Fifty Seven Years Ago, Today

Brad, Ricky and Peggy: where are you?

Do you know that I have a photo of your family from this exact date in 1956, complete with a note on the back of the snapshot—probably written by your mom—listing your ages at the time?

Peggy, you were still a babe in arms, propped up on your mother’s lap for this photo. Your oldest brother Brad—nearly seven at the time—sat casually on your dad’s lap, while brother Ricky sat on the arm of the sofa, looking nonchalantly in the other direction while the camera snapped the picture.

I have no idea whose living room provided the backdrop for this informal portrait, but my guess involves someone from the Bean family. Since this photo was passed along to me via either Bill Bean of Alameda, California, or his sister Leona Bean Grant—I can’t tell which, now that the whole collection is in one jumbled pile—I almost wonder if you are family, in one way or another.

Or perhaps you are family-of-family, that tortuous web of relationships to which my own family preferred to assign the short-hand tag of “outlaws.” Could you be related to Bill’s wife Ellen—a woman I know little about, other than her first name? I can recognize Ellen in some of the pictures Bill passed along, but I hardly know anything else about her. But neither of your parents look much like Ellen, so maybe you are related to someone else.

It doesn’t help that I know even less about Leona’s husband’s family. I only discovered a picture of him the other day. And his first name—or is that his nickname?—but no sign of him in any records or documents. With such a scant bit of information on him, how could I even begin to know if you are related to Bob Grant?

Perhaps you are just friends. Or, to be more correct about this relationship, maybe it was your parents who knew Bill and Ellen Bean, or Bob and Leona Grant. Could your parents have been neighbors? Or business associates?

I’ll never know—that is, I’ll never know unless the Internet once again works its magic through the devices of those many search engines out there. Hopefully, at some point, one of you, or your children, or maybe even your grandchildren, will sit down at a computer and wonder what would come up by just entering those names. Brad. Ricky. Peggy.

Maybe then, the same names I’m now wondering about will become real people, reaching out to connect and fill in the rest of the story.

Cars: Not Just For the Guys

Throughout the history of automobiles in this country, the plethora of car photographs may have led some to believe this was just the focus of the male of the species. Not so. The women—at least in the Bean family—liked to have their picture taken with their favorite vehicle, too.

Dressed for the occasion, two women and an unidentified man pose in front of their car in an undisclosed location. Why is that location undisclosed? Heaven knows—although if either Bill or his sister Leona would have thought to tag the back of the snapshot, I’d be telling you about it today.

Wherever this photo was taken, I can only suppose the man might be Bill Bean. The woman next to him might be his sister Leona. Or not. And I have no clue who the thin lady completing the trio might be.

The café they are standing in front of has a southwestern feel, but I can’t say for sure. All I can figure from the photo is that it is three doors down from the post office. Which post office, I don’t know.

A photograph of a woman in an old car parked in an untilled field next to a two story house does have a label, thankfully. It is dated 1935, but the names provided tell me absolutely nothing. First, in a penciled hand much different from any in this Bean family, a name is written: Martha Darneal. Then, underneath—whether to contradict the earlier information, I can’t tell—the name Leona Grant is penned in, in a handwriting that I recognize as Leona’s own.

Enlarging the photo sufficiently to discern details on the woman’s face doesn’t help much. I can only imagine that it doesn’t seem to resemble Leona. Perhaps it is Martha sitting in that contraption, after all.

I take to the usual genealogy websites to see if I can find anything on Martha Darneal. Unfortunately, while there are several Darnells and Darnalls, there are precious few Darneals listed with the first name Martha. I do find some entries in city directories for Bakersfield, California—explaining the dry and barren look of the land—in the mid 1950s. Some of the entries mention that her husband’s name is Earl.

Eventually, I locate Martha’s data in the 1940 U.S. census. There she is, with husband Earl, son Robert and daughter Jerry—not in Bakersfield, but in Hobbs, New Mexico.

However, since the photograph was labeled for 1935, not 1940, I take a look at where the census handily lists Martha’s residence for that earlier date. In 1935, she was a resident of Fullerton in Orange County, California.

Another thing about Martha. The 1940 census shows her age as twenty. That means in 1935, she would have only been fifteen years of age.

The more I look at the details, the more I wonder if either the photograph was mislabeled, or this census entry is for the wrong person.

