Fred It Is! No Longer a Mystery

Another project I decided to take on in retirement was to sort, organize and digitize many of my old photographs. Not to mention the box of photos I inherited  from my mother who died 2 years ago this May. In her box, were many old negatives and as I held some of them up to the light, I soon realized that I had never before laid eyes on some of those photos. I became very intrigued and after a few hours, I gathered up about 100 negatives and brought them down to Myrtle Beach with me. I knew I'd enjoy a working on them while 'snowbirding'.

I found a great shop in Myrtle that digitizes negatives. A week later, my digitized treasures were ready. When I went to pick them up, the fellow at the shop said he quite enjoyed seeing my childhood. He mentioned that the negatives were quite good to work with and for the time period (1950s for the most part) they were very good. I mentioned that my mom was an avid photographer from when she was a teen and had a great Kodak-Chrome camera with the big dish like flash. He said, indeed, it was a great camera for the time. I remember well how my mom treasured that camera.

The Mystery

On to the reason for this post. Now you know why I called this site 'ramblings'!  As I looked at this photograph, I immediately knew Pub (my grandmother Violet, my mom's mom) but I had no idea who was in the photo with her. Her husband died shortly after my mom was born and this couldn't possibly be a brother. Who was this man she seemed to be so fond of?  I lived with Pub for a few years and certainly don't remember seeing him. I asked a couple of cousins, nobody seemed to know. We think that she was about 56 years old give or take a year in this photograph. That night, I went to bed wondering, thinking and reflecting and out of nowhere, or so it seemed, that inner voice came to me again with the words Fred.  In my mind I was asking my mom who it was........Fred, it's Fred Debbie.  Who's Fred?

Imagine my astonishment when the next morning, I received an email from Jerry Newbury, my mother's younger brother with these words :

"The person with my mom was an old long time boyfriend when she lived in Windsor Ont.  They were friends for many years until Carol, Mom and myself moved in together in Toronto.  His name was Fred Gardner and he worked at Syroco as a fitter in heavy industry.  He was a good person kind and generous.  He died after our move to Toronto."

I already knew that didn't I? Fred, said the voice. Who's voice?