Piece of History

[tlmothy]

Hello everyone

This is my first time posting anything here in the forum. I do however lurk around reading posts. I am not sure if this would be considered a "best find". But here goes.

A family friend in his late 80's had passed away recently. John originally was a Pilot in WW2 for Germany. After the war he moved on to work for U.S government counter-intelligence, and much later worked as a district manager for the Pinkerton's company.

After his passing I asked to keep a few of his things, including his whole picture collection (over 200 pictures), A Nasa jacket, a vintage racing jacket from his alpha Romeo days, and more.

John had known my mother for more than 15 years and had no family left. Much of the time I spent with him I heard many amazing stories.

I think his photo collection is a treasure. I am planning to do a memorial website with a guest book and a gallery of all his photo's. But for now I just have a picasa gallery. Here are some of the pictures. I scanned everything my self.

Johns original Omega Professional Mark 2 watch.

Johns pinkerton Badge

John as a pilot

Mr Jesse Owens
John was an "Olympic Hopeful" at the Berlin Olympic games. He stayed and practiced with US team During the Olympics.

Another member of the US Team. Don't know his name.

John

Johns first wife

Check out the whole Gallery here. It's an amazing piece of History.

http://picasaweb.google.ca/tmothy/John


I have to go but I will post some more info when I have time.

Thanks!

 

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[birdman]

Outstanding post! Lots of history that old fellow was a part of.

 

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[txkickergirl]

Really cool pics and post, I love old photography, and John also seems to have been quite a looker in his day.

 

[mamabear2]

years ago, my mother's first husband was a land surveyor and he was surveying some land near Beaufort, SC and that piece of land had an old 2 story house on it. He decided to go looking in this house and what he found was a bill of sale for slaves and bonds that were hidden in one of the floorboards downstairs. He took them home to my mother and my brother that night and the next day she went down and got a safety deposit box and put them in there. They were actually given to my brother but him being 10 at the time (1956). when they got divorced, my mother got the bonds and the bill of sale for the slaves along with my brother. My brother died in 1967 and it was passed down to me and to this day I still have them and they safely tucked away at my bank. My kids will get them someday.

My father, my mother's second husband, found some some old japanese glass balls from a fishing boat and an old sake bottle while beach combing in Kahului, Hawaii. They are valued at over $2000 for each glass ball and $200 for the sake bottle.