Many years ago, when my father was about to sell my grandparent's house in the Brainerd neighborhood of Chicago, I was rooting around in the basement and came across an old scrapbook, filled with photographs and penny postcards from the early 1900s. At first I thought it belonged to Adam Boysen, who died tragically during the Second World War and whose elementary school drawings were included in the scrapbook. I put the album away in a box, and haven't looked at it until now, 45 years later. After actually reading some of the postcards, I now realize the scrapbook belonged to my great aunt, Viola Thayer, who died in 1910 at the age of 17. Time has completely forgotten her. Not even my 90 year old Uncle, who was born in 1922, remembers her, or even knows of her existence. My project will be to photograph the people and places connected with these relatives of mine, Viola Thayer and Adam Boysen, and remember these two lives that ended so long ago. The scary thing is that in not too many more decades, somebody will be going through my albums. Or perhaps, like reading a frightening book like The Shining, they will choose not to.
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