There are a few scribbles on this box. First there’s Emil Pahl and child, but we’ll find out about more family members utilizing genealogical research in the process.
There’s equally Christmas 1946. There’s sufficient coherence in the images to suggest that the majority of these were taken during a Christmas visit.
Emil Pahl was a cousin of Joel Dardis. Emil’s parents were August Julius Pahl and Dora Magret Mentz. Emil was married to Clara Louise Feller in 1939.
They had a daughter Diane Lynn Pahl, born March 16, 1943.
And now we recognize at least one of the family members present at Joel’s 22nd and 27th birthday. August Julius was present on both occasions and was also in the Mystery House photos.
Next photograph is most likely somewhere in Berkeley or Oakland. The Pahl brothers all pop up in Berkeley and Oakland city indexes and August Julius lead an electrical engineering business in Oakland. (Home address on Cragmont Avenue.)
From left to right I believe we have Rudolph Mentz Pahl (1908), August Julius Pahl (1882) John “Jack” George Pahl (1911) and Emil Frederic Pahl (1915)
In the same box we also find an image of Beverly Brooks, wife of John “Jack” Pahl with a child. Joel write on the negative box “Reginald’s child”. I have no idea at this point in time who Reginald is, just taking the information over verbatim.
Joel photographed Reginald’s child a few times that day.
There are also a few images around the table during brunch. By now the faces are familiar. Clara, Amy and August Pahl.
The above image was taken with flash as witnessed by the bound back from the painting and the shadows in the room.
Next to images are taken without flash, only lit by diffuse window light and there’s a more natural feel to this. In no small fact there’s also little to no posing going on.
Last image in this series tells the story best.
Closing off with some of the little Penelope images. Joel must have worked hard that day.
To my surprise, there was a toned positive-on-film made of the first image of the three. This is quite an elaborate process and Joel must have been pleased with the initial negative to go through all the effort.
The tape marks on both the negative and the positive, show that this process was most likely performed on a contact printer. Regardless, I quite like it !
There’s more family stuff to check out in the near future.
Cheers !
NOTE: Genealogical record below, engagement announcement of Emil F Pahl with Louise Feller. These small finds give us a good amount of insight.
Finding Joel Pahl Dardis 