The Boat Lullabies

Wow...what a great find!

It's pretty fascinating.

Love all these photos and see the changements of the styles through different eras! By the way, I am definitively going to link you!!

unbelievable!

Absolutely marvelous set. A great find. Thanks for posting these.

Interesting how the older she got, the more and more she looked like a drag queen...

wow...this is really neat! Thanks for taking ht e time to post!
-Debbie

This is the most interesting stumble of the day, it would be great if someone eventually could identify this woman. She was very beautiful!. I hope she still lives. Thumbs up in StubleUpon!

She looks a little like a sweet transvestite from transexual transylvania in the pictures starting 1960 :)

She appears to have been all about fashion. Wonder when she got lost o.O

Absolutely marvelous... Considering six degrees of seperation, It should be possible to locate this woman...

I think she is very beautifull. Was, and still is. The complete set just vibrates with life, love, tragedy, triumph, forgotten hopes and remebered dreams.

My heart.

Andreas

I suppose we must assume she died as the photos were
found at a flea market. Interesting to see the change over the years but sad as well as you scroll over her live in seconds.Its strange you want to know more about her. Where was she of to in the coat in the street and the model pose in 57, what was that about.

she was preety in the most of her life.

Except the "ghost face" (that was the light? or the fancy fashion style) she was very beautiful in 1968

I think its a fake .. something about her skin. She has modern skin

i would like to know what she was thinking when she did her make up. very interesting find and def the most interesting thing i have stumbled on today=)

Wow, that is a finite expression of the poetry that surrounds every one of our lives. It is a blessing and a miracle to have discovered that. It is beautiful that even to the end she still smiled.
remarkable

I don't know how the person above could possibly think these are fake. You've discovered a pile of beautiful photos.

first documented myspace pic in the 1/21/53 photo. haha.

I agree with William, it makes you want to know more about her, what she did and where she went.

That is fascinating. I wonder who she is!

she's a looker !

Amazing, incredible, wonderful!

these are BEAUTIFUL. I have been looking through old family photos for a project and these fit right in. A wonderful find....thanks for sharing.

Wow, she is/was gorgeous!!

What a find. Can't wait to see them all. Must also be an interesting story behind how the cosmetics case ended up at the flea market.

Very interesting. Very cool....

But...

I don't know...something seems off. The nose. Sometimes it is upturned. Sometimes down. But always different. Maybe this isn't the same woman.... In 72 she has a prominent "pig" nose, but after that it turns downwards. Same goes for 61 and 68, but the one in between she has a slight upturning point.

Just an observation. Maybe I'm completely wrong.

But still, very cool find and definitely interesting.

the picture of her colored in dated 1945 looks pretty much like the last picture in the set.. weird huh?

These photos are NOT of the same woman.

I'm pretty positive they ARE the same women. Angles and lighting can be deceiving as well as the way in which a person smiles can make the nose broader. I studied painting and drawing in school and I'm pretty confident these are all the same women with exception of the children where it's hard to make out.

Wow. That's amazing. I would love to know who she is and what her story is

This is like poem...but with pictures.

I find it a little sad tho.

I almost think the person who posted them may very well be the person in the pics.

After 1978 her "sell by" date expired.

I think we all have collections of photo's like this chronicling our lives or family members... this series is sort of looking at forbidden fruit, not for our eyes and as such is a bit sensationalist. If permission was granted.. the series would be hohum.

Incredibly hot in the late 50's. Note to self, don't stare at her bum she's in her 60's, it doesn't matter that she was in her 20's or 30's in the picture. Don't stare, don't stare, don't stare, I'M STAREING!!!

i'd hit it

She was. Still may be.
Time marches on for us who are next.

Mom?

get in line.

i always wonder if older people lose their vision and that is why they use make up so horribly and wear such horriblly bright colors near the end.

i think so.

girls who use too much mascara often do it becuase they can't wear glasses or contacts when putting it on so they can't see how chunky it looks.

nice timeline of photos. What a waste of talent though. Lookin pretty for the camera, anybody can do that. If you are considered "hot," you will show up in media. Humans are a sad creature.

