A new addition to my collection

I found another gem for my collection recently, it's a postmortem picture of a child from Belgium.

A terrible image

I started a new job in January, in StJohns, Worcester and I've actually become quite fond of StJohns, its nothing special at all, but there's something about it.
While I was researching for my dissertation a few years ago I came across a reference to a very unusual monument in StJohns church that I have been meaning to go and look for for the past 3 years and now I work down the road from the church I really have no excuse!

I wasn't even sure it would still be there, as I couldn't find much about it online, but I went to have a look, and there it was in the porch of the church and it took my breath away, it's absolutely stunning.
The monument is to the two sons of Thomas Hopkins, a hop merchant in the city, his eldest son John died in January 1871.
Thomas Hopkins had the monument made to include a photograph of the dead boy, aged 14 when he died, the photograph was taken by Francis Charles Earl of Worcester Broad Street, the image is large, 6 by 13 inches and is set in a monument with stone angels and a plaque to John and his younger brother Jonathon who died a few years after John at the age of 2.

I am currently reading the fantastic book 'The English Way of Death' by Julian Litten and the book includes a little bit about the image and he describes it beautifully

"Although he was obviously placed carefully on the sofa, the freshly pomaded hair is awry and could have benefited from a comb prior to being photographed. It is a terrible image, the child so patently dead and cold. Yet perhaps Thomas Hopkins and his wife took some solace in so commemorating the death of their eldest son" 

I photographed the monument and almost didn't want to leave afterwards, it really is so beautiful and completely heartbreaking.

Afraid of Thunderstorms

Florence Irene Ford 

Sept 3rd 1861 - Oct 30th 1871

Ten-year-old Florence died of yellow fever. 

During her life she had been incredibly frightened of storms and whenever one occurred she would rush to her mother for reassurance.

Upon Florence's death her mother was so grief stricken that she had Florence's casket constructed with a glass window at the child’s head, furthermore when the grave was dug, she had a set of steps installed so she could descend to her daughters level and look into the grave through a thick glass window. Whenever there was a storm she would go and sit by her daughter to comfort her.
After the mothers death the glass wall was replaced with concrete, but you can still go down the steps to Florence's grave.

A different kind of Postmortem Photograph

As regular readers will know I am a rather obsessive collector of Vintage postmortem photographs of Children. In alot of peoples eyes they are strange items to desire and to spend so much money on, and I can't really explain my love for them, except maybe to speculate that they are some kind of attempt to face my own strong fear of death, which is prehaps the same reason they were originally made.

I feel I should put a warning here that the images futher down the page are very graphic and upsetting

I am interested to a certain extent in all forms of postmortem and mourning imagery, and while browsing recently I came across some particularly intense and strong images of death on a website dedicated to the tragic murder of a mother and her two children.
It was the case of Jeffrey MacDonald who, in 1979 brutally murdered his two daughters and pregnant wife, the details of the case were horrible, and difficult to read.
The crime scene and autopsy photographs of the little girls, however, completely captivated me in a way that only the beautiful victorian photographs have done so before. The death of any child, in any circumstance, anywhere, is a horrible thing that should never happen, but it does happen, every day, in every possible way, and for some reason these images give some kind of comfort at the same time as being horrifying.

It seems wrong to me in a way that I was so captivated by these horrific images, but I was and I think there is an incredible beauty about them, if only to serve as a way to mark an event so horrible most of us couldn't even conceive it, but i'd rather look these things in the eye than pretend they didn't happen.

Jeffrey MacDonald is serving 3 consecutive life sentences

"Suffer little Children to come unto me"

"Be still, my soul, when change and tears are past

all safe and blessed, we shall meet at last"

Death of an American dream

Here in northeast Ohio

Back in eighteen-o-three
James and Dan heaton
Found the Ore that was linin' Yellow Creek
They built a blast Furnace
Here along the shore
And they made the cannonballs
That helped the union win the war

Well my Daddy worked the furnaces
kept them hotter than hell
I came home from 'nam worked my way to scarfer
A job that'd suit the Devil as well
Taconite, coke and Limestone
Fed my children and made my pay
Them smokestacks reachin' like the arms of god
into a Beautiful sky of soot and clay

Well my daddy come on the Ohio works
When he come home from World War Two
Now that yards just scrap and rubble
He said 'them big boys did what Hitler couldn't do'
These mills they built the tanks and bombs
That won this countries wars
We sent our sons to Korea and Vietnam
Now we're wondering what they were dyin' for

From the Monongahela Valley
To the Mesabi iron Range
To the coal mines of Appalachia
The stories always the same
Seven hundred tones of metal a day
Now sir you tell me the worlds changed
Once I made you rich enough
Rich enough to forget my name

When I die I don't want no part of heaven
I would not do heavens work well
I pray the devil comes and takes me
To stand in the fiery furnaces of hell.

-Bruce Springsteen

Youngstown

home of an unemployed steel worker

Bessie mine, Jefferson County, Alabama

Monongahela Valley


Images From Photographer Ross Mantles series "In the wake of an American dream" depicting the death of an American town, The Monongahela Valley, find more here

Old Youngstown and Bessie mine photographs from the wonderful Shorpy.com

Christmas Time

Its Christmas day! I've had a pleasant, chilled out day. My parents are watching the Doctor Who Christmas Special, which I don't like, so I decided to share my Christmas pressies on here.
I got two amazing postmortem pictures from my dad, so Chuffed with them.





The Man who sold these photographs said they were both of the same child. This could well be true, the children appear to be the same age and the wreath of flowers round the head on the one picture does look alot like the wreath resting on the childs lap in the other picture.
The only thing is I wonder why the two set ups are so different in background, the one in white with wallpaper behind, the other completely surrounded by Dark fabric. the mounts are also different, why would only one mount have the photographers stamp on it? I guess we'll never know for sure.

Spirits

I am super poor at the moment, and running out of pictures in my collection that I haven't used before. I was looking to have poorer children in this one, so I have used some pictures from www.shorpy.com for the childrens bodies and the heads of the middle two Children.

Death part 2

Swift to its close ebbs out life's little day;
Earth's joys grow dim; its glories pass away;

Death

When God is gone and the Devil takes hold,
who will have mercy on your soul

Oh, Death

No wealth, no ruin, no silver, no gold
Nothing satisfies me but your soul

Daguerrotype

Pictures taken by Kerry Hill, edited and aged by me, i dressed as something from Wisconsin Death trip and got some awesome shots and tried to edit them up to get a daguerrotype/tintype feel to them, i think they turned out pretty well, i love the corn field, really has a 'days of heaven feel'