How soon is soon?

So, my last post is titled "coming soon". I must not have meant soon in the literal sense. What can I say? Time has gotten away from me and there are so many other activities to occupy my time.

In the past several months, I've gotten a couple nibbles on the photo album. One e-mail sent a couple weeks ago is especially intriguing, but I must research further before responding.

Tonight a group of friends at church suggest that I contact the history department at Vanderbilt. Some names were thrown about, all of which I've forgotten. Another friend also suggested that I contact the PBS show called History Detectives, or something like that.

Now that the weather is getting cooler, my genealogy research will start up again. For some reason that type of research is best done when the weather is cooler. No particular reason, just a personal preference.

I'll let you know how it goes. I think this new momentum may just spark something.

Coming Soon!

Check back in the coming days for more scans and detailed closeups from this album. I'm also going to scan my grandfather's album. I'll post them on the blog and on flickr. Thanks for your interest!

Where?

p1010004
Originally uploaded by KnittyBits

Each time I look at the photographs in the album, I am drawn to this particular image. I love the way directional quality of the composition. The path and the trees seem to point to the lone figure walking away. I wish I could see more of the landscape. What's over the horizon? Where is that person going? What's behind the photographer? Is the rest of the landscape as barren as this photograph would suggest? What's the relationship of the photographer to the person in the photograph? So many questions from such a simple, yet beautiful image.

Sharing the Album

Over the holidays, my dad saw the Japanese photo album for the first time. My mom and I were surprised that he hadn't seen it before. We also looked through my grandfather's albums. As we were looking at the "autograph" page, my mom remembers visiting some of my grandfather's fellow CBs when she was young. It was kind of neat.

A friend of mine at work has a Japanese mother. I knew he had some sort of Asian background, but I didn't think to ask if it was Japanese. I believe his mother was from Yokohama and she moved here after marrying a U.S. soldier. I'm going to scan the pages of the album for her. Hopefully she'll be able to translate the names because I'm at a standstill...as is apparent from the lack of posts to this site.

Dear Visitor

I would like to know what you think about this project. Please leave a comment and let me know where you are from, how you found the page and any other interesting information about yourself. Send this link to your friends. The more people who see it, the better.

Thank you!
Chris

Mausoleum of Dr. Sun Yat-Sen

This is a photograph of a mausoleum in China. At first, I assumed it was a Japanese structure. I was able to translate the first three characters as CHU SAN RYO. That didn't help much, but RYO further translated into "misasagi" or "imperial mausoleum." I did a Google search and came across a photo that matches. This has got to be the same building as the building in the background of the black and white photo. I presume this to be the mausoleum of Dr. Sun Yat-Sen, the father of China's revolution. Construction on the mausoleum was started in 1926 and completed in 1929. The mausoleum is situated at the foot of the second peak of Mount Zijin in Nanjing, China. The architect was Lu Yanzhi, who died shortly after it was finished.

6 Degrees of Separation

The head of my department at work (I'll call him Mr. G) gave me a great idea the other day. He suggested that I locate a Japanese veteran's administration. Mr. G is a history and geneaology buff and has done scads of research on his ancestors. We swap stories now and then and often find ourselves pondering at the smallness of this world. Mrs. G is from a small Menonite town in Virginia, a few miles from where my parents once lived. The town has a wonderful Farmer's Market and I've probably spent hundreds of dollars at the quilt shop there (in my pre-knitting days). However, I digress...

Upon Mr. G's suggestion that I locate a Japanese veteran's administration, I quickly fired up Google and set about searching....with not much luck. Actually, not any luck. The language barrier is just that, a barrier. I've had plenty of good ideas, but I feel I'm still at square one. I'm open to more suggestions and ideas.

This album is too beautiful to sit upon a shelf in my home. I'm not the album's owner, only it's caretaker. The owner is out there somewhere. Please send the link to this blog to everyone you know. Remember the 6 Degrees of Kevin Bacon game that circulated around a while back? If that theory holds true, I'm only 6 people away from the owner of this album.