Knees in the filth, Mike Rodriguez dug via a plastic bin on the Mission Open Air Market on the city's South aspect and pulled out an sudden treasure.
It turned into July 2018 and the X-ray technologist had just unearthed a nearly pristine image album full of dozens of black-and-white photographs of stern-faced aunts, uncles and cousins courting back to the 1800s.
René A. Guzman writes about numerous kinds of culture with character in San Antonio, from historic associations and individuals to colorful collectors and conventions. The San Antonio native has written for the express-news for greater than twenty years.
study him on our free web site, mySA.com, and on our subscriber website, ExpressNews.com.
rguzman@categorical-news.internet | @reneguz
as a minimum that's how they have been listed in the album, reminiscent of in a photo marked 1896 that featured an Illinois farmhouse with a horse-drawn buggy and small row of darkly clad family members ranging in age from a towheaded "Cousin Albert (5 yrs old)" to a "Grandmother Andine Sommerfeldt" in a head scarf.
Rodriguez marveled on the album's respectable situation and especially at its attention to detail. Clear handwritten names accompanied every old graphic, most of those photographs so smartly-preserved in the back of their protective web page coverings that they appeared as notwithstanding they may well be at the back of glass in a museum.
Who would lose or half with one of these carefully curated archive? The album didn't designate any owner or contact counsel, and Rodriguez refused to get rid of any of its photographs for concern of destructive them, so clues scribbled on the backs of these images additionally were a secret. the entire album's vendor could present was a shrug.
however Rodriguez could inform somebody had put heart and hard work into the photo album. And this sort of rich heirloom deserved to be in the palms of a rightful heir, so he paid the $8 asking expense.
"It's no longer just a photograph album. It's somebody's family history," Rodriguez spoke of. "and that i knew correct away the right component to do became to are trying to get it lower back to the customary house owners. That became my mission."
San Antonian Mike Rodriguez made it his mission to get the image album lower back into the fingers of a rightful inheritor.
(Billy Calzada | specific-news)The mission begins
When Rodriguez introduced the album home, he combed each web page and jotted down every identify. One surname rose above the leisure: Sommerfeldt. It principally graced the album's first pages, which Rodriguez figured bore probably the most value to its customary proprietor and for this reason the most beneficial clues for any capabilities family unit contacts.
The album opened with an old marriage ceremony photo of a veiled bride named Augusta Schutz and her debonair groom named Albert Sommerfeldt. Subsequent pages featured photos of a a bit of more youthful Albert. One had him standing at consideration in a armed forces uniform, whereas one other showed him outdoors taking into account a large, black dog hiking a ladder.
Then came a couple of photographs of what become listed because the Sommerfeldt farm between Marine and Highland in Madison County, ill. One became the graphic dated 1896, and others confirmed the farmhouse more than a century later, now a sagging husk with fallen beams and missing patches of roof.
A photo of a bunch of people standing earlier than the Sommerfeldt farm when it was in pristine condition.
(Billy Calzada | categorical-news)
A image of a gaggle of individuals belonging to the Schaefer and Sommerfeldt households standing before the dilapidated home.
(Billy Calzada | categorical-information)Rodriguez spent the subsequent three weeks plugging all of the album's names into facebook and Google searches, but came up empty. Flustered, he set the album aside and finally forgot about it.
"It did get put on the back burner," Rodriguez spoke of.
it might be a little more than a 12 months later when a random newscast rekindled his interest.
San Antonian Mike Rodriguez bought this image album for $8 in a flea market.
(Billy Calzada | express-information)The hunt renewed
In late August, Rodriguez and his wife, Angela, caught an evening information record about a handbag that had been stolen in downtown Detroit in 1957. It recently had been found in an abandoned building and again to its now aged proprietor Margaret Cohen.
more than 60 years later, the purse nevertheless housed Cohen's old photos, compact replicate and even her Social security card, which become used to tune down her son so he may return the purse to his mother for a surprise teary reunion.
"My wife and i simply kind of looked at each different," Rodriguez noted, "and we're like, 'You know, we should really get again on it.'"
This time, Rodriguez shot a video of himself going web page through web page in the course of the photograph album and shared it on YouTube and facebook, recruiting family in Dallas, Corpus Christi and California to spread the notice. Then he reached out to media retailers and ancient maintenance agencies in San Antonio as well as in Chicago and East St. Louis, sick., the two closest primary metropolitan areas to the Sommerfeldt farm.
once again, no success. Then Rodriguez opened an account on the widespread genealogical web page, Ancestry.com.
When he entered album names into a search container, his search started to endure fruit, or in this case shaky leaves referred to as "suggestions," which Ancestry uses to match entered records with its many facts and household bushes.
The more album names Rodriguez entered into Ancestry, the greater suggestions he acquired for a family unit tree from an Ancestry user named "JulieSommerfeldtW." Most of that content changed into private, notwithstanding the account listed Edwardsville, unwell., in Madison nation. There become the Sommerfeldt name and Illinois connection right down to the county.
a marriage portrait of Augusta Schutz and Albert Sommerfeldt adorns the first page of the old photograph album. (Billy Calzada | specific-news)
Rodriguez messaged JulieSommerfeldtW with information of an historic picture album that may additionally belong to her family unit. Then he sent a hyperlink to his video.
Julie Worthen knew it become her family unit's album from the first page.
"It changed into my grandpa and grandma's marriage ceremony image," she referred to.
The album's opening wedding picture of Albert Sommerfeldt and Augusta Schutz become taken in 1919 in Edwardsville. Albert Sommerfeldt died in Edwardsville in 1957 at age 66. Worthen's father, Arnold Sommerfeldt, eighty four, nevertheless lives in Edwardsville and is the only real surviving child of her grandparents.
