quote:
I own the originals of these unpublished family photos. Here's a lovely video of Uncle Elstner's photos with Japanese music: www.youtube.com/watch?v=ewvLQWCEJbs As a salesman for Atkins Saw Company, Elstner Hilton traveled to the Far East to sell commercial sawmills in the early years of the 20th century. So I think of him as a reverse Johnny Appleseed, on the vanguard of deforestation that continues to this day. Be that as it may, Elstner was an adventurer when being an adventurer meant something, an avid photographer, a bon vivant, and a dandy. That is an intriguing combination of traits for an expatriate in any era, doubly so for someone living in Asia during the first decades of the last century. Elstner Hilton was my father-in-law Frank Hilton's* brother, which makes him my spouse's uncle. It may take me many months to do justice to this album. However, a journey of a thousand pictures begins with a single uploading. - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - * Elstner Hilton's brother Frank Hilton compiled a scrapbook of photographs, clippings and other ephemera at Stanford University between 1907 and 1911. You can see some of the items in Frank Hilton's scrapbook in my set "Vintage Standford University Scrapbook." ps: I now have reason to believe that the photos of Japan may be stock photos that Uncle Elstner purchased and pasted into his album. There may be some exceptions: the images of his sister, Miriam, and photos of logging operations in the Phillippines.