Beautiful woman, and a great set of photographs.

this is a good time capsule-
you should send it to outer space -
upload the pics give them a title and a link to this sit and send it- it will live for ever

www.beinspace.com

Very cool, although the fourth picture kinda freaks me out with the water stain because it makes her look like a scary clown.

www.beinspace.com

some twilight zone shit!! you had better get rid of those pictures, before her spirit comes and get in your azz!! ha, ha, ha you have been
warned. Just kidding! (kinda of spooky)

mom?

Any idea who she is? Because this is one awesome chronography of a lady's life..and damn she must've liked to dress up well once in a while (or two).

OH WOW!! This is me!! I can't believe you were the one that found my purse! Can you please return it to me??!!?

I've always been interested in other peoples lifes, what they did, how they felt. Pictures are perfect for carrying such a message, but leave you wondering who that particular person was.

This is a great find. And the circumstances of finding the pictures in a beauty case on a flea market almost certainly make you think that she died. Why would sell something cherishable like this?

The 1957 Pics are HOT!!!

Hmmm,she was hot...nice job.

Back in the days before the internet a coworker brought a set of slides and a slide projector into work. He had picked them out of a trash pile at the curb at lunch. We set up the projector and spent the next two hours on that Friday afternoon watching the lives of a Detroit family. We saw the couple get married and have kids, hold family gatherings in their postwar Detroit home and grow older. We guessed that they must have passed on for their photos to end up as trash pickings.

I always have wondered what happened that resulted in an entire photo archive of a family end up in the trash. Sad and humbling that nobody cared enough to keep the memories.

We haven't seen or heard from gram in ten years. where were these photos found?

I think the photo from 1945 that she clownishly "made up" with a magic marker instead of make up is especially telling. She is a beautiful woman, but she becomes more and more overdone as time goes on.

FAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAKE

FAKE
FAKE
FAKE
FAKE

FAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAKE

I love looking at photos of people. We change so much and it's such a fantastic journey from cradle to grave. This set is fascinating because it documents the movements in ones life. You can almost see what she's feeling in each photo. The ones where she has used a photo coloring set to tint them--It's obvious you would practice tinting b/w photobooth pics which seem more throwaway...but you can also read her starting to grapple with what it meant to become a woman at that time, the glamour of it all. She must have had an interest in a career in fashion or modeling at one point. I don't take too seriously all the hubbub about her last photos being so garishly made up. Please, this was the 70's and while the first half was all about the tyranny of the "Natural" look, the last part (disco/punk era) was all about the glamour again. She obviously always leaned to that look and just didn't adjust it down for age. Either way, she looks cool because the look is totally hers. The 50's shots are a woman very comfortable with her beauty, and the 60's ones, she looks refined and beautiful in the early part and then slightly out of place in the latter 60's when the natural hippy look took place. It happened to a billion glamour gals out there, take a look at Jayne Mansfield's 60's shots.
Thanks for posting these, and I disagree with the poster who said it's only interesting to see them because she's a mystery. That's one thing, but the other is the photo's themselves. These are a nice set because they present themselves as an art piece. In other words, they fit together nicely and like any good art, tell a story or open you up to thinking differently. The photos at first are stark, basic settings with youth, then slightly busier settings with age. As her life filled up so did her surroundings and everything about her. The photos grow in complexity just as her life does. It makes for a compelling complete set on an incomplete (to us) life.

1957 i thought was the best. thanks

Wow! Marvellous.
A little bit strange but full of poetry.
I like the idea of the time capsule.
I'd like to know more about her.
And I love all your comments!
Thumbs up!

Great photos! Love her eyebrows in the 40s. :) Thanks for sharing.

wow.. just fantastic.. it amazing to see the pasy of time so well capured...

Amazing!

this is SO not fake. check out her mouth and chin (especially profile) through the years ...

i think this is a fantastic log of fashions and styles over the years. And I like the thought that someone has not been forgotten.

A great find. Thank you for posting it.

And don't forget her eyes, always the same through all the years. And her smile, see the photo when she was a little girl (1948) and the last photo's when she was an older but still beautiful woman.
And last but not least, the birthmarks in her neck. Look good and you'll see them, always the same, never changing.

