Dad’s Photos #1

This is a new series on Robert Frost’s Banjo. My father, who passed away at age 91 in 2005, was an amateur photographer with a good eye, & somewhere along the line I inherited an album he put together in 1939. The pictures in the album were taken in the Boston area, on Cape Cod, & around a cabin where he lived in Athens, VT—for you non-Vermonters out there, that’s pronounced with a long “A” in idiosyncratic Yankee fashion.

So I’ve been scanning photos from this album & will be posting several of them at a time more-or-less monthly. I won’t be posting them all—as with any amateur photographer, even a talented one, the quality varies—but will try to select those that have interest to folks outside of my family. I believe these photos will have a general appeal as windows into another time—a time that fascinates me & will perhaps interest other readers. He provided captions for most of the photos, which I've added, with any explanation that might be helpful (tho I’ll try to keep the latter to a minimum). The photo leading off the post was captioned simply "Northampton Sub."

Hope you enjoy:

526 Mass. Ave. - Winter 39


"Even a shine" (I believe the man getting a shoeshine was my father's friend Johnnie Vawtea)


"Park on Mass. Ave. - Bum's Heaven" (I believe the term "bum" is positive here)


"South End Residential Section"

"He Grinds Away All Day" (the man has a grinding wheel in his cart- he was sharpening a knife for my father, who worked as a cook at this time)




"The Greshan Hotel, Chandler & Berkeley"