"He's all about family," Worthen noted of her dad. "This has just lifted his spirits so an awful lot."
Worthen moved from Edwardsville to Prior Lake, Minn., a 12 months in the past and now is a coordinator for a senior commute membership. She first joined Ancestry around six years ago, working aspect-via-facet together with her mother, Kathleen Sommerfeldt, to scan family photos and enter family names from the family tree her mom compiled on her personal desktop.
Worthen persisted that work after her mother's dying in 2015.
As Worthen awaited the delivery of the album prior this month — Rodriguez shipped it to her Sept. 6 — she anxiously hoped it will deliver more assistance about her paternal grandfather and extra suggestion to maintain constructing out the family unit tree.
Then the album arrived.
Julie Worthen and her two sons — Garrison Worthen, 13, right; and Jonathan Worthen, sixteen — glance through an ancient picture album that includes photos of her family unit dating back to the 1800s.
(Nina Robinson | express-news)'It's extraordinary'
The photograph album became delivered round noon Sept. eleven, and the primary person Worthen referred to as turned into her dad. Her sons — Garrison, 13, and Jonathan, sixteen — had been nonetheless in college, so Worthen took her first hands-on voyage through the album's contents with her father there on the cellphone, an excellent 550 miles away.
"We went graphic by using image," she referred to, "and i was telling him each aspect."
The journey was emotional, reminding her in regards to the significance of the area every person holds, as a result of they're special to their family. each and every new loved one she found out had their own potential and contributions that helped future generations.
"All these americans are long past, but not forgotten. and that i hope that I can provide appreciate to their contributions via conserving and protecting and sharing these photographs," she referred to.
a kind of extra splendid details become Worthen's connection to a German immigrant whose lineage actually spans the album's pages.
Worthen is the brilliant-incredible-granddaughter of Andine Sommerfeldt, Albert's grandmother. The album's 1896 image indicates her simply earlier than her loss of life the following 12 months. The album's final page holds a listing of her arrival at a brand new Orleans port on Jan. 5, 1835, when she became 12-year-old Andine Jandt, sparkling off the ship Orion, traveling from Hungary.
Andine Jandt Sommerfeldt is shown in a vintage picture in a photo album that San Antonian Mike Rodriguez purchased for $eight in a flea market.
(Billy Calzada | categorical-information);A old graphic indicates two Sommerfeldt boys on horseback.
(Billy Calzada | San Antonio categorical-information);shown is a copy of a passenger arrival doc that became in the photograph album. Passenger information show an Andine Jandt arrived in the united states from Germany in 1835.
(Billy Calzada | San Antonio categorical-news);A old graphic in a photograph album that San Antonian Mike Rodriguez bought for $eight in a flea market.
(Billy Calzada | San Antonio categorical-information)Worthen still had a seize in her throat three hours after receiving the lengthy-awaited album.
"i love it," she said. "I imply, it's striking. it is in fact mind-blowing."
Worthen observed that for her sons, the album converted their granddad's testimonies into actual historical past with true people, and that they marveled on the facial facets and especially the clothing of those far away household.
Worthen cited lots of the Sommerfeldt photos within the album have been ones she certainly not knew existed, similar to those of her grandfather's older brother, John Sommerfeldt. And when she noticed the photo of her grandfather Albert as a younger man considering a ladder-mountain climbing dog, she also noticed a unbelievable resemblance to her youngest son.
Worthen deploy a facebook page to preserve her two older sisters and other members of the family apprised of the album's contents as she scans greater photos into her laptop. just like she did along with her mother.
"it's so enjoyable filling in my tree," Worthen mentioned.
As for how one of these meticulously crafted image album headquartered round a family in Illinois ended up in a South Texas flea market, Worthen has a concept.
Catherine Grace Schaefer turned into cousin of Worthen's who changed into born a Sommerfeldt and appears in a photo in entrance of the farmhouse. Worthen heard Schaefer can also have lived with a daughter in San Antonio before she died in 2017. Worthen thinks the daughter might also have moved and the album bought misplaced in an estate sale.
"We're surprised that it bought faraway from the family unit," Worthen talked about.
Albert Sommerfeldt figures prominently within the antique picture album. When Julie Worthen saw the image on the right, she noticed a astonishing resemblance to her youngest son.
Albert Sommerfeldt figures prominently in the old image album. When Julie Worthen saw the photo on the correct, she saw a remarkable resemblance to her youngest son.
photograph: René A. Guzman / San Antonio categorical-newsimage: René A. Guzman / San Antonio express-news
photograph 1 of 21
Albert Sommerfeldt figures prominently within the old picture album. When Julie Worthen noticed the photograph on the right, she saw a stunning resemblance to her youngest son.
Albert Sommerfeldt figures prominently in the old photograph album. When Julie Worthen noticed the picture on the right, she noticed a mind-blowing resemblance to her youngest son.
image: René A. Guzman / San Antonio specific-informationThe $eight flea market locate named an 1800s girl. He again it to her super-tremendous-granddaughter.
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family unit united
Worthen intends to provide the album to her father next month in Illinois. meanwhile, she'll add every picture to Ancestry and share them with different family members on social media.
"and then we're going to do anything for Mike Rodriguez," Worthen mentioned.
Rodriguez demurred at the mention of any reward or restitution, stressing that he simply did what became right. during this case, discovering the correct home for a treasure trove of misplaced reminiscences.
Julie Worthen of Prior Lake, Minn., sits at her dining room desk on Sept. eleven, looking through the historic photo album mailed to her featuring many images of her family unit dating returned to the 1800s.
(Nina Robinson | specific-information)Design via Mark Dunphy.
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