerre collaborated with him to refine the process. When Niepce died, Daguerre continued to experiment. In 1839, he developed photographic plates and discovered an image could be made permanent by immersing it in salt. You may recognize the name Daguerre, for his invention produced the type of photograph known as the daguerreotype.

            Society first looked at the new photographic process as a threat to painting and drawing, but the interest outweighed the negativity. When our ancestors embraced photography, they liked its qualities. The demand for the new images spurred inventors to develop new and better ways to produce photographs.

            An interesting fact I found is that in the 1850 US Federal Census, there are 938 males over the age of 15 listed with an occupation of daguerreotypist.

            By 1840 William Henry Fox Talbert made the first paper print, called either a talbotype or a calotype. Those prints were produced from a waxed paper negative. Those images lacked sharpness and clarity. But it was the beginning of a wonderful way to capture people, places, events, and things on paper for posterity.

            Ambrotypes appeared in the mid-1850s, but by 1860, the tintype method was the most popular images to own. The tintypes were more durable and could be carried in a pocket or sent through the mail to loved one.

            I own three tintypes in my photograph collection. One is a small wallet size tintype of my great, great-grandfather, Thomas Nathaniel Johnson, who lived in Kings Valley, McDonald County. Another tintype is a large, 8x10 and the last is a 3 x 4 size cased image of a mother and daughter.

            

The above photo is Thomas Nathaniel Johnson, my paternal great, great-grandfather. Notice his tie has been hand-painted by the photographer. That was popular with tintypes. 

             After paper prints were invented, card photographs became popular; the paper print was mounted onto cardboard stock. Carte de viste, cabinet cards and stereographs are the three types of card photographs. I have many of these in my collection, also.

            Through time, it became the goal of the early photographers to simply the process of photography. The large cameras and heavy equipment was a cumbersome task to undertake.

            George Eastman, considered the father of photography, ushered in the age of candid photography with the slogan, “You push the button, we do the rest.” Eastman developed the roll film camera that anybody could operate and called it the Kodak camera.

            The Kodak Company is instrumental in the age of photography. They marketed their cameras to women and I’m glad they did. My great-grandmother owned a camera at a very young age and it became one of her passions. Through that passion, today I have a wonderful photograph collection!

            Cameras, film and photography has evolved into the digital wonders we enjoy today. But make no mistake; photography truly is an art form! I admire award-winning photographers, for there is nothing more breath taking than seeing a person or animal, place or event captured and saved to a paper print.            

            In coming posts, I will describe each of the types of photographs that has been listed. It is necessary to have an understanding of which types of photographs you may own, so you can identify and study them.

             I hope you enjoy collecting old photographs as much as I do and better yet, I hope you use your camera and snap those pictures that tell your family story.

Rocky Comfort: Little Town in the Missouri Ozarks

Rocky Comfort: Little Town in the Missouri Ozarks

By Karen Utter Jennings

            Rocky Comfort is a peculiar name for a town.  The history of the village tells about the rocky terrain descending into a beautiful green valley; hence the name.  I am fortunate to live not far from Rocky Comfort, so I take a little drive occasionally to visit the graves of my family in the cemetery and take a spin around the town. 

            The first seven years of my childhood were spent growing up in Rocky.  My parents, Ronnie and Emma Faye Utter and my brothers, Mike, Bill, and Bob, lived between the Prosperity Baptist Church and the Indian Creek Bridge downtown.  The property is known as the old Shipman Place.

            The property came into our Utter/Brier family in the 1950s when my paternal grandmother’s parents (the Blacks) bought it. Through the years, it was sold and resold to family members. When Mae Utter Martin bought it, she had a huge pond dozed out in the back near where Indian Creek Branch flows.

            I have many photographs of the house and property when we lived there. Finally, in the 1970s, Mae Utter Martin went to the Elmhurst Nursing Home in Webb City, Missouri, and the property was sold. Today the property looks nothing like it did. There’s a mobile home setting toward the back of the land.

            Our paternal great-grandmother, Ollie (Johnson) Utter Brier, lived just north of the elementary school and the playground.  Her property is known as the old Milligan house. A dirt road separated the place from the school grounds.

            In 1943, Ollie’s parents, Thomas and Nancy Johnson left Kings Valley and moved to Rocky. Tom and Nancy’s health continued to deteriorate and Ollie and her husband, Bill Brier, left Kansas and moved to Rocky to care for them.

            Bill and Ollie bought the place and the surrounding acreage right after that. I have photographs of the houses and land when me and my family lived there.