So who's screaming FAKE, needs new glasses.

It's pretty interesting that she was photographed that frequently back in those days.

this is wonderfull it would be great if somebody knows who is this lady ... her name , her family its realy great .

Nothing speaks louder to me than a photograph. So revealing! I've looked at them over and over. "Clicks of life".
The first time, I kept rolling down slowly expecting to find the exact point at which her eyes "dulled" - the way most people's eyes do when we grow older. Hers don't! She keeps the spark in her eyes till the very last photos (forget the makeup). I'd say she never married I love the photo torn in half - a boyfriend she tore out of her life, surely.

What an astonishing story. Amazing, thank you!

She kinda looks lonely. May be its me. 1972 wasn't a good year though.

Is the building in the background that reads "ABC" the ABC furniture building in NYC? Ive never seen it, just wondering.

This is a real treasure -- thank you BoingBoing! I've just lost half an hour looking at these. I have to agree with Guy that she looks lonely, as if she's having her picture taken for herself alone. Except in 1961, with the teased hair and pearls -- there she looks happy and somehow no longer alone. A briefly-happy marriage, perhaps. Of course the late, torn one must denote some sort of failed relationship, though not necessarily romantic.

I can't quite get my head around the timeline, though. I have to doubt a birthdate of late 1937 or early '38. In the photos dated 1938 she's obviously more than a year old. I'd give her a birth date in the second half of 1936. This would make her about 9 for the coloured "clown" photo, and just 12 in 1948, both of which look right. A 1936 birthdate is a bit less convincing in the other defaced photo-booth picture from 1954, in which she certainly looks more like 16 than 18.

But then that leaves the last, undated photos, which are a puzzle. If they're really from the early '90s (and the sweater and hair in the torn photo look just about right for that date), then she ought to be about 55. But she looks much older than that, even without the over-done hair and makeup, which make it very difficult to judge. When were they taken, and how old is she there?

One final touch of mystery: who keeps their lifetime of photos in a makeup case? You keep them in photo albums if you're the organizing type, shoeboxes and drawers if you aren't. But the only reason I can see to collect them up in something small and portable like that would be if you were leaving and couldn't carry many possessions. But to where? and why?

Look critically, people. These pictures are definitely not of the same woman. Too many facial characteristics -- shape of folds around eyes, cupid's bow (or lack thereof) above lip line, distance between top of lip line and nostril line, angle and presentation of teeth (can't be changed so dramatically in one year even with orthodontics), shape and size of mouth, spacing of eyes from the bridge of the nose -- are way off between adjacent pictures. Camera angles and lighting cannot adequately account for these physical differences. These might be sisters, or cousins, or friends. But not the same person.

Marvelous collection of photos; what a find! Thanks for putting this up.

These are wonderful, and I think they are definitely of the same woman, from start to finish. A lot of the pictures give the impression that she was trying to be an actress or a model, just from the way she presents herself.

I disagree, this is the same woman as she ages. Judging by the fashions and what you can see of her features, she's about the same age as my mother who is 71 and born in 1936. She does seem to have a somewhat solitary life. There isn't anyone else in these pictures unless they are rejects in favor of better ones.

The most awesome things can be found at flea markets. Shes both lovely and haunting at the same time. I scanned quickly though the pictures at first, just noting the overall changes, then again noticing her facial expressions. She looks so happy in the beginning, then at the end, in my opinion, she looks like someone who has something to hide, with that smile thats never seems quite sincere. She had beauty and glamour on her side, but she still looks so sad. Thanks for sharing!

I think Wulf is right, characteristics differ)

Not much to go on, but interesting that two of the pictures you post are dated September 28th (the first one, from 1938 and then one from 1948). If there are others from that day, perhaps that's her birthday?

I've never "stumbled" before. A friend sent this link to me.
I was touched by these photographs in a way that surprised me.
I was delighted to read so few frivolous or negative comments. I like you people.

it´s amazing! love it!

She looks a lot like the actress Stockard Channing - the first lady in "The West Wing"

There is something very sad about a stack of old photos that no one who knew her wanted anymore.

