Sally’s Web started in response to Cambria’s request that I forward her a copy of my mother’s memoir/genealogy centered on the descendants of Catherine Cook, 30 October 1821 – 15 November 1900. Simple enough request, the printed bound documents was unbound, scanned, and emailed. But that simple exchange made obvious the elephant in the room: There exists a whole lot of things that are of value to certain people that exist in various basements and bookshelves that should be shared. And there was an obvious way to do it. And there is an obvious group that might be interested in it. And perhaps most interesting of all, there is something new and unforeseen that can come of all this: as a charter member of Sally’s Web you have access to your own website and you can post anything you want.
The really cool part of my mother’s self-published memoir/genealogy is that she decided to do it; she traveled to Ireland and anywhere else that her search led. It became part of her life. The “genealogy” is what she decided it was going to be, intentionally not conforming to what a proper genealogy might be. It is what she thought it should be. It is interesting what she put in but also for which she left out. Who she concentrated on and who she chooses not to. History is what you decide it is. And this is what she decided.
You are part of the Web if you were part of her world in nearly any way. Seriously, I am interested in anything you have to say about this site. It can be your memoir as well. It will develop as I fill in details, find material, scan more of my father’s slides, hopefully obtain photos of Uncle Don’s paintings, hear about stuff I know nothing about and post the material in accordance with whoever contributes it. I will love posting celebratory things that you might have. I am going first in a way, assembling some recording and images that I have made. But the site is not about me except in the context of being part of Sally’s Web.
Coming soon - still in development.
Coming soon - still in development.
James Hamburg was a 31-year-old Naval officer during the post WWII US occupation of Japan that formally ended in 1952 the year he took these photographs of Japan. The term occupation could mean an overwhelming aggressive military presence over a beaten and impoverished civilian population which in the early days it must have been. But judging from the expressions of the subjects of Jim's slides that idea could not be further off the mark or severely nuanced. These people my father met invited him into their homes, had him wear special sandals and a robe, let him take fairly close photographs of their personal life.
The area he photographed was in villages or small cities southwest of Tokyo, lwakuni, Atsugi, Yokosuka, and perhaps most well-known, Miyajima. His photography included slides which I have digitally scanned, occasionally color corrected and in rare instances, cropped. The entire collection consisted of 200 carousels of 99 slides, of which I have made selections for a first online exhibition of his work.
I do not know why my father documented so much of his life, in photos, narratives, lists, files, lists for every conceivable thing you might need a list for. As the executor of his estate, all this documentation came in handy and made a rather large, varied and complex task fairly straightforward. This was ten years ago, so I have some emotional distance and can speak objectively about the 20,000 slides and related text. As I look at the slides, I conclude that a large part of them was basic documentation, as in “hey, I was there, isn't this cool.” and they sometimes are and sometimes less so, as nearly everyone’s cell phone photo folder would show. But really makes some of these images so very special, and very cool to me, is that it took my father a lot of time and personal empathy to get the trust of his subjects. They look into the camera with incredible openness, revealing something very personal about themselves even though it is impossible to know what that might be. But it somehow surpasses or is very different from the wow factor of a very special landscape or the complex story of relationships that can be revealed from looking closely at people in setting. Some his subjects jump past all that into your heart.
The portraits take you past the part where you look at a work of art and recognized the relevant elements which tell you what you are looking at, e.g., this an old man who appears to have suffered a lot, to the point about the image hits you directly, without an explanation. All of a sudden, the subject of the image is speaking to you across 70 years, thousands of miles, and a radically different culture: this is who I am, these creases or the total lack of creases tell you something about me, and yes, we can be friends but you have to share in this too. It is a responsibility to engage with these people.
The people in a place group tell you something about themselves but there is also a context beyond the people that give information about how and why they arrived at that happenstance rendezvous with my father and his camera. I wish I could tell what those relationships were, my father's notes on his slides cannot tell the whole story, but the fact that something is going on, even though we don't know what it is, suffices for context.
And the places, usually landscapes, tell a deferent story, but one without people. But even then, there is a story told by the image, what is true and important and how it should be framed.
My father loved everything about cycling: the exercise, the camaraderie and the aloneness, the special equipment and tools, the special clothes, the borderline weirdness of it all. Long distance riding with or without a sag wagon or day trips, all great with Jim. I went down to Cabo San Lucas from Tecate with him once in 1979 but he did it at least several more times. He road across the US from Washington to Maine, to a bunch of high school reunions in Marysville Kansas from his home in SD. Top to bottom in the UK, Land End in Cornwall to John O Groats in Scotland with his friends Lee and Fern Siegel. New Zealand, the Pacific Northwest, Colorado, Grand Canyon. He came to visit us to do a ride in the Catskills and here in Albany.
Jim loved the outdoors. I did a trip up Whitney once but he went often and with whomever had the time and interest. A member of the Sierra Club, he participated in many of their sponsored hikes, but he also was part of splinter group called the Mavericks with Mom that didn’t want to be bound by the methods of the sponsored hikes. So like my parents to create their own way of doing things for which I will be eternally proud.
Painted from a post card at the request of his brother
Descendants of Catherine Cook 