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And Winona will be better remembered because of it.
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The Winona County Historical Society acquired the bulk of the Merritt and Harriet Kelley photo collection at Harriet Kelley’s estate auction on Saturday. All in all, the historical society added upwards of 8,000 images of Winona in the late 1930s, ’40s, ’50s and ’60s, historical society executive director Mark Peterson said.
The historical society paid a total of $4,810 for the images and one of Merrit Kelley’s news cameras, Peterson said. The acquisition included both prints and negatives and amounted to about 98 percent of the collection.
Merritt “One Shot” Kelley, chief photographer at the Winona Republican Herald/Winona Daily News for 26 years, earned his sobriquet through his practice of marching in to take a group picture, lining up the subjects, firing off a single flash and marching out — investing one flashbulb and one frame of Speed-Graphic film for a photo to illustrate the next day’s issue of the newspaper, according to his long-time associate, protégé and successor, Jim Galewski.
“His photographic skills and knowledge were exceeded only by his ability to work with people,” Galewski wrote in 2001. “In nearly 30 years of being the eyes of the community through his pictures in the Daily News, Merritt Kelley touched many lives.”
Kelley, who never married, lived with his sister, Harriet, in a little house on West Howard Street. She was also a photographer and the two often worked together on projects and assignments. When Merritt Kelley died in 1994, at age 82, Harriet retained their collection of prints and negatives. After her death at age 89 in October 2006, the images became part of her estate, to be sold to the highest bidder.
But until the bill of sale was published, no one knew the photo collection existed, Peterson said. Rumor had it that the bulk of Kelley’s prints and negatives had been discarded and destroyed, but as those working with the estate began to catalogue the contents of the little house, thousands and thousands of photographs were found.
Learning of the collection’s existence, Peterson and historical society archivist Walt Bennick arranged to take a look at the trove prior to the sale and were amazed at what they found — photos documenting nearly every aspect of four decades of life in Winona. A cursory examination of the hundreds of envelopes stuffed with black and white prints and large-format negatives gave a glimpse of joyous weddings and tragic accidents, photos celebrating the rich and famous and documenting those whose lives were not so fortunate; photos that restore scenes and buildings long vanished and persons and events long passed on.
“They are priceless,” Peterson said.
But there was a price to be paid. The photos were for sale to the highest bidder and Peterson ran out of money before the auctioneer ran out of photos. There was competition for certain photos and categories, Peterson said. For instance, one bidder pushed the price of an envelope containing shots of train wrecks far beyond what the historical society could afford.
“People just like old photographs,” he said.
Ironically, had the historical society been able to purchase the entire collection, those people bidding in competition would have been able to obtain a copy of whichever photos they wanted from the historical society archives for a minimal fee —- many times less than their winning bid.
During a pause in the bidding, Peterson got on the phone to potential donors and secured funds sufficient to see him through the rest of the auction.
Then it began to rain, but photos and water are a very bad combination and the collection was stacked up outdoors.
“I declared a historical emergency and called in the volunteers,” Peterson said.
The dampened treasures were taken to the basement of the Armory Museum and spread out on every available surface to dry. All items came through without damage.
But the work of preserving, identifying and cataloging the collection lies ahead. Initially the photos and negatives will be sorted by general subject and preserved in acid-free archive envelopes, then, one by one, they will be examined, identified and be made available for students, researchers and the general public to view and enjoy.
The historical society will be looking for help in identifying the people and places preserved in the photos, especially long-time residents who can put names to old, familiar faces from the rapidly receding past.
“There’s so much stuff in here I’ve never seen before,” Peterson said, “Stuff from everyday life — workers at the tire company, elephants at Midwest Motors … it documents so much of Winona’s history.”
Donations to help defray the unexpected cost of acquiring the Kelley collections are welcome. Contact the Winona County Historical Society, 160 Johnson St., Winona, MN. 55987; at (507) 454-2723; or wchs@luminet.net.
Contact Jerome Christenson at (507) 453-3522 or jchristenson@winonadailynews.com.
I wonder wrote on Jun 19, 2007 11:22 AM: