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Here's an edited transcript of an interview we conducted with Guelph resident Carolyn Hutchinson, who recently found family photos from the 1950s and/or 1960s while moving a used dresser she purchased years ago. The photos were returned to the family.
The article is posted here.
Carolyn Hutchinson: We were moving the dresser into the new house, and the lid popped off because he was trying to lift it, you know, from the lid portion, and there flew out about six photos. I didn’t actually post all the photos...
Ariel Deutschmann, reporter: Oh really, there were six photos?
C: Yeah, there was more. I believe there were six in total, but I only posted four.
A: What was your reaction to seeing six photos suddenly flying out of a dresser?
C: Oh, goodness, I was surprised! The first thing I thought of was, I recalled a touching story in the paper a while back in November 2020, when there was a letter that was found behind a wall during a home renovation. Right away, I thought about the family that were possibly missing these photos, and what they could mean to them if they had them returned. That was the first thing I thought of, I thought, ‘I am going to make a post on Facebook,’ and thought I would, for sure, find the family who belonged to these photos.
A: Yeah, the dresser itself, how long had you and your husband owned this piece of furniture before the photos were discovered?
C: Yeah, that was the interesting part about it. We never would have known because we got it about seven years ago. A friend of ours knew we were looking for a dresser, and he was often on auction sites, and he said he had found one, and he would bid on it for us, and then we could just come and pick it up.
A: Oh, wow!
C: Yeah, it was quite a while! Yeah, interesting things appear behind walls and under dresser lids. [LAUGHTER]
A: Did you and your husband move to Guelph? Or did you move to a different area?
C: No, we’re still in Guelph. I’m sorry, we’re just still outside of Guelph in Arkell.
A: It seemed like you’ve gotten a lot of response online when you posted the family photos.
C: Yes, yeah! We sure did and lots of people that were just supportive and thankful that I was able to post that, and I had reached out to the community to see if we could find and locate any of the family members.
I did end up reaching one of the family members, a cousin, and then I was contacted by the daughter – in one of the photos, a mother and the daughter were in a photo – and she was thrilled and anxious to come and pick up the photos quite quickly. Within 20 minutes, she was over to the house and was just so very thankful, as you saw in the post.
A: Yeah, I did see it. I didn’t quite get her name down, my page refreshed before I could get it, but I did see her appreciative comments on the photo.
C: Yeah! I did reach out to her and she confirmed with another family member that it was okay that I went ahead and spoke to you, and they are very open to speaking with you as well, because there’s more to the story.
A: I would love to!
C: Yeah! You can speak to Kathy Karn, and I have her phone number so she was very open to receiving a call from you.
A: Oh, perfect! That would be wonderful. I would love to learn more from her perspective.
C: I’ll let her speak to you with more details.
A: I wanted to ask, how long did it take you to connect with the family?
C: Let me look at the post because a cousin reached out to me first. You can see in the post, it only took about...Oh! It was the same day and only a few hours later. It was really quick!
A: So how does it feel to be able to return these photographs to this family?
C: Well I feel pretty good, because I know how important family photographs are to families, and I know that the first thing I would take out of my house, incase of a fire, would be my family photos. I was pretty happy to be able to connect with the family and reunite those with them.
A: Yeah and it’s funny that it’s another family in Guelph too, of all things.
C: Exactly! Yeah, the gentleman who got the dresser from an auction site, it could’ve been from anywhere in Ontario. I thought I would have a larger, difficult search, but it turned out to be a Guelph family.
A: [LAUGHTER] Yeah, I guess it was meant to be.
C: It was meant to be. The photos, some of them are from 1955 and all the way up into the 1960s.
A: Oh wow, that’s a pretty large timespan.
C: It is, it is, so there’s probably a lot of history that happened in between and a lot of memories. I was glad to help recover those photos for the family, for sure.
A: Yeah, that’s awesome. I’m glad that it turned into a really nice story in the end. Did you guys end up fixing the dressing after the top part popped off?
C: Yes we did! It’s in my bedroom, and it’s still intact, and we’ve nailed the lid back on and we have a story to tell.
A: [LAUGHTER] I’m guessing that one is staying in the family for a while.
C: [LAUGHTER] Well you know, I even will think about if they want the dresser back that I’ll be happy to return it.
A: Just in terms of this whole story, is there anything else...that you think people would be interested in reading about?
C: You’re going to hear from Kathy and she’s going to tell you some more details that’s going to make this very special.
A: I respect that, I appreciate everything you’ve been willing to share so far that you’ve told me, and props to you for reconnecting the family with these photos, I think it’s a wonderful gesture.
C: Well thank you very much! Thanks for taking interest in this story and I think it all has turned out for the best.
A: Yeah, and I think a lot of people are going to enjoy learning about this nice deed that has taken place. I certainly enjoyed listening to you, and I look forward to learning more from Kathy and Joe.
C: Alright, well all the best to you and I’ll probably touch base with Kathy about returning the dresser.