Thinking this Martha Darneal would be more likely a friend than a relative, I decide to set the whole mystery aside and let it simmer for another day’s attempt at resolution. Maybe sometime later, I’ll run across that name again, and I can then connect the dots.

For the third photograph, though, I have little doubt as to the subject’s identity. The only writing on the back of the snapshot is the date: 1950. Standing in front of what must have been—for the time, at least—an impressive automobile was Leona Bean Grant, herself. The car might have been her brother Bill’s latest wheels, or perhaps the pride of her husband, Bob Grant.

However, knowing Leona and her independent ways, I kind of think this one’s her own.

Lifestyles and Their Cars

The ad people may just have gotten it right, after all: when it comes to cars, each model comes with its own ambience. Each one creates its own style.

For Bill Bean, that freedom that his wheels brought included not only a business life, but a private life. Cars got him where he wanted to go—whether that was to greater success, or to a greater fishing spot.

Now that the automobile has been on the scene for so many decades, I wonder what we can infer from our ancestors’ choice of vehicles. After all, once we got past the proverbial age of Ford—you can have your car in any color you want, just so long as it is black—there were so many choices. What did that say about the chooser in our family in each of the generations behind us?

From the Bean & Cavanaugh dealership in Alameda, California, there was plenty to choose from, for those who wanted style and had the pocketbook to support that taste in cars.

As for Bill’s own preferences, I can tell from the many photos in his collection that he liked his cars taking him wherever he wished to go—whether for business or pleasure.

I have no idea who the man is, enjoying the set-up this automobile afforded him, but I wouldn’t be surprised if he were a fishing buddy of Bill’s. No doubt, it was Bill taking the picture, himself. The only thing I know for sure about this photo is that it was developed on August 30, 1941, for that is what the date stamp reveals on the reverse.

I don’t know much about this other photo, either—except that I’m pretty sure it was Bill in the driver’s seat. Who knows what the story behind this vignette was. My guess—seeing the passenger door left open, too—is that Bill turned to his passenger and said, “Why don’t you hop out and take my picture?”

Again, no date—as was the case in so many of the photographs in this collection. Maddening that the guess work was left to others—but then, Bill probably had no idea anyone would be sifting through his stash of photographic memories, wondering about the back stories, after he was gone.

Can You Know a Man By the Cars He Keeps?

What can you find out about a person through the hundreds of unidentified photographs he has left behind? Not much, I used to think. However, now that I’ve reconsidered those many photos in the case of Bill Bean of Alameda, California, I’m beginning to connect those dots. Unbelievably, a picture is emerging. The big picture, that is.

The process does take time. It sometimes takes lots of breaks, so I can come back to the task with fresh eyes. I’ve left this stash alone for years—forgotten about it, actually—and yet, when the same-old-same-old wore off my eyes, the pictures started telling me a fresh story.

In Bill’s case, cars figured prominently in his life’s story. The very fact that he left so many unmarked snapshots of automobiles behind—visible memories he held onto all those years—was a monument to what was important in his life. This fascination with cars wasn’t just a business for him—it was a way of life.

Of the many pictures in his collection, one thankfully retained a date. Though faded, a date stamp still shows on the reverse of this first photo: August 29, 1920. My best guess is that this is actually Bill Bean in the photo, in the driver’s seat, parked curbside along a residential street looking much like the one in Alameda he called home.

I have no idea whether he was just showing off a new acquisition, or—who knows? I don’t even know enough to tell what make of vehicle it was that he was driving. But I did notice that the car parked behind him bore an insignia resembling that of the product of one of his competitors: Chevrolet.

I wish I had a date or other identifying mark for this next photo. Clearly, we’ve moved on from the 1920s into modern times. Parked next to a larger car, looking like it’s packed for an excursion, is a model from earlier days. I don’t know if the couple just hopped in to snap the picture for memories’ sake, or whether they were still actually driving that thing. There's really not that much I can tell about them, for unfortunately, I have no label to guide me in identifying the twosome.

Wherever it was parked, it was by the Phil Foster Esso station. I just wish I had an idea whether this was a stop on a trip from Redwood City to Fresno to visit Bill's mother's Shields relatives, or to Mendocino, or to another town where family lived.

Yes, cars told the stories of Bill’s life. It’s an incomplete story—so far, at least—for I have no idea who the people are sitting in those many contraptions, where they were going, and what events filled their lives.

