My vacation days: An American family album

Radical Society, Jul 2002 by Flaherty, Jordan

1. On a page in an old photo album: a young woman in a melodramatic pose against a stone wall.

These photos, from 1895, are of my mother's grandmother's family, the Stoddards, from Ohio. I have no other details - not their names, their occupations, or their political beliefs. In most nineteenth-century photos, the subjects are posed and formal. These photos display a casual, comfortable charm. One photo shows a rakish young man posing playfully with a broom, another features a large group playing tug-of-war. Overall, there's a feeling of joy and improvisation.

2. In one of a series of photos in some tropical location: an unguarded moment with a young man rowing a boat.

Estrangement runs in my family. As a result of a bitter feud, my mother doesn't speak to her sister. My grandmother, I recently discovered, didn't talk to her sisters for the last fifty years of her life. I was born ten years after my siblings. My mother and I lived in a one-bedroom apartment in a college town. I don't really know my brothers and sister. And my aunts, uncles, and cousins are nothing but vague, distant memories.

I grew up detached from any family history. I lived isolated from any shared past. And, until these photo albums were put in my hands, I've never missed it. A friend once told me I needed to rediscover my family ties. "You wake up one day, and you discover that all you have is blood," he said.

3. Part of a series of photos of children in white finery: two kids, one black, one white.

What if blood doesn't mean anything? I look through these pictures, and I feel no shiver of recognition. The casualness of the photos says a lot. Who, in 1895, could afford a camera? And who could just take it out for casual photos? Looking through the album more carefully, I see a gigantic house, fine clothes, and, in one photo, a young black woman whom I assume to be a servant. Behind every fortune lies a crime, and these photos, despite their gaiety, seem to point an accusing finger - at whom?

4. A photographic postcard: the inscription identifies "Gral. Villa," flanked by Zapata and Urbina, and is dated "12-6-14." Among the many serious faces, Villa is smiling broadly.

In another photo album, from twenty years later, a more somber mood prevails. I inherited these photos from my grandfather, who died when I was a small child. These are photos from his time in the army, stationed in Mexico. Some of the photos were taken by him or his friends, while others seem to be old photographic postcards, featuring landscapes, battle scenes, or, in one picture that startles me, Pancho Villa posing with Emiliano Zapata.

5. The printed caption reads: "Triple execution in Mexico #2." The photo shows one man standing, in perhaps his last moments. Who will kill him? It doesn't appear to be U.S. soldiers.

The album contains a disturbing cocktail of snapshots of casual army life and brutal, grisly photos of executions and mass graves. There are no notes inscribed in the book, no clues as to what he thought of all this, or what role, if any, he played in the brutal crimes. No evidence of personal feelings of horror, revulsion, shame or pleasure, although a few times he (or someone else) has circled his face in group photos and written out his name. Printed on the cover of the album is the phrase "My Vacation Days."

6. Among various photos of my grandfather's infantry, a washed-out photo of a stiff man on horseback, arrested by two soldiers. This photo is one of the few photos that shows his infantry in any kind of interaction with Mexicans.

Perhaps this is a reason to be aware of where I came from. Without these photos, I am without history or responsibility. I am here, in large part, because of the sum total of those lives frozen in photographs that came before me. The burden, as well as the gift, of my history helps shape my choices, and, ultimately, my future.