I don’t know what’s going on here but I love this photo. My great grandfather (Dosh) is the one in the center holding the guy on the ground. His brother (Conrad) is on the left in the window. I’m guessing this image was taken around 1910, as they both looked pretty young, and only lived to be 40 and 42, respectively.
Dosh was into photography and is the reason that so many photos of these times exist. He had many talents in his short 40 years, and could also play anything with strings, including the 1900’s classical guitar that I still have. He had impeccable handwriting and every book that belonged to him carries his name on the front page in the most beautiful cursive I’ve ever seen.
I often wonder what his voice sounded like, or how he carried himself as he walked through the kitchen door after a long day at the clay mines. How he might have held his coffee mug or leaned back in his chair after finishing his dinner. These little things are probably some of the same mannerisms that have been passed down through the generations and may very well be present in my own children and we would never know it came from him.
I do know that I hold every bit of knowledge I have about this man very close. I realize how lucky I am to have so many of these pieces of my family’s history. How cool is it that my children and I have all had the opportunity to live in the same home that he did; that even though none of us shared time on this Earth together, we still shared the same spaces, eating our dinners in the same kitchen and walking over the same floors, and sharing stories in the same living room.
