By Patricia A. Scheyer
NKyTribune reporter
If people are asked, what would you try to save out of your house in event of fire or flood or tornado? Besides the lives of your family, including all of the family pets, what would be the most precious item to grab before running out the door?
Mihali and Kate Sevastakis hold the album they found in the rafters of their garage. (Photos by Patricia Scheyer/NKyTribune)
The answer for most people is pictures. Photos of life events, so carefully preserved, photos of children as babies, pictures of grandparents who might not be alive anymore — all the memories evoked by photos are priceless and irreplaceable.
Kate and Mihali Sevastakis married last November and they bought a house in Oakley last year. One day when Kate was out of town, Mihali decided to tackle cleaning out the garage. He called Kate after he found the album, excitedly relating what he had found on top of some plywood in the rafters of the detached garage.
“This is a fairly large photo album and the photos are in good shape, even though the binding is gone, and the paper is very brittle,” said Kate. “The house was built in 1916, and we are the fourth owner of the house. I believe the first picture is from the 1920’s.”
There are pictures ranging over several decades, a veritable lifetime of memories, if not more.
Mihali thinks the pictures range from the 1920s to the 1960s.
“It is very cool because you can see all the family trips and the places they visited over the years,” said Mihali. “This is world travel, with places like France, Switzerland, Sicily, Monte Carlo, Acapulco and Casablanco.”
These pictures have some writing dated 1928
Kate pointed out that interestingly enough there doen’t seem to be any pictures of the house where the album was found.
“The previous owner of the house had the house for about ten years,” Kate explained. “She told me she thought the first owners had the house for about 50 to 60 years, and the second owner maybe 40 to 50 years. The album is definitely not hers, so by elimination it should belong to the first or second owners of the house.”
She related that there are names in the album. As near as she can decipher, there is a Kevin and David Bendler, and a Bill Geis, and one of the first pictures is of a baby, probably from around 1928, with the name Virginia Moeller.
“Somebody might have worked for P&G because there is a picture of the bowling team, it looks like,” said Kate.
Both Mihali and Kate want to get these pictures back to the family who might be missing them and never knew what happened to them. They are intrigued by having a mystery at the beginning of their married lives, and they want a happy ending to it.
If any of the pictures or names ring a bell, or anyone knows of a family member the pictures might belong to, they can reach Kate at kmabeln1@gmail.com.
The pages are brittle and the writing is light
Kate thinks this is a bowling team, possibly from Proctor and Gamble.
