Category: Mysteries-Can You Solve Them?

I didn’t want to hold this photo for Wordless Wednesday since I felt it needed an explanation.  I would really like to find the family of this woman so they can have the photo and accompanying certificate.  I found this in an antique shop in McDonough, Georgia.

The envelope that the picture is housed in has the photography studio name of Apeda N.Y. on the outside.  Someone wrote in the top left corner of the front “High School Graduation”.

Inside is a picture of a young woman in a graduation gown and mortarboard with tassel.  Below the photo is “Portrait by Apeda Studio, N.Y.

When I went to take the photo out of the envelope imagine my surprise to find a Certificate of Merit!  The certificate is from Abraham Lincoln Junior High School and is awarded to Gloria Allen.  The principal signed, or more likely had a stamp with his signature, but I can’t make out the name.  I’m thinking it is possibly “Wm C Davis”, but I just don’t know.  The certificate is dated June 1941.

If the photo is Gloria Allen then, putting the certificate for her 8th grade year (it might be 7th grade, but we will go with 8th grade for this purpose) then her high school graduation year would have been 1945.  Her birth year would be around 1927.  Does anyone out there know her?

I saw this picture in the antique store down the street from my house the first time I visited about a year and a half ago.  And every time I have been in the store since I have been drawn to it.  I don’t know why.  The picture was tagged at $45, and I knew that I didn’t want to pay that much for it.  After thinking about it and finally offering to purchase it if they came down on the price, I was able to walk out the door with it ten dollars cheaper, $35.

When people purchase items to resell from estate sales they usually go for items from which they can make quite a bit money.  And when pictures are involved, especially of this size, the person will look at the frame, not the picture.  I don’t really care about the frame, I care that someone had decided to sell a portrait of their ancestor rather than keep it in the family.  It actually kind of distresses me a bit.  Why?  Why would someone decide that these portraits are not important enough to keep in the family?  Maybe there is no more immediate family, but there is always some blood relative out there somewhere that would love to see pictures of their ancestors.

I don’t know who this woman is.  The picture is mounted on an old canvas and it is slowly trying to detach itself.  I’m going to try to find a frame to put it in, or build one, in an attempt to save it from further damage.