Perhaps I Should Call In the History Detectives?

If you’ve not watched the History Detectives on PBS, then you’re missing a really unique program. If you are familiar with the program, then you know that the History Detectives research questions asked by viewers like me, usually about some historical artifact (a photograph, a book, a diary, a weapon, etc) in possession of the viewer.

For example, on the program I watched last night, the History Detectives researched an autograph book filled with the signatures of historic folks, including two U.S. Presidents, which a man found among the African American memorabilia collection of his deceased mother. After traveling innumerable miles and doing intense research, the detective historian determined the signatures were authentic and, not only that, but the last owner of the autograph book, Nora Holt, was herself a significant person in early Twentieth Century African-American history.

Well, I have a mystery that could be submitted to the History Detectives, even though I rather doubt they could come up with an answer. While cleaning my house with the assistance of the home health care folks that the Veterans Administration so benevolently contracted for me, we came across the photograph below:

Click the photograph to (greatly) enlarge it

I have no idea who this couple is. There is no identifying information on the photograph, except that the cardboard frame has the name of a Louisville photographer who, according to my research, went out of business more than seventy years ago.

I suspect that it may be the wedding photograph of my maternal grandparents, Adam and Anna Hertle. However, the only photo of my grandmother than I have ever seen was taken when she was in her sixties or seventies. I have never seen a photo of my grandfather, who was hit and killed by a train when my mother, the youngest of eight children, was only about eighteen months old.

Another problem is that I have been executor of the estates of two of my mother’s relatives, her oldest sister, Lillian, and her brother-in-law, Frank, who was to me like the grandfather that I never knew. The photo could have come from either of their homes.

My mother has no idea who the couple in the photo may be. She has suggested that the couple is possibly German because of the way they are posed: the groom sitting and the bride standing, indicative (in the German mindset of the times) that she is to serve him. I have emailed the photograph to my mother’s only surviving sibling, John; however, he is only a year older than my mother and was also a toddler when his father was killed. He has yet to respond to my email.

So, the photograph remains an unidentified one that I doubt the History Detectives can solve.

It is, for me, a mystery!