Personal history

Our son Sammy and daughter-in-law Katie gave me a handful of vintage photographs of unknown people for Christmas this year. They came with this note “We hope these snapshots prove inspiring for your work.” They are.

Found photo of unidentified family

I’ve been known to stand for hours at flea market stalls and silently flip through boxes and boxes of old photos. What am I looking for? I don’t know. Well, yes, I guess I do. It’s connection.

When I was 10, our parents divorced. My brother, sister, and I called it “the war.”

Before the war, with three of us kids at home, our household was bustling. We lived on Summer Street in Royersford where our many friends were just next door. I can still hear the venetian blinds on the front door clang as it was opened and closed a hundred times a day.

After the war, it was devastatingly quiet. I was alone much of the time.

I can see now exactly what I did about it. I became exceedingly charming, ridiculously helpful, and absurdly easy-to-get-along-with. Other nearby families sort of adopted me.

Barbara and Jimmy Vance, who lived in the apartment downstairs, let me hang out with them every day when my mother was at work. I helped Barbara with her two toddlers, Mary and Francis. Mom commuted to work by bus from Mont Clare to Norristown, so it was a long day for her and for me. In the evenings, she dated.

I soaked up the big, loud, Italian-American family of my new, best friend Linda Tartaglia. That first summer, I basically lived with them. I ate polenta. Danced on the coffee table to the Supremes’ “Baby Love” with Linda. I watched her rowdy brothers wrestle on the floor, while attempting to breathe morning breath on each other -- a form of adolescent torture. This family saved me.

So when I shuffle through anonymous photographs, I am looking for a connection. And because I am absurdly easy-to-get-along-with, I never let myself down.

Stop by to see how I’m connecting with vintage photos of unknown people.

Lost Spirits ~ Found Souls

April 4 through May 3, 2014

Phoenix Village Art Center

207 Bridge Street, Phoenixville, PA 19460

Opening reception on First Friday, April 4, 6 to 9 pm

Artists’ Coffee Talk on Sunday, April 20, noon to 2 pm

Comments

Holy cow, it’s costmary!

Recently while helping my sister, Kit, move to a new house, we found an inte res ting old bible belonging to “V. H. Reinhart” in the bottom of a moldy old box. I’d never seen a bible like it. The left-hand column is written in German and the right, in English. Victor H. Reinhart, born in 1885, was the father of my step father, Wilbur Reinhart, and I knew from oral family history that he was a Mennonite minister. Inside the bible we found a single, brittle, pale green leaf and immediately recognized it. I said, “Holy cow, it’s costmary!” (Tanacetum balsamita also Chrysanthemum balsamita) Because I’m passionate about both genealogy and herb gardening, this discovery was a bit like taking a beautiful old painting to the Antiques Roadshow and finding a signed copy of the Declaration of Independence behind it. Costmary’s (now obsolete) common name is “bible leaf,” having been used as an aromatic bookmark since the time when a bible was likely the only book in the house. The volat...

Genealogy: it’s about connection

Each one of us has two parents, four grandparents, and eight great-grandparents. For every generation you go back, the number of people who procreated, to eventually make you, doubles. When I first started out on my genealogy journey, these numbers astounded me, and still do. I love to think about my DNA stew. It feeds my soul. Playing with numbers Let’s assume each generation makes a baby at age thirty. Perhaps the age should be 16, 18, 20, or 25, but whatever, I picked 30 for this exercise. After all, in the past, people started having children earlier than today, but they also bore many more children and did so over a period of 10, or even 20, years. Stick with me for this simplified and fictional example: For a child born in 1960, there were two parents who were born about 1930. The baby’s four grandparents were born about 1900. The baby’s eight great-grandparents were born in 1870. (You see, I'm doubling the number of grandparents and going back 30 years at the same time....

On Beauty

About 10 years ago during our routine Saturday phone call, my father asked me an amazing question, “Why does seeing something beautiful make a person cry?” I was honored that he asked me such a powerful question and I’ve been thinking about it ever since. In my lifetime, I've seen some beautiful things that have made me cry. When I was 17-years-old and an exchange student in Spain , I walked down a dark corridor inside a church, turned a corner, and saw a huge painting (10 by 16 feet), El Greco’s “The Burial of the Count of Orgaz.” That was 1972, but I vividly remember the colors in it: the metallic gold, the reds, and the grays and how the elongated faces and figu res dripped emotion. I remember the awe I felt in seeing that the artist had painted a sheer white gown over a black velvet robe (lower right). I stood quite close to it for as long as the guide would allow. For many, the natural world evokes wonderment. About 25 years ago, on a trip to rural Canada...

Holly Cusumano

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