A few folks posting have expressed amazement that a person could leave behind nobody to care enough to keep family photographs. It's easy. All you need is for a family to go extinct. I have no kids. My sister has no kids. We have no cousins that give a darn, and aren't close to any in-laws. Hence, I am officially the youngest person to Give a Damn, and I turn 50 this year. I fully expect that one day all the wonderful photos I've carefully labeled and put into albums will be so much dumpster ballast, along with all the amazing things I've kept which represent memories. It's a horrible thought but I know of no way around it. Now that folks can produce thousands of photos digitally, just imagine the tons of photo CDs that will someday be unreadable, and the stuff stored on computers that will eventually wind up in dumps. Life is shockingly finite.

What a great find this was. Wonderful photos as well as a vivid memento mori.

I wonder if there are any notes or scribbles on the back of the photos, i know my grandparents always made little notes on their old photos, dates, events, etc..

that's wonderful! what a treasure.

Time it was
And what a time it was
It was
A time of innocence
A time of confidences
Long ago ... it must be
I have a photograph
Preserve your memories
They're all that's left of you

-Simon and Garfunkel

I would drink her sweet gypsy tears.

i agree with some of the comments above.i think that this lady always wanted to be a model or actress.the early photograph where,as a beautiful young lady,she holds her hands up in a delicate "camay"soap advert style,blew me away.the whole post is laced with sadness but the lady's determination to keep her ages pictorially captured is telling me that she needed to be remembered...and i'm so glad that she did.
by the way,kenneth,perhaps you could find,via the internet,an educational authority who you could bequeath your life in albums to?i think that theres something unbeatable about going through pages of a book,learning how we have lived.its an act that our children and their children should never have to lose.

People ..open yours eyes.. Its some good photoshop work but they are a fake.

Adam

SO NOT FAKE.. hmmm some little girl wanted green eyes, red lips and blonde hair. TOTALLY colored her pic... I think it's a great expose` on whomever. Maybe your mom? Whatever the pics are great and GENUINE thank you idiots who don't know anything about photography!!!!!!!! Carry on

This is an example of what Hindus and Buddhists refer to as the samsara, the passage of a soul through the cycle of birth,death,old age, and disease.

It is graphically illustrated in this sequence, and sobering that we are all following this path.

Beautiful. Thanks for doing this for us all.

Wow. I know that doesn't say much, but that is really a cool set.

My mom is about the same age and her photos through the years look pretty close to these, so in my opinion they are NOT fake. We just spent two weeks this summer going through her photos. It's really amazing because in the 50's and 60's that was the way women dressed and took photos. Thanks for sharing!

good Job carry on Dude

What the heck is "modern skin"??? Anyway, what a photogenic and beautiful woman, it is too bad that she didn't just let herself age gracefully as it seems she was doing until she went blonde, I hope someone can identify her and shed some light on her life for you.

I like how she looks in her 1961 photo. I find, at least for my tastes, that 1961 is the most gracious period of her life.

Eleanor Rigby...

Devastating and fascinating. Thanks for sharing this.

how awesome...
moments captured...
forgotten...
found.

I like that she's not naked! (lie)

Looks like the photo from 78 in which the woman is in a green outfit and driving, there is a photo on here lap. That photo looks like it could be the other photo from that same set.Year of the green outfit.

Looks like she was chronicling her life.
Though beautiful she looks melancholy.Looks like a very lonely soul.

That was amazing, astounding. Wow.

Great, of course, but you realize the case might well have been stolen ...

Still one of the best sites on the net for found photographs. This set is almost unequaled. A lucky find to say the least.

Amazing! Best Stumble ever!

Interesting find, would be good to find out who she is and what happened to her.

Very interesting. Makes me want to get out my photos and do a similar thing. Would be interesting to see how we have changed over the years.

Lovely job?

Great find! Lucky!

I felt I knew her by the end her face had become so recognisable to me in such a short time.

oh my...incredible-so moving...poignant

Wow. On some of the pictures from when she was a little kid, she had colored the hair blonde. It's like she was this beautiful little brown-haired and brown-eyed girl, but she always wanted to look more blonde and lighter. And then later on, she made herself that way and...I thought she was prettier when she looked more like the way God made her.

