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To my dear sister with all my love—Adelaide

By Eileen and Paul Goldfinger  (Re-post from 2012, but timeless.)

We found this photograph at the Ocean Grove flea market, some years ago. At first, we were drawn to it because it was in a beautiful blue glass frame.

But then we noticed  the lovely portrait of an elegant woman who seemed mysterious.  The hairdo  is probably from the twenties or thirties and is likely an example of a “finger wave.”  She’s wearing lipstick and she probably has makeup on.  Her expression is blank except for the slightest suggestion of a smile.  It looks like she is wearing a coat or jacket with a fur collar. The material is shimmery.  What is it?

There was no date, but there was a little dedication at the bottom. It says, “To my dear sister with all my love—Adelaide.”

The inscription is written in a delicate ornate and crystal-clear style. She separates a few letters with tiny spaces between–sort of a combination of cursive and printing.  People don’t write on photographs anymore, and, in fact, they often take their own digital photos and then leave them in their cameras or on their computers, never to be printed or shared, except in the form of digital images on phones, iPads, or Facebook pages. No one can actually touch such a picture.

But Adelaide had her portrait done by a professional photographic artist. She probably was very particular in her selection.  Every town back-when had a photo studio.  Remember the work of Disfarmer which we presented on this blog?

Disfarmer. Portrait artist Blogfinger post.

An actual photograph, made on film and printed on paper by an expert, as in this case, is an object of beauty that transcends the actual subject matter. Some photographers today are learning old black and white methods such as platinum or albumin printing or silver printing in a darkroom with special papers  in order to capture those wonderful textures, tints and gradations of grey seen in photographs like this one.

The name Adelaide is from the Germanic and means “noble kind.”  It was popular early in the 20th century, but by 1950, girl babies were no longer given that name.  But then, as if rising from the dead, the name has regained popularity starting in 2005.  Now it is said to be quite popular.

On the Broadway stage (1950,) there is a character named Miss Adelaide in “Guys and Dolls.” She is a nightclub performer who is Nathan Detroit’s girlfriend.

If we try to dig down into the inscription at the bottom of the photograph, we sense a deep expression  of loss or distance between the writer and her sister. There is a sadness there, compounded by the fact that this image wound up for sale to a stranger at a flea market.   “To my dear sister with all my love–Adelaide”  seems so heartfelt, as if it is more than a sister would say to another.  We’ll never know what was behind that emotional inscription.    But the song captures the sense of it all.

Renee Fleming, the opera star, often steps over the line to perform music in other genres.  This was recorded by her for the soundtrack of The Shape of Water which won the Oscar in 2018 for Alexandre Desplat.

“You’ll Never Know” was written for a 1943 movie called Hello, Frisco, Hello.  The song is based on a poem written by a young Oklahoma war bride named Dorothy Fern Norris.  In 1943 it won the Oscar for Best Original song, one of nine nominated that year.  Harry Warren and Mack Gordon were the composers.

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By Charles Layton.   (Blogfinger.net Editor and Writer)

I was up early on the morning of September 11, 2001, because men were coming to paint our house. The two guys who showed up asked me if I’d heard that an airplane had just crashed into one of the World Trade towers.

I flipped on the TV and there it was — a giant flaming wound high up on the building, framed by the purest of bright blue skies. All the New York channels were carrying it live by then. The two painters watched for a couple of minutes and then trooped outside to set up their ladders and start work.

I made some coffee and left the TV on in the living room. And then — to everyone’s astonishment — the second plane struck. Now the coverage was non-stop and commercial-free on all channels, and what we’d assumed was an accident we now knew was something else.

I walked outside and told the painters, “Hey, guys, come in here and see this. A second plane just hit the towers.”

In they came and stood in front of the TV in their dirty painter’s clothes, too stunned to know what to say or do. After a while, they trooped back out and resumed painting. I refilled my coffee cup and stayed on the couch, transfixed. At one point I looked over at the side window — on the side of the house where the painters were at work — and through that window I saw them both, still painting but also peering through the window glass and staring at the TV with stupified expressions.

In some other situation it might have seemed funny. In that moment it was anything but. We were all stupified together.

I was alone in the house; Mary was out of town. I honestly cannot remember what I did for all the rest of that day. But I will never forget the sight of those two men’s faces, like a couple of Kilroys, outside my living room window.

Editors note: The whole world knows what 9/11 was like in New York City. We would like to know what it was like here in Ocean Grove. We invite readers to file comments here, telling us how you heard about that tragic event, your thoughts and feelings at the time, and what you did on that day.

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Here is a short video by documentary filmmaker David Layton.

It’s offered in celebration (and, OK, self-congratulation) of our half-millionth visitor to Blogfinger. It’s also a tribute to the town we all love.

NOTE: If you have trouble viewing this video from here, try it on YouTube. Here’s the address: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=A88qRQs2BRk

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