            My first and second grade teachers were Marie Goosetree and Lela Young, respectively.  I have old grade cards from those elementary school days.  I remember crossing the road to go to school wearing a dress with long corduroy pants underneath and carrying my satchel. A satchel is defined as a small bag often with a shoulder strap that one carries supplies in and carried to school.

            As time went by, we knew everyone who lived in town.  Ollie loved to walk and she would take my brothers and me for a “walk around the block.”  At each of the houses along the way, we stopped to chat with the neighbors.  Some of her neighbors were George and Julie Barnett, Ouida Lowe, Delores Lamberson, Ephraim Decker, Joi Blair, and Lyman Dabbs.

            The Rocky Comfort Methodist Church is still standing in the same spot, but under a different name.  Earl D. Young christened me in that little church.  As a youngster on Sunday mornings, Ollie slipped a dime into my chubby hand so I could contribute to the offering.  

            Many family members are buried in the old part of the Rocky Comfort Cemetery, located north of town near the Prosperity Baptist Church.

            The year before I was born, my paternal grandfather, Perry Utter, bought the Conoco Station located on the east side of  Rocky.  He, along with his two sons, Ronald and Wayne, offered complete auto service to customers.  Perry also coached the boys’ softball team, called the Conoco’s, of which I have pictures and newspaper stories. They were champion ballplayers.

            I am fortunate to own lots of photographs and memorabilia from my family during their Rocky Comfort days.

            In those days, the Stanley Ford home was still standing and Cecil Shewmake owned the grocery store.  The artesian well down at the four-way stop was full of water and my family got their mail at the little brick post office.  My brothers think of Rocky as their Paradise. 

            Lazy summer days spent at Grandma Ollie’s house meant listening to the whirl of the old window fan and the announcer’s lulling voices broadcasting the baseball games on television.  Iced tea with spearmint picked fresh from the garden, hamburgers on buns (not bread slices) and angel food cake was our favorite meal.  Those are just a few of the memories of days gone by.

            Rocky Comfort was once a large town boasting many businesses and residents. In 1907, when the railroad decided to take their train about 3 miles north and east of Rocky, the town eventually dried up. The new town of Wheaton was born with the railroad.

            Today Rocky Comfort is a village with several hundred residents. But it will always be my childhood hometown where memories carry me back to those glorious days filled with love, laughter, and family times.    

           

Pioneers Writing Class and Using Genealogy in Writing

FROM THE INKWELL:
I'm behind on my weekly posting; had to take my desktop computer to the computer hospital. It had slowed down and I knew it needed cleaned. Just got it back.

The Pioneering Women of the West online course is going great. Lots of information and lots of websites to get lots of information. In the weeks to come we will learn about the mail-order brides, teachers, doctors, and women with unusual occupations. Right now we are learning about the pioneering women who travelled from their Eastern homes along the trails west.

Through working on my family history genealogy, I found accounts "Left By the Indians" by Emeline L. Fuller and "Massacre On the Oregon Trail" by Carl Schlicke. They tell about the Elijah Palmer Utter family and members of a wagon train journeying west who were attacked by Indians on September 9 and 10, 1860 near Castle Butte, Idaho, on the Snake River. Not all of the wagon train members were killed, but the massacre was a bloody and brutal one. (I would think all massacres would be horrific.)

As time goes by, an author will mention that she is using her ancestor's real-life stories as a basis for a particular book they wrote. I've decided to use genealogy in just about everything I write. I have so much history on our ancestors that I will be able to write lots of stories; some short stories and some full length books. My signature line is: "Ozarks Stories with a Tough of Genealogy." I love the Ozarks and our little corner of the Missouri.

In the Joplin Globe the other day a writer talked about the old Southtown Sporting Goods Store in Joplin being blown away by the tornado in May. The store had a hanging bass fish outside near the sidewalk that had hung there almost 50 years. That story spurred me to write my own romantic contemporary short story using the bass loosely in my story the very next day!  And, of course, it has genealogy in it. The heroine is a genealogist and the hero has his mother's research along with old letters and diaries. Now, what to do with it? There's not a lot of short-story markets for writers. Woman's World magazine is not accepting any new authors at this time. I may post my story next week on my blog.

FROM THE EATING WELL:
My tomatoes burned up. The rain came way too late. I did buy a couple the other day that were very good homegrown ones. We had bacon, lettuce and tomato sandwiches that night. They were excellent. My husband ate 4 of them.

FROM THE LIVING WELL:
Schools are starting all over our area next Wednesday, August 17. I pray the children have a wonderful learning year and they are all safe and sound. Jesus was a teacher and children gathered round Him wherever He went.

Hope you have a great week!
Karen Utter Jennings