Before we get into the amazing connection we’ve made recently, here’s a quick update on the broader collection of 2500 glass plate negatives we were able to rescue that comprise the surviving images from the Home Portrait Studio. We talked about how saved these plates earlier, and about how we intend to scan and share all of these images publicly (Our project to save a piece of Racine, Wisconsin history, Part 1 – Getting Started), but in the months since our last update we found out it would be nearly impossible to use a flatbed scanner to capture those thousands of images without it taking years to complete. Fully processing 50 negatives was taking about 8 hours. We’ve since bought a bunch of equipment to instead photograph each negative digitally, and invested in software that allows us to now fully process those same 50 images in just under an hour. We expect that with this new process we’ll the entire first box up and shared next month (440 images), and we’ll provide much more detail as soon as they complete.
In the meantime, through an amazing set of coincidences we determined the name of the man in the WWI uniform we posted originally, met his grandson, and learned more about Frank Stritesky who owned the Home Portrait Studio.
The photo is William H Rastall (born in 17 Jun in Racine, Wisconsin) and who served in the US Army from December 1917 to January 1919. William was the brother of Frank’s wife Anne, and lived in the same neighborhood.
Just days after we first shared these images on the “Racine History” Facebook group, and on this blog, William’s grandson Michael began searching the Internet to buy an original or reproduction of the patch on William’s uniform. The photo of William with the 119th patch was a family treasure that had been passed down.
Michael’s first search turned up our scan, posted to a military insignia message board that we’d used to try and narrow down the timeframe that image was taken. Michael has prints of this family heirloom, and figured that the negatives were in the home that housed the studio which was owned by Frank’s daughter Betty, so he was floored to see a full-frame version of the picture randomly by a stranger on the Internet!
He reached out the next day, and after exchanging texts and phone calls, it turned out we were close enough for lunch, and got to meet and exchange stories. Michael was able to share many of the family pictures that were taken by Frank over the years.
The image we first published of William was almost certainly taken in 1918, at a time when Frank was just getting Home Portrait Studio up and running, and during that time he’d often take photos of family to practice/build his portfolio. William married after returning home from his WWI service, and he and his wife Alice had one son, Patric who had a life-long interest in photography owning back to his Uncle Frank. Frank had let Patric work the cameras from time-to-time when he was younger, and Patric’s interest eventually rubbed off on his son Michael, who works as a professional photographer in the Chicago Suburbs (Michael Rastall Photography).
Patric and his wife had visited Betty decades ago hoping to salvage the remaining negatives and maybe some of the studio gear, but Betty wasn’t interested in letting anything go. Given the condition they were being stored in there was little hope they survived after Betty’s passing, so it came as a complete shock to the family that they were seeing the light of day. With any luck, as we continue through the 6 boxes we saved they we’ll find more of those family treasures.
We’re also hopeful we can eventually reunite many more families with these amazing images of their ancestors, but for now we’ve at least made that first link!
More to come!!