In Search of "Frank Reinhardt" -- A "Sepia Saturday" Post

Today's Sepia Saturday theme is to be determined by each individual "player's" interpretation of the photo prompt that was offered, that of a NASA researcher in 1964, wearing a prototype space suit for the Apollo Moon Project.

Kinda reminds me of Mattel's Major Matt Mason, but I digress.

I ignored the space travel connection, and instead decided to go with the "researcher" aspect for today's post.

To mess with the old opening quote from Dragnet, "The story you are about to read is true. The names have been changed to protect the anonymity of the subjects."

During the years I've spent as a flea market dealer specializing in (mostly) paper collectibles, I've chanced upon a lot of old family photographs. I've often wondered how these photos have managed to become part of estate sales and the like. It's a disconcerting thought that no surviving family members were around who wanted them.

In fact, a woman I knew who had dealt with antiques for 65 years before recently retiring had burned all of her own family photos. She was a childless widow who did not want her photos providing some other dealer with selling stock at her expense.

Sometime during the early 1990s, I purchased a sizable collection of "miscellaneous paper." I didn't really take the time to go through it thoroughly until less than five years ago. Among these collectibles, I found a few, rather small photographs from the World War II era. Most -- if not all -- of them were taken in Europe. Some featured the same man.

One of them featured a name (as well as a few other odd notations), written in large letters on the wall of a ruined building. (I doubt that the name was of the American soldier pictured in the shot, however. Just sayin'.) If you look at the extreme right of the photo at the top of this post, you'll see the beginning of these "notations." I cropped about a fifth of the photo to insure the man's privacy.

In fact, I'm going to make up a name for him right here and now, just for the sake of my story. Let's call him "Frank Fallon Reinhardt."

The other photos, reproduced below, show various soldiers and shots of buildings.

Looking at this small stack of photos, I wondered what I should do with them. Should I keep them together and try to get a couple of bucks for them at my flea market stand? Should I merely throw them away?

Frank Reinhardt's name -- as well as the listing of a town in Pennsylvania, emblazoned on that cropped-out wall in that same photo -- gave me an answer that would sit well with my conscience.

I would find Frank Reinhardt, if he was still alive, and send the pictures to him.

Fully realizing that "Frank" can either be one's given name as well as a shortened form of "Francis," I began an internet search for both "Frank Reinhardt" and "Francis Reinhardt." I found several entries. My most encouraging findings were a Pennsylvania listing in the 1910 census for a Frank Reinhardt, and the name of a Frank Reinhardt who operated a cleaning service right here in my home state of Massachusetts!

I took the liberty of making an after-hours call to the cleaning service, leaving as brief a message as possible describing my flea market acquisition.

Not too long after -- a day, maybe two -- I received a call from Frank Reinhardt! His dad, Frank senior -- Frank Reinhardt III, as it turned out -- was a World War II veteran, and was 80 years old, still alive, and living in Maine! (My 1910 Frank was probably the grandfather of Frank IV, but Frank and I didn't get into that.)

My communication with Frank -- Frank IV, that is -- continued via email. I filled the bed of my scanner three times with different arrangements of all the photos -- but regrettably, can only find the first two series of scans now -- and emailed the scans to Frank.

Shortly thereafter, of course, I sent him the actual photographs via "snail mail." The last time I heard from Frank was very soon after that. He explained that he'd been recovering from surgery, and said that once he was well, he would "head up to Maine and hopefully my Dad will recognize the photos or the individuals in them."

That was in 2007. I've emailed Frank a couple of times since, with no reply. So I've yet to learn if Frank senior appreciated and/or enjoyed receiving the photos.

Early Friday evening, however, when I began drafting this post, I decided to do a little more research.

Frank's cleaning business now has its own website. That's where I learned that Frank's middle name is Fallon, not a terribly common name.

Unfortunately, additional searches told me that a Frank Fallon Reinhardt from Maine had passed away in 2010, at the age of 82.

Alexander Pope once wrote that "[a] little knowledge is a dangerous thing." Sometimes, sadly, a little more knowledge can be somewhat... depressing.

Thanks for your time.