Oh my God what does the old age!!!!!!!!!!!!

wahooooo it's wonderfull, you are wonderfull. It's a really good idea !

Excellent. Thanks.

That is something else, you feel as if your growing in the pictures as well...

I know this Woman!

I dated her in the late 60s

She is a beautiful person

What a beautiful life story! Thanks for sharing!

wonderfully sad....

just given this a shout on my blog at bangkok mafia

This is amazing/depressing. Appearently as u get older u turn into a clown.....

I feel these are all the same woman...she is pregnant in the green dress photos, so she's someone's mom. There has to be a story here, a really fun story as it appears she was happy in the older pictures...she has to be in her late 60's NOT 50's...

What a beautiful find.

Quite a moving story told with only pictures! Kudos for posting this wonderful saga of one woman's life.

Iv'e always wondered for instance, who would purchase something from someones life they had no knowledge about. I once saw a shirt at a thrift store and was curious who would actually buy and wear something that had a print of someones grandchildren on it. Strange yet interesting to stumble upon a life forgotten

simply awesome, what an amazing find. i hope we get to find who this person is or was

A remarkable, prescient find. I would have been
a whole lot more curious given that these wonderful
snapshots were found in a make-up case.

Except for the cynics and the very young who have no sense of their own mortality and are therefore uncomfortable looking at this mystery woman in her last years, as with the vast majority of people,
I too am glad for this carelessly discarded pictoral witness to this woman's life was
preserved and shared with everyone.

The comments are as interesting as the photographs. Maybe somebody, somewhere, will give her a name. I'm mesmerized, intrigued, touched, and too feel a kind of sadness for what is so nakedly shown to us here by this woman. It's a bitter-sweet tale she
tells.

Thank you for the whole trip down memory lane. I hope she is at peace and happy no matter where she is.

It all reminds me of Jean Nathan biography, "The
Secret Life of the Lonely Doll: The Search for
Dare Wright." That same kind of pathos.

What is the worst of woes that waits on age?
What stamps the wrinkle deeper in the brow?
To view each loved one blotted from life's page,
And be done on earth a I am now.

~ Byron, "Childe Harold's Pilgrimage"

that's life… je trouve ça très émouvant.
vraiment.

wow what a trip....the one with the but showing a bit is now my myspace photo

What an appallingly bad taste, to publish personal photos like this of someone without her permission. Does nobody else feel this way?

She must have been an actress or something. She has playbills in plastic bags hanging on the wall in one picture.

What a find! Thank you so much for sharing.

Bart: no, apparently no else feels that this is in bad taste. Please take the stick out of your ass and poke your eyes out with it, since they have offended you.
The reality is: this collection of photos not only honors and celebrates this anonymous woman's life and beauty, it does so for all women.
It's wonderful. Thank you.

This is a real real "real" treasure. A real life treasure. For a second I felt like god. Thanks to this beatiful, artist lady and the one who posts this. Spectecular. This a life. I've seen things like this but the difference is that I really lived it. I would LOVE to meet her, speak to her, shake her hands and hug. Thanks again! You're the best!

What kind of dumb statement is "She has very modern skin"? Did women not have skin in the fifties?

EYED HIT IT !

My grandmother "edited" her pictures with a pen, too: fixing her eyebrows, lips, hair. I thought it Ruined her pictures for posterity, but they were, after all, Her pictures, and that said something about her, too. Post these to DeadFred.com? http://www.familytreemagazine.com/101sites/2003/photographs.html

It's sad that one's life ends up being sold at a flea market, however genealogists are detectives and want to make connections with the stuff we find. Perhaps her photos will find there way back home if they are recognized. It's like going to a gravesite and seeing a stone with strange names, the buried have a million stories to tell. Good job.

It is not unusual to find, in a thrift store, picture frames for sale with photos taken years-ago. I've seen photos of a bride and groom, of soldiers and sailors and of other relatives.

I suggest that, if you are discarding "old pictures", that you remove them from the frame and destroy them in a respectful way.

i think two women. the 1957 hottie and 1961 are the same person, and the remaining ones are the woman with the mole above her left collarbone

This is amazing... So nice pictures through the story of the life.

