Remembering Dad: His Camera Collection

I remember the trips to Goodwill when I was a child. I always tried to sit in the center of the front bench seat when we would make the trip in his 1962 Pontiac Safari wagon. It had a type of stick shift that was known as three-on-the-tree, which meant that the three-speed transmission was shifted with a lever that came out of the steering column. I wanted that seat because Dad would let me shift the gears during the trip there and back. We would be going to Goodwill for two things: books and cameras. 

Dad bought thousands of non-fiction books over the years and built quite a library where he could slip away to read a twenty-nine-cent book about a WWII battle written by somebody who was there.

However, it wasn't the shelves and shelves of books in his library that would catch your eye. It was his display of the several hundred cameras he salvaged from the as-is bin of old cameras, most of which he paid less than a dollar for and still worked. He took great pride in his collection that he showed frequently to friends and family, especially if he wanted them to see cameras that he may have paid two or three dollars for since they last saw it.

He had dozens of cameras that opened and pulled out with bellows. He also had dozens of box cameras, dozens of the Brownie style cameras, and some cameras that were one-of-a-kind, like his little spy camera complete with the leather case. A few people donated cameras to him. One of those people was Jim Huggins, who was a talented photographer himself. After seeing Dad's collection, he gave him a camera that he had that was outdated and too cool to get rid of. I gave Dad a model of Kodak camera that got the company sued for using the technology in its film that Edwin Land developed for Polaroid. 

I don't know what Dad would eventually have done with the collection, but I am certain that it would not have suffered the fate it did. 

Understandably, Mom wanted to keep things together for the sake of the family after Dad died. Friends and family who visited her could see his creations and collections. However, family members didn't come over to see his collections often, and, after once or twice, not ever. They would come to pick her up and take her to their family homes for events. When it became clear to me that Mom's home was no longer where the family gathered for feasts, I hoped that she would be open to downsizing. 

As for Dad's camera collection, I suggested that we try to find a museum that would curate much of it. If not that, to get the collection distributed to heirs so everyone in the family gets some of the collection.

It wasn't that the camera collection was a problem. It was Mom's house that was a problem. I still believe that the best thing for her, and to have kept the family together, would have been to sell the two houses she owned, and for her to buy a duplex that she and my sister who lived in the other house could share. We could deal with accumulations at both homes while improving the conditions for both of them as they aged. 

We never met to discuss it as a family. It was decided by telephone calls made to people who said Mom should keep things as they were, and who also told her that they were too busy with their own lives to visit her to help her maintain the family home. Instead, the collection gathered dust on the shelves until it was boxed up and stored for a few years before Mom moved. 

It was broken up when it was sold piecemeal after Mom died. It seems a bit ironic that the collection was accumulated by Dad going through an as-is bin at Goodwill, and that it was sold to various buyers as though it was in an as-is bin.

It was my hope to keep the collection intact even after Mom died. My hope was finally dashed when I visited a family member about working with me to resolve an impasse I had with the estate about the cameras, and he wasn't interested in talking to me about that which he had talked to his mom about. Also, he did not want to get involved beyond talking to her about the whole thing and drawing conclusions. He said I had gone too far trying to get her attention. He did, however, accept the peace token before telling me to leave. I left in disappointment, not anger.

It became clear that there was no intention from anyone else to try to preserve Dad's collection for the sake of preserving it. By the time the collection was sold, it had become the several boxes of cameras that were purchased from an as-is bin at Goodwill. I purchased a few of the cameras from the estate so that I and my lineage could preserve some fond memories of the collection of cameras Dad assembled during my childhood. I do have fond memories of Dad's collection, if I go back far enough. 

One of the fondest memories about it was getting to shift the three-on-the-tree in his old Pontiac wagon on the way to and from Goodwill as he built his collection when I was a child!