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July 1939. "Mr. Whitfield, tobacco sharecropper, with baby on front porch. North Carolina, Person County, near Gordonton." Happy Father's Day from Shorpy! Photo by Dorothea Lange for the Resettlement Administration. View full size.
As we sift though Garage Sales and Antique Shops, we often find old photos like this one cast away, unappreciated. It always sparks a sadness their family abandoned them...being lost to history.
Bob100 wrote:
"I have several pictures similar to this of family members during the Depression".
You are fortunate Bob, keep those photos labeled and entrusted to family members. In time they may be lost, but you will have done your part to keep that family flame alive.
A photo of my Grandfather holding my Dad in 1933. I have several pictures similar to this of family members during the Depression. Growing up in the 60's, I remember well those oldtimers who carried on and raised large families with nothing but their sweat. The ones I knew stayed independent till the end. They're all gone now and the children like the one in the photo are rapidly leaving us, taking all living memories of that age with them. God forbid that we forget the work and sacrifices they endured that our generation and our children could have it better. I wonder sometimes if we actually do.
as well as the sweat stained hat tell a story about their owner. Hard work and self reliance come to mind.
The father would very likely not be around anymore, but the baby would be 75 now. Wonder if the Whitfield grandchildren will catch wind of this? Hope so.
Love the Father's Day nod. Here's to our dads who appear in some form or other in so many of these Shorpy pictures, whether in Kodachrome or B & W.
They don't know from granite countertops or care about country club memberships. They just want your time and your love and your support, and aside from clothes and groceries, that's all they really need.
Here's to dads and their sons and daughters, and to those significant others who keep things together for families both nuclear and extended.
As to Mr. Whitfield, lamentably the abundance of his kinsmen in Person County, NC at the 1940 census makes pinning him down (and perhaps identifying the baby as well) highly problematic.
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