Amazing...she was so beautiful. I am just sad that she wore so much makeup in the end. Beautiful though!

sin comentarios.....mu bueno!

her eyebrows are totally painted on making her look like a prostitute or something, her make up is so over done, gives her a very streetwise look.... she probably was an alcoholic who finally died of alcoholism.....sad

What a trip through time. I like how she jumped into the sixties and seventies. Too bad she seems to have gotten stuck there. Great find!

very intersting and creepy... she certainly had a lot of stories to tell.

I agree that these photos are real and very lovely. I inherited the photos that belonged to my grandmother and great grandmother from the same eras. The changes that occur with the extra heavy makeup, and the beehive hair are all common in my photos, and I know mine are real, because I knew the people in mine, and I've had them since before Photoshop was invented. Why do people always assume that good photography is Photoshopped?

This is my brother, Mark. We found the pictures that the neighbor who babysat him took of him in his youtt er, youth, the babysitter got in a lot of trouble back then... after that Mark would have any little tramp take his pic, he just loved fashion. When you get to a certain age, though its not so easy to con folks into taking drag photos for you (they lose interest faster) so the makeup is worse and camera shots shakey. Oh he is still around (hospice) but had to scale back on household shit. I got a lot of it at his pitiful garage sale... I never saw the art appeal of the pictures... I missed my millions, I reckon. Oh well that's my life! I'll tell him ya'll loved the photos, but he probably won't know what the hell I am talking about. Sad really.Thanks Hubie

I find these pictures quite sad. As I was born in samy year before here, and see the same fashions as they were then. She reminds me of all the people i kew and have now gone. Well thats life.

I ended up putting a bunch of observations and comments on my stumble blog. Would like for you to read it:

http://hunza.stumbleupon.com/

Also, I'm curious if you ever put up the whole collection of the photos.

this is really cool, thank you

I would like to contact the person who posted this to see if we can run these photos in our magazine. Please contact me if you are interested.
thanks,
angela

That is sooooo fantastic! What a great lucky find!

might be for the same woman otherwise it's not for the same woman ... that's what the years hide ... and thats the secret of life ...changing life ...
thank you for posting these photos..

I love things like this, what a great find. Although these things always make me feel a little sad as it shows how everyone will grow up, grow old, then die

What are you talking about??? This isn't the same person throughout the series. Some are even African-American and some aren't. Nice try, but this is baloney.

she looks strikingly like my elementary school secratarie...

Interesting on several levels. Art. The Comments. The fact that they were found in a makeup case is a strong commentary on life and its transience. Cool.

Look at her in the eyes...

Of course it's the same woman all the way!

The story is so rich, you could make a movie out of those pictures...

leimrod....you are a halfwit, seek help.

OP.
Great find, great pic's.
The Internet NEEDS people like you.
Thanks for posting.

what great pictures. What a great find. I used to try to collect pictures of past lives lived....but it's harder to find in big cities, and people are starting to charge a bit for them. Maybe she's still alive....or are we her last collective memory.

Without the context we can all come up with our own stories to match out interest and fascination, like the person who commented that later she looked like a drag queen. To each and their interest.

I am 58 and have a lifetime of pictures that many do not look like the same woman - they are all me, but yet the camera caught the many personalities we all have inside of us, the emotions that change our countenance in the blink of an eye. This was enchanting and breathtaking and I wanted to put my arms around her to tell her she is incredibly beautiful and that she should bring her cat and come live with me.

Look at her eyes! acquiried STRABISMUS. The same women trying to hide this condition... which is obvious since 1949.

The 1945 pic is somewhat disturbing, since the coloring appears to have been done with marker, which was certainly not available at that time.

incredible! what area are you located in that you've found such an amazing thing at a flea market. here in the virginia area they are more like "junk" markets...or literally, flea markets.

anyway - i'd love to know what section of the globe you're on! great post!

this is really neat.
looks like she was really pretty.

I love this story of life.

Kind regards
Jakob
Denmark

Wow, thats just ... AMAZING!!

This is incredible. The documentation of a life. It's poignant....sad and beautiful. I wonder what she experienced......absolutely beautiful.

