Uncovering memories

NICK EICHER, HOST: Today is Tuesday, September 27th. Thank you for turning to WORLD Radio to help start your day.

Good morning. I’m Nick Eicher.

MARY REICHARD, HOST: And I’m Mary Reichard. Coming next on The World and Everything in It: Lost and found.

Not like you’d find in a school bin full of coats and backpacks. Instead, think second-hand store, something you come across that looks cheap, but turns out to be far more valuable than the price tag.

EICHER: A woman in Australia and a man in New York hope to find the people who lost the memories they found. Here’s WORLD Correspondent Amy Lewis with the story.

AMY LEWIS, REPORTER: One day in April, Courtney Hart was visiting op shops–or thrift stores–in Geelong, Australia, with her mom. They were looking for 50s-era knick knacks to decorate Hart’s home.

AUDIO: [SHOP SOUNDS]

COURTNEY: And yeah, I just saw this camera sitting on a shelf. And I picked it up and I said, Oh, mum, that's really cool…

It was a Kodak Brownie camera from the 1950s.

COURTNEY: And mum was like, whoa, wow, that's awesome. Like, that's really old. I think your grandmother had one of those. And then she picked it up and opened it. And I quickly saw something… And I said, mum, shut it! Don’t open the back of a camera. What are you doing?

Hart saw brown film stretched across the inside of the camera. She had recently begun taking film photography and knew that exposing it to daylight would ruin any images on it. She decided right then to buy the camera.

COURTNEY: Because I thought, I wonder what’s on it. If there’s film on it, is there anything interesting on it?

AUDIO: Yeah, it’s in, like, really good condition. For what it is. I just really want to know what that, yeah, where it’s been, what it’s been through.

For $20, Hart took the camera home–with its film. She dropped off the film at a local shop to be developed. Five days later she got the news.

COURTNEY: And they came through and I was, like, wow, oh my gosh, yeah. Yeah. There were six photos. The first two were just grainy, nothing at all.

The other four show bearded men with an old truck in a jungle.

COURTNEY: I’d really like to know what time they’re from at least…

Hart posted the four photos and a picture of the Brownie camera on social media hoping to find the owner. She wanted them to see their photos for the first time.

Hart stumbled on the camera by accident. But New Yorker David Gutenmacher purposefully hunts for precious items hiding at thrift stores. He created the Museum of Lost Memories.

DAVID: The goal of the project is to find and save lost photos, videos, and any sort of memories to try to return them back to the original owners. And whenever that’s not possible, to preserve them for future generations.

Gutenmacher uses his experience as a social media manager to reach as wide an audience as possible. His passion started with a bucket of old photos he found at a Brooklyn thrift store.

DAVID: Immediately I thought that if those were my family photos, I would hope that somebody would flip over to the back, see a last name, and then try to return that back to me. So I thought I might as well be doing that for other people.

One time, he found a roll of developed film with a note inside the canister–in German. He had prints of the film made and posted it and the note on various platforms. Followers found–and contacted–the descendants of the owner.

DAVID: ...And unfortunately, the last living member who was in those photos passed away three days before we were able to find them. So it was bittersweet because we got the photos back, but it would have been so incredible to see this person react to those photos of their family…

It takes a global village to find the owners of lost memories.

DAVID: The video on Instagram got 15 million views and the video on TikTok got 10 million views, and there were just so many people that were trying to figure out where the pictures were taken and who the family was….

As soon as Gutenmacher posts a new lost memory, his followers use public records, class lists, and ancestry websites to narrow the search. Answers to clues unfold like a good mystery novel in the threads of Facebook and Instagram.

DAVID: I have a case where somebody just recognized their childhood’s preschool teacher in a photo. So, the larger the community gets, the easier it is to return photographs back to people, which has been the most incredible part to see it grow.

But Gutenmacher doesn’t buy bins of letters or photographs for the thrill of the chase.

DAVID: I say that if there was a button that I could just press and it would tell me who these people are and who’s in the photos, I would press that button every time. I don’t really need the hunt as much as I just want to be able to return these pictures back to people whenever possible…

Gutenmacher says it’s important to remember that this item meant something to someone at one point.

DAVID: And I think that just because somebody lost their memories, or a family member passed away and nobody cares about them anymore, I don’t think those should be forgotten.

Within days of Courtney Hart posting her photos on social media, the local paper picked up the story and posted it on their own social media outlets.

COURTNEY: It’s been shared about 900,000 times. I got a message the other day to say that the story has been read, yeah, over 800,000 times…

A man from the area saw the photos and wrote to Hart. He recognized his dad in the group photo. The man doesn’t think it was his dad’s camera, but he did give Hart a lead: His dad was working on the Sepik River in Papua New Guinea at the time.

So far, that’s the only clue she has. But she plans to keep looking.

David Gutenmacher recommends digitizing family memories as soon as possible to avoid losing them by accident or by well-meaning relatives cleaning house after a family death.

DAVID: Write the names on the back of old photographs. If your grandparents or parents are still around and can tell you who’s in the photos, sit with them for a few hours. And selfishly, if the names are written on the back, it’ll be a lot easier to return them if you lose them.

Reporting for WORLD, I’m Amy Lewis in Geelong, Australia.

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