LETTER OF THE WEEK
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Photo of my grandfather
In February I received a notice from Ebay that one of my obscure ‘watch word’ notifications that I had listed with them was sent to my email. The watch word was: ‘Francis Orville Libby, Photographer.’ Included in my email was a photo published in AP dated: January 26th, 1921. The photograph was a page cut out of the magazine and entitled ‘The Adventurer’ featuring a man in jodhpurs silhouetted against the sky standing alongside a mountain crag. It was for sale from someone in England for $20. As soon as I saw the image I exclaimed, to no one in particular; ‘That’s my grandfather!’ I bought the picture and waited for its delivery. In the meantime, I found my grandparents’ scrapbook of their hiking expedition into the Presidential Mountains of New Hampshire, dated 1920. They were good friends and neighbours of Francis Libby and his wife and socialised with them often. The scrapbook was made up of 2½in photos taken by Libby and presented as a memento of their trip.
Francis Orville Libby was born in Portland, Maine, in 1881, graduated from Princeton University in 1904 with a degree in fine arts and joined Portland Camera Club in 1906. He was on the board of the Pictorial Society of America from 1930-35. He was selected as a judge of the 1922 London (England) Salon and became a Fellow of the Royal Photographic Society that year. He died in 1961.
My grandfather, Dr Philip Pickering Thompson, was a major in the U.S.
Photograph by Francis O Libby of Dr Philip P Thompson as seen in The Amateur Photographer and Photography magazine, January 26, 1921
Army Medical Surgical Corp who served during World War I. Family lore has it that he suffered from PTSD. He had spent some time in Germany some ten years prior to this, where he learned to speak German so after the war he was assigned the position of Lord Mayor of Koblenz, Germany, as part of the occupation force. He returned to Maine in 1920 and set up in Portland where he practised for the remainder of his life.
Some good detective work, Frederic. Our archive is a treasury of stories like this, waiting to be rediscovered.
Slide shows
I totally agree with Mike Dodman (AP 21 March) regarding having one’s photos on a slideshow. I have been doing this for many years on my computer and laptop. My walls aren’t big enough to take all the photos I’d like to put on them. Having a slideshow running allows us to remember good photos, bad photos, places, people and incidents we’ve seen but would some