I have so much to say as I looked over the pictures over and over.You could almost fill in the spaces of the pictures as if trying to watch an interrupted movie. Starting with the innocence of her child photos the one at the beach is almost tell tale. She's completely by herself as if that was the sentence of her life here. After the loss of her brother, she faced the world alone. Perhaps in July 52'she was sent away from her non-existent parents to a school or home for young women. She's not looking to happy but very reserved. 1/21/53 enter the magic of photography followed by the "look" of glamour in 1954. The hell bent determined look in pic right after 1954 is mimicked in 8/12/78 when she's driving the car in the green suit. 3/25/56 she looks like Elizabeth Taylor with a softer look than what is to come. May 1957, the modeling job;was this a dream that ended up in bitter disappointment? Was there a relationship with a shady photographer that soured. The pic between 57'and 60'shows a thinner harder look maybe recovering from a heartbreak.The increased mascara around the eyes and the attempted smile sends a vibe of survivor of tribulation with "comeback" on her mind. 1961 a celebration of found love;her whole face looks lit up with happiness and thats the last time you really see her smile until near the end when it seems to appear the realization of the ride is near the end. Between 1972 and 1978 she lost her smile somewhere along the way. Through a life of love and loss, discovery and disappointment, she seems to have never lost her first love; the faithful, never failing relationship between her and the camera. This was not faked and it is the same woman. What we've just experienced is the uncanny beauty of how a woman can change and re-create herself in the face of any of lifes trials or opposition. A true mettle of a womans strength of character.

I feel very sorry for the people who keep trying to convince themselves these are fake. I think they are more saddened by the realization their own lives might only add up to a handful of photos some day. This really is an amazing find. She was very very beautiful as a young woman and it looks , to me, that as she aged she was trying to hold on to that beauty. Her eyes are haunting. Some of the photos really make me wish to hear her thoughts! lucky find.

Actually, if she's still alive she's 71.

She was in her 60's in the 90's.

She looks just like a wealthy older woman who used to frewuent a restraurant I worked at in the 90's in Denver. Where did you find the photos?

I believe this woman achieved exactly what she most desired, immortality. Perhaps not every viewer will remember her face, but the law of averages insures that at least one will. In posting her photographs you have insured that she will never be forgotten.

What a beautiful series of photographs, and what a shame that so many of the anodyne comments left here by men remind us that so few of my sex are able to see the human world in any depth without imposing their desires onto it. Their view of women as whole people, that have a life beyond their desireability, is clearly obscured by the view of their testicles hanging over their eyes.

This woman was a human being, and the fact that she "passed her sell-by date in 1978" is, in many ways immaterial; this person could be your mother, or the school teacher that meant so much to you in your early years.

There's a whole world out there beyond what we want out of it; when we see beyond that our life really begins...

I love it but it's so sad. It makes me think of my great grandmother.

A great American document. You might contact Aperture about publishing these.
js

I love this...it fits in with my final year wrk at university...the following images are beautiful. Would i be able to use some of the images?
Kindest Regards

This is tremendous - brilliant art. What a find, makes you want to make sure you capture your life in photos as well for someone else to display in such a manner. However with digital photos I don't think you could ever get a result as beautiful as this.

im pretty sure "changements" is not a word.

I love found photos. I go to estate sales and storage unit auction just for those. I love the story you can find in other peoples photos. It makes me wonder what story people will be able to tell from my photos. I also wonder if everyone else at those sales thinks I'm a freak.

It makes you think. Thats a plus.

Thank you.

A.

Age will definitely fuck you. Beautiful lady.

This would be great fodder for character development for a work of fiction. If I were a writer I'd use this as a catalyst for a very interesting character. Easy to imagine all kinds of storylines and tragedies. Why don't you create a web site/ fiction challenge around this for charity or something. Just an idea. For some reason...it makes me feel sad like a poem that hits the mark.

Namaste to All

Looked great in 57

57............ I'd Hit It.

if she's alive, she's around 73 or 74 years old now. Somebody knows her.

I was born in 1936 and have a photographic record of my life so far. Your wonderful posting makes me think I might like to put my photos in order as well.

I can see the eras she passed through by the clothes and hair styles.

Put them back in the fea market - she will scare away the fleas