Time travel to olden days in Taos…

In the early teens (and I’m speaking 1910-1916-ish) my husband’s grandfather was a traveling photographer, based out of El Paso, Texas. Acquaintance of a local named Pancho Villa (their wives hung out together), he partnered with another photographer to run Alexander and Green’s photo shop.

When I married into the family (1972) we found boxes of old glass plate negatives in a garden shed…some mildewed, others still tightly wrapped. There were shots of pueblos and the little burg of Taos.

Well Mearle Green’s grandson has returned to the site of some of his silver halide scenes. Today we wandered the dirt and rock byways of the Taos Pueblos, trying to see if we could see what Mearle saw way back when. Some of the locals have suggested we give the library archives a shot tomorrow to see if there is any written history of his visits…today though was just for sightseeing.

Tomorrow Ron will hit the library while I hang out with a local lady, working with her children on (of course) storytelling with sound and visuals. With all of the history of storytelling in the Native American cultures, I think this will be a breeze.