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Readers Share Stories That Enhance Their One-Of-A-Kind Photos Readers Provide Snapshots Of What Life Was Like For Relatives In Treasured Photos

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By GREG WILLIAMS The Tampa Tribune

Published: January 27, 2008

Updated: 01/25/2008 06:12 pm

In today's world, where camera phones and digital imagery have become commonplace, it seems that the importance of each photo has been diminished.

However, many of us still understand what it means to own just a few precious photos of family and friends. When disaster hits, or as families scatter, we sometimes lose track of the photographic reminders of important people in our lives. Occasionally, just a single picture survives.

In December, we presented a collection of personal stories about these one-of-a-kind treasures - and, in response, a few readers wrote us to share their own "singular photos."

MORE STORIES AND PHOTOS, Page 2
DEHLIA CURTIS

By SHARON WHITE
Special to the Tribune

My family has one picture of a pretty woman holding a baby. It dates back to the early 1920s. The woman is my grandmother, Dehlia Curtis, and the baby was my mother's brother, Johnny. My daughter has the picture now and treasures it.
Dehlia married a veteran from the Spanish-American War who was much older, and she had three children. My mother was about 5 when Dehlia fell dead on the floor of their cabin. She died of a medical condition, but my mother remembered her dress catching fire when she fell near the stove. My mother was sitting on the porch swing when Johnny came out and said, "I'll give you my pennies if you stop crying."

Mother and her older sister were taken to Grandfather Children's Home in Banner Elk, N.C., and raised there - but little Johnny was separated from the girls and was very unhappy. He went to live with an aunt and died when he was a young man.

My mother and her sister had a good life at the children's home. My mother was able to attend college in Banner Elk and became a medical records librarian. My mother, Mary Waller, retired from St. Joseph's Hospital in Tampa about 1982 and passed away in 2000. Her sister, Nellie Sullivan, lived in Tampa all her married life.

ABOUT THE AUTHOR: Sharon White, 59, has lived in Tampa since the early 1970s. Now retired, White worked at Verizon for more than a decade.

HANNAH UDEL SZAJNERT-SZWARCBERG

By ANNA SZAJNERT-KLEIN

Special to the Tribune

I do not remember the first time I heard about my aunt. Through all my childhood, I was often compared to her. My father tried to find in me anything that reminded him of his beloved sister. By the time I was born, my aunt had been dead for more than 15 years. Usually, that is enough time for closure and acceptance of the loss. But that was an unusual, incomprehensible loss - the Holocaust loss.

My father's generation suffered a broken spirit that they unconsciously transferred onto us. I wonder for how many generations that pain will persist; or maybe it was and will always be a part of the Jewish spirit.

I feel this deep spiritual connection with my aunt. She became a part of me, and I felt it especially when my father looked at me.

I do not know how my father saved this picture. Did he have it while chaotically flying from Poland to Russia, preserving it through all those miles and five years of uncertain deportation? Or did a friend save it and give it to my father upon his return? It couldn't be a family member; they were all gone.

I recently reconstructed my aunt's last day and that of her 3-year-old son. I visited the place where her shtetl was rounded up and deported to Treblinka. I walked the street on which they were herded to the train.

My aunt does not have her burial place. Her remains joined the field of ashes of her people around Treblinka. That photo, with her smiley face, is the only thing that survived her.

After my father died, I decided to engrave my aunt's name on his gravestone. Her name was Hannah Udel Szajnert-Szwarcberg.

At least their names dwell together.

ABOUT THE AUTHOR: Anna Szajnert-Klein of Chapel Hill, N.C., was born in Poland in 1956. She was named after her aunt. "Her name was Hannah; mine is Anna. That was as close as it could be. In Communist Poland, there were some rules regarding naming. So my father named me Anna, and it was the only time he acted openly against my mother's will. For him, it was an imperative; he needed to honor his sister somehow. And I was the only girl in the family."

Szajnert-Klein moved to Belgium in 1985 and from there to Chicago in 1994. "In the U.S., I discovered Jewish life," she writes, "which, in my post-war Polish mind, was condemned to disappear."

PHILIP GANCEDO

By EVELYN ALVAREZ

Special to the Tribune

My ancestors were all from Spain. My parents were born there, as were some of their siblings.

From an early age, I was enthralled by stories of their lives there. One of my favorite pastimes was listening to tales of my family's history. I would ask to hear them again and again, often learning additional pieces of information that I had not heard before.

One of the stories that drew my attention was that of my great-uncle Philip. He was my maternal grandmother's younger brother. Philip worked in the coal mines in the mountains separating the provinces of Asturias and Leon in the north of Spain.

In a mining accident, Philip lost his left arm. For some reason unknown to the family, he decided to move to France. After that, they lost track of his whereabouts - except to hear that he had married there. The air of mystery surrounding him has always fascinated me. Since this information was passed from one generation to another, I often wonder about its veracity.

Some years ago, my mother's youngest sister, who was the sole surviving member of her generation, decided to pass along her collection of family photos. Since I was interested in genealogy and was researching our family tree, she gave the photos to me. They were to provide a huge surprise.

While sorting through them, I found a faded photo of an unidentified couple from another era. The only information on the back was the name and address of the photographer - in Paris, France. The couple is posed in such a way that the woman's body conceals the man's left side, so that his arm is not visible. I immediately recalled my great-uncle.

After putting all the clues together, it became obvious that this was a photo of Philip and his French wife. What a thrill to have the only photo in existence that corroborates the family story. This was an important piece of family history.

ABOUT THE AUTHOR: Evelyn Alvarez, 79, is a lifelong Tampa resident. She worked for a local grocery co-op, Affiliated of Florida, for 47 years. An avid genealogist, Alvarez has researched her family's history in Spain primarily through the mail. "Spain is not great on the Web," she writes, "but they have excellent records through their churches."

She has completed five generations of research on both sides of her family. "I just need one great-grandfather."

JOHN AND ANNA FRANCES KENNALLEY

By FRANCES H. WRAY

Special to the Tribune

The only picture of my maternal grandparents is enclosed.

From time to time, I enjoy relating incidents about my early life, when these grandparents lived with us in the Bronx (Mother, Dad, two brothers and me). Grandfather died about 1940, Grandma in 1941.

My heart goes out to those who live a distance from - or never knew - grandparents. John and Anna were loving, faith-filled, pleasant additions to daily life. Grandma played piano and sang, as did my mother. Grandfather mostly tapped one foot as he sat in his Morris chair (an early 1900s recliner).

ABOUT THE AUTHOR: Frances H. Wray, 78, moved to Tampa with her husband, Walter, in 1979. When Wray's grandparents moved in with her family in the Bronx, they lived in a fifth-floor walk-up. Although her grandmother was blind for the last 10 years of her life, Wray remembers her bravely venturing onto the city's streets. From the first day that her grandfather climbed the steps to the family's apartment, Wray says, "I don't remember that he ever left that building."

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