Barbara Eberhard's Blog - Posts Tagged "archives"
Family Treasures
Among the reasons to dig through all the papers left by my father - besides writing his biography - is the treasures I'm finding.
Today's treasure is a picture from March 1927 of my father as a baby being held by his father, Carl Eberhard, and being looked on adoringly by his mother, Clara Eberhard. Not only has no one in the family ever seen this picture, but it clearly shows the biological connections. You can see my father's face in his father's face (and my Uncle Arthur for that matter, who looked very like my father - and apparently his father). I'd never seen a picture of my grandfather without gray hair. He looks so very different with the black hair that two of his sons also shared. The photograph also shows how much my cousin Jeanette looks like our grandmother. I've always thought so, but the rest of the family sees the resemblance in this 1927 photo, too.
Another treasure that I just put into the book is from correspondence between my father and the American Heritage Center at the University of Wyoming. The AHC had written to my dad in 1981 asking for his papers as part of their Archive of Contemporary History. At that point, Dad was 54 - so he was both flattered by the request, but also a little "dismayed" to realize that he was at an age where archivists were contacting him. Still, he ended up sending 21 boxes of materials over the course of his lifetime. But the treasure was this sentence in the letter Dad wrote before sending his first boxes: "My wife suggested that I wait a few more months to see if I have any severe separation point." My mother, Dad's wife, would have known that Dad was attached to his papers, his legacy.
These two are on top of the never-knew-about testimony before Congress - twice! - that I found as part of my research. And so many others. But those were about Dad's career.
These two are family treasures.
Today's treasure is a picture from March 1927 of my father as a baby being held by his father, Carl Eberhard, and being looked on adoringly by his mother, Clara Eberhard. Not only has no one in the family ever seen this picture, but it clearly shows the biological connections. You can see my father's face in his father's face (and my Uncle Arthur for that matter, who looked very like my father - and apparently his father). I'd never seen a picture of my grandfather without gray hair. He looks so very different with the black hair that two of his sons also shared. The photograph also shows how much my cousin Jeanette looks like our grandmother. I've always thought so, but the rest of the family sees the resemblance in this 1927 photo, too.
Another treasure that I just put into the book is from correspondence between my father and the American Heritage Center at the University of Wyoming. The AHC had written to my dad in 1981 asking for his papers as part of their Archive of Contemporary History. At that point, Dad was 54 - so he was both flattered by the request, but also a little "dismayed" to realize that he was at an age where archivists were contacting him. Still, he ended up sending 21 boxes of materials over the course of his lifetime. But the treasure was this sentence in the letter Dad wrote before sending his first boxes: "My wife suggested that I wait a few more months to see if I have any severe separation point." My mother, Dad's wife, would have known that Dad was attached to his papers, his legacy.
These two are on top of the never-knew-about testimony before Congress - twice! - that I found as part of my research. And so many others. But those were about Dad's career.
These two are family treasures.
