52 Ancestors Week 30 - Colorful

The theme for Week 30 (July 23-29) is Colorful. I was going to write about one of the artists in my family, but a friend asked something on Facebook that led me in a different direction. Namely, my mother, whose first job was coloring photographs at a studio. See, back in the late 1940’s, when she was in high school, color photography was rare and expensive. If somebody had a photo they really wanted in color, one approach was to have it printed in black and white on matte paper. The colorist then used a paint set to color the picture.

Mom still had that set throughout my childhood, though I imagine that the tubes of paint had dried up as I don’t recall her ever using them. I only saw a couple of photos that she had colored since most of them were done for customers at the shop.

Some time in the late 1990’s or early 2000’s, Mom was interviewed by Reminisce Magazine about photo coloring. She had responded to a query in an earlier issue. They set up a phone call between her and a woman in the Midwest (Nebraska maybe) who had also worked as a photo colorist. They both had a fabulous time reminiscing. I do have the published article somewhere, but I doubt I could find it easily.