More from the archives...these two photos are buried amid others. I had almost despaired of finding them again, and when I was looking for something else, there they were. My father's wife Eva took them one morning at coffee -- I think I was 18 or 19 years old. I like them very much, even though I look at them now with a mixture of affection and nostalgia for that girl so long ago. A lot has happened between then and now.
I figured it was high time to post some pictures of my mother, Jeanette, and found this one of her just after I was born, as well as a strip of photo-booth pics taken when I was just a wee one. I've also included a photo taken just after my birth as I was the first baby of the New Year in Santa Monica that year, so this photo appeared in the newspaper. I love how young and glamorous she looks wearing what was probably a fabulous red lipstick just hours after delivering me. Even as a young woman (and she sure is young here, I think all of 22 or 23 years old when I was born), she looks so sure of herself, with just a bit of attitude. Awesome. Love you, mom.
Balafon performance in the streets of Conakry, Guinea. ©1963 Emile Snyder
Among the unique documents that have floated my way over the years was a manilla folder full of gorgeous black and white photographs my father took in the Ivory Coast, which was developed there, and some of them might have also been taken in Senegal, Mali, or Guinea. Among my mother's papers that I received after her death was a carefully cached collection of letters that my parents had written to each other from the fall of 1963 to the spring of 1964 when they were both abroad on Ford and Fulbright grants-- my father to numerous countries in West Africa and my mother to India, Bhutan, and Sikkim.
The letters are fascinating and cringe-worthy in places. One third love letters (with some surprising revelations about their sex life I could have survived never knowing about), one-third about money (there was never enough, and often arriving late, allowing for some desperate nail-biting), and one-third talking about the research and the separate lives they were having on their different continents.
As I read through the research parts of my Dad's letters, I learned a lot about these photographs--especially that he had done many field recordings of musicians, griots, and small village brass bands. He had made friends with prominent African writers at the very start of their careers as authors in 1963, such as Leopold Senghor, President of Senegal, and other writers and poets turned diplomats -- who also gave him music tapes and recordings (especially to the radio stations eager to get their music out to the West as well as Africa.). He sent around 25 videos back to the States with his friend Robert Garfias, an ethnomusicologist Robert Garfias, who then returned them to the Ethnomusicology Archives at the University of Washington, Seattle, WA.
I went looking for the tapes in the archives -- as this was the first I knew they had been adequately given to someone. I was so excited to find them listed here and here. So I will send scans of all the photos (plus more of the notes I discovered in his letters) to the archive there -- delighted that future students will have a chance to see these images and connect them to the music on the tapes. In many ways, the best part of finding all these papers is sharing the great features of their careers with others- to share those moments in history when they saw something, heard something, or wrote something that still matters.
Images are ©1963 Emile Snyder -- please email me at the blog to request permission to use these photos.
This post is for my cousin François, who has been visiting the blog to see what photos of our families are appearing -- and happily identifying those I don't know. I love these three photos for how the people are grouped, smiling, and staring back at the photographer. I am not sure who everyone is, but I know I am related to them all, making them seem even more mysterious. I can't help but search their faces for a sign of myself, a gesture, a smile. So here is what I know of the photos, and I am hoping, François, that you can identify the others in the pictures.
The sepia photo above is of my grandfather Frederick Snyder, standing there rakishly among those women. I am unsure if any of them is my grandmother Madeleine -- their hats are pulled so low that it is hard to be sure. But if not her...then perhaps they are three of her six sisters? Maybe it is Madeleine who took the photo? And they look like they are having so much fun, leaning against Madeleine's big American boyfriend. I wonder if they knew that Madeleine was already pregnant by someone else when he married her.
This is a later photograph -- Fredrick now poses like a doting father, with my father Emile and his sister Rosine perched on Frederick's knees. And the children behind? I love their postures --especially the oldest one, leaning against the wall with all the humor and panache of an adolescent. I have some guesses...but I'll see if François can enlighten me.
Here is the last one, which is still later. Some of the adults here are the children from the photo above. For some reason, the image must have been taken before the war. People seem so relaxed and playful -- the younger one's mug in the back. (Even as I look at it now, the two young men holding up the girl are the identical two older boys from the photo above. And the women! How much like an older version of the two girls!) But judging from the clothes, it also seems late enough that the war is hovering not far away.
Since I now live surrounded by mountains that I love and climb frequently -- I am re-posting 2 posts about my young teenage adventures climbing Mt. Kilimanjaro in Tanzania. It has taken many years to get off the prairie and the desert to return to the mountains, but to be in the Front Range of the Colorado Rockies is now certainly worth it. I love the feeling of reconnecting to that younger self, who carried the then recently published Hobbit in her pack to read in camp at night.
A photo above of me at 14 in the blue anorak at the summit of Mt. Kilimanjaro in 1968....long story really. The one below is of my brother and I after we arrived home to Dar es Salaam, after 12 hours by African bus. We are wearing our wreaths of everlasting flowers that the guides give you if you make the summit -- and you can see that some 50 years later, my wreath is a bit faded, but not bad for such a venerable award.
I have recently come across a host of wonderful green images of spring -- a rarity in this desert to be treasured. It reminds of more northern places, where rhubarb leaves unfurl through spring snow, lambs gambol in wet green fields, and the air itself is heavy with dew and rain, and earthly scents. So here is an 18th century bodice fit for Titania, Queen of the Fairies, and splendid images from photographer Morgan Silk of Jack and Jill of the Green.
Especially when I write. The ciagrette is a dramatic touch too. Honestly, forget the bunny slippers, last night's t-shirt, and sleepy face washed out in the blue light of the computer screen. This look is to die for and even if the novel doesn't sell...well, I would still be awesome.
*with apologies and much admiration to the great Maria Callas.
Midori Snyder is the author of nine books for children and adults, published in English, French, Dutch, and Italian. She won the Mythopoeic Award for The Innamorati, a novel inspired by early Roman myth and the Italian "Commedia dell'Arte" tradition....more
