Behold- The man on the left is my great grandfather Herbert O. Perkins; man of mystery. I have no idea who the other gentleman might be. This is the first photo of Herbert O. Perkins I have ever seen. He was by most accounts a neer do well out of Maine, who drug his wife and children around the USA looking for the prosperous riches that constantly eluded him. My grandmother, Nellie, was born in Fort Worth, Texas on one of the stops on his grand tour, but she was raised in Seattle. Her father, seeking his fortune left the family there in order to strike off to the Alaska gold rush. Of course, he was never to be seen again. Or was he? I found record of his death many years later in 1929, in Oak Harbor, WA- not far from Seattle on Whidbey Island. Did he just abandon his wife and five children for the life of leisure in Oak Harbor? Or was he declared dead there by his widow, outside of Seattle, so as not to bring scandal? Was it even him? Could he have lived in Oak Harbor, started a new family or just existed with his wife and kids so near and no one the wiser? Obviously, there were hard feelings in my grandmother's family about Mr. Perkins.
This was found digging through the piles of photographs and albums of my families, that my mother, 94 and the last of her generation, has been freighted with. Most of the people in the pictures I do not know, nor do I think anyone will fault me for discarding but it is a burden- the beloved keepsake memories of the long dead. I have today thrown away much of the out of focus, poorly exposed and composed photos of various"important" events of the 1960s, '70's, 80's and newer. Generally the years I can account for: other people be damned. Now that they are gone I do not feel bad. Maybe I am more like my great grandfather Herbert O. Perkins than I like to admit.
