NORFOLK, Neb. (AP) - At first glance, the photo seems nondescript - just a group of children standing outside a school building. The girls wear dresses adorned with ruffles and bows; the boys wear their best shirts and jackets. A few boys sport suspenders.
Most of the children wear somber expressions as if to say they would rather be running and playing than posing. It’s doubtful that any of them considered the fact that 100 years later, a couple of curious high school students would discover clues as to the children’s lifestyles and habits by closely examining their expressions, clothing and other details of the photo.
“You can zoom in and see how people tied their shoes. You can see holes in clothes,” said Ben Wicker. “You can see if they are tired or sad or laughing. It brings out a more human side. It’s amazing.”
Wicker is referring to the image on one of the glass plate negatives he discovered at the Elkhorn Valley Museum in Norfolk.
For the past few years, the junior at Norfolk High School has spent a fair amount of his free time volunteering at the museum, mostly because he’s infatuated with history - especially local history.
“It’s personal to me,” said the son of Dr. Ed and Kerry-Lea Wicker.
Ben Wicker’s friend, Austin Truex, shares his enthusiasm and also volunteers at the museum.
Truex enjoys comparing what’s happened in the past to what’s happening now and learning about the people that helped create the community.
Viewing artifacts and visiting historic places makes those “local legends” more real, said Truex. The Norfolk High School senior is the son of Aaron and Jessica Truex.
While combing through the museum’s archives, the friends discovered a collection of glass plate negatives that date to the late 1800s and early 1900s.
Back then, sheets of glass - often 4x5 and 5x7-inches - were coated with a light-sensitive emulsion and placed in a camera.
After finding the negatives, Wicker and Truex took it upon themselves to scan the plates so the photographs would be available to the public, the Norfolk Daily News reported.
Although Wicker is an amateur photographer, he had never worked with glass plate negatives, and didn’t know how to proceed. So he searched the internet for instructions and learned that the plates shouldn’t be put directly on the scanner because the two pieces of glass could stick together and ruin the emulsion.
Now he places a small stack of sticky notes on the corners of the plates to keep them from adhering to the glass in the scanner.
Because the plates are fairly large, they can take from four to eight minutes to scan, making the process time intensive, Wicker said.
As fate would have it, while he was working on his project one day, a woman came into the museum with a box of around 50 glass plates she had discovered in a house that once belonged to J.C. Stitt.
“I was here, a lady came in and asked if anyone knew anything about glass plate negatives,” Wicker said.
Stitt was a noted architect who designed some of Norfolk’s most distinguished houses and buildings. He lived at 410 S. Eighth St.
Rhoda Bjelland, the owner of the plates, bought the Stitt house in 1973. Included are collection are photos of the fire that destroyed several of the buildings at the Norfolk Hospital for the Insane (later the Norfolk Regional Center) in 1901.
Wicker estimated that they have scanned around 250 plates. In addition to groups of children standing by their school, the plates include images of women sitting in a field who appear to be having a picnic, three men working in a field and two children with a rocking horse. Another photo, taken through a doorway shows a man sitting behind a desk in a railroad office.
In the photo of the women on the picnic, the details are so vivid that you can see the piece of cracker in the corner of one woman’s mouth.
“It feels like real life,” Wicker said.
Another photo shows a man’s hands so well that the wrinkles and lines are visible.
“You can see how hard he worked,” Truex said.
Unfortunately, Wicker said, there is very little information with the plates, which means few of the people or places are identified.
Still, Wicker and Truex appreciate the idea that the plates themselves are a piece of history.
“That piece of glass was actually at that place. That’s really cool,” Wicker said.
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Information from: Norfolk Daily News, http://www.norfolkdailynews.com
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