Box full of memories
It was he who brought the cheap box Brownie camera with its rolls of black and white film to the masses, nearly 140 years ago. Now, his Kodak company in America is in deep financial trouble, has filed for bankruptcy of a limited type to keep going, and will do well to survive in the longer term. I hope it does. Kodak is a part of history.
In your house and in mine, in fact in just about everybody’s parlour, there are boxes and books of the snapshots of more than a century of our families’ journeys through the Ireland of yesteryear. Were it not for the Brownie cameras, a breathtaking invention in their time, those albums and crammed boxes simply would not exist, and we would know so much less about where we come from. There is the grandfather as a young man pitching hay in a summer meadow, braces and leather boots, wide-brimmed hat. There is the grandmother, only a young slip of a girl, smiling in the sun, and the baby in her arms is your father or mother! There is the birthplace — and it was thatched back then — a horse and trap for the trip to Sunday morning Mass. There are the wedding photos, the bride in what they called a costume, the groom in a thick three-piece tweed suit, often a watch and chain garnishing the waistcoat.