If nothing else, though, I can tell that cars figured prominently in Bill Bean’s life—and that some of those times were spent doing the very thing cars were meant to do: get people to the places where they wanted to be.

More Cars

Bill Bean took his youthful admiration of the automobile and turned it into a lifelong business proposition.

I still want to do more research on the Bean and Cavanaugh dealership in Alameda, California. That will all come in due time.

In the meantime, I wanted to share a few photos of his business that he had saved over the years. These pictures are stored memories of a generation quickly fading off the scene. If anyone is going to remember these times now, it must be those to whom such pictures and stories have been passed.

While I’m familiar with the automaker Plymouth, the name DeSoto is just a blip on my memory’s radar. I couldn’t point one out to you if I saw one on the street—and that’s probably the key. If anyone saw one on the street nowadays, it would certainly be a collector’s item.

Can you imagine getting your hands on a model in the same pristine condition as some of these showroom specials from years ago?

Taking a look at the many photographs of this dealership and its cars stored in the "mystery photo box" from this family's heritage, there’s no doubt Bill Bean was as proud of his business as he was of his cars.

Cars: You Knew This Was Coming

It’s one thing for a young man to be in love with his car. It’s another thing when that young man decides to make cars his life calling.

That’s pretty much what Bill Bean did. Starting from that age which conjures up some sort of magnetism between cars and guys, Bill was always headed in whatever direction would lead him closer to the subject he loved.

There are quite a few photographs in the Bean family photo box that have proved to be absolutely no mystery to me, for I’ve always known about the car dealership in Alameda that Bill owned, along with his partner. While in the later days when I knew him, the only car it was permissible for anyone in the family to drive was a Chrysler, what I didn’t know was that Bean and Cavanaugh got their start not as a Chrysler dealership, but with Plymouths and DeSotos.

Some Guesses Are Better Than Others

I mentioned yesterday that, once I discover the identity of one mystery person in my heritage box of unlabeled family photos, I can begin the process of connecting the dots and getting names and faces put together.

That worked so nicely for yesterday’s photographs, where I was able to place the identity of a mystery man from 1923. It turned out to be the photographs of one Bob Grant, the husband of Leona Bean, the older sister of twins Sam and Bill.

I have a set of photos—one of which I’ve already shared here quite a while ago—which I started wondering about in just the same way. The set includes two subjects which remain the same: an older woman, and—of course!—a car. The angles for each of the photos shifts a bit, but I’m certain it is the same car and the same fence line.

I don’t really know much about photography, but in looking over these two pictures more closely, I also realize that one of these outdoor shots is more nicely framed, zoomed in on the subject, and not over-exposed.

My guess is that the man in one of the pictures swaps with the man in the other picture to take turns serving as photographer.

I already know the man in the over-exposed shot is Bill Bean. His mother, Ella Shields Bean, is the older woman—but just in case you doubt me, rest assured that the second picture includes a label, “Mother.” And a date, 1926.

The label on that other photo also includes another name, but I’m pretty sure it isn’t the name of that other man. It says, simply, “Lincoln.”

How much ya wanna bet that’s the car he’s talking about?!

My first inclination, in trying to identify the other man—the one in the photo labeled “Lincoln”—is to think of male relatives about the same generation as Bill Bean. Who else would be traveling with Bill to visit his mother—and probably show off his car—than another relative?

Who could this relative be? Well, for one thing, it wouldn’t be Bill’s twin. Sam, his brother, by now was afflicted with the side affects of the injury that brought about his blindness. The only other male relative would be Leona’s husband, Bob Grant.

Bob Grant it was, in my mind…until just the other day, when I re-examined those photos of Bob. While the few firmly identified photos I have of him aren’t sufficient to grant me the confidence of correctly matching his face with other pictures, I had thought that I was right. Now…I’m not so sure.

There’s the matter of the hairline, for one thing. And the glasses. Well, granted, we all can age and start needing help where we hadn’t, before.

A third photograph had once given me the idea that these dots could be connected. It’s a shot of a man who looks like he is halfway between the looks of Bob Grant and the mystery man in the photo with Ella Bean. Sometimes, I stare at that photo and think I have a match.

And sometimes I think I don’t.

Maybe it’s all become a matter of too much staring. I may have to just tuck a few of these photos back in the box and see what they look like again in a couple more years.