We exhibited his work sometime before I came in the fall of 2001. When I got here, the matted photos were still here. Our Director Joyce Yut suggested that I scan them all before returning them to the owners.
I am so glad I did!
Charita told me the originals have been destroyed! So the scans I have are likely the only images left documenting a huge slice of Canton's history!
The scene that played out in my office after I hung up the phone was a cross between panic and frustration. I KNEW I had scanned those photos. But it was 10 years ago now! Where did I save them?
To clear off space on the hard drive of my last computer, I burned a lot of my old files onto CDs. I looked through all of them, trying to find the scans. Nothing.
I thought maybe I had given the CD to our library. Nothing.
I came back to my office, searched through more drawers, popped more CDs into my computer. Nothing.
Then, suddenly, it hit me.
They are on my current hard drive! I saved them in the "Collections" folder, for some reason. I guess when I did it, I hadn't written my first book yet, and I didn't have a huge file of scanned images yet. I think I'll move them there now, because that would be the most logical place to store photos.
I made copies of the 63 scans I have for Charita, who was very excited to get them. (Very excited is probably a vast understatement...she was practically euphoric!)
Needless to say, I was relieved to find the scans. But I was also humbled to think that I had saved such an important part of Canton's story. When I scanned them all those years ago, I was just making copies. I never imagined the originals would some day be gone.
Preserving history is a great honor and a privilege!
Here is one of the Taylor Matthew photos:
Esther Archer in City Council meeting. She was the only woman and black member of City Council. She was first elected in 1947 and served four terms.
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