This blog post was only possible with the support of Liz Schuler, providing a number of childhood photos of Joel himself. I had a few, Liz provided the rest.
And I’m almost sure more will come out of the woodwork.
Joel was born June 6, 1921 and he graduates COP in 1948. It’s high time to put this evolution in perspective with some photographs of the man himself.
Although the image above looks old, it is a modern inkjet print on HP photo paper of the original. There’s a signature of the photographer on the original in the lower right corner, just not enough information to figure out who the photographer is.
This is incidentally the only image so far I have of father Dardis.
Next two images are little Joel in the yard, it is 1923.
The next photograph is Joel around age 4 with a number of his Pahl relatives around 1925.
From left to right, adults first:
Rudolph Pahl (1908-1992), Harry Pahl (1884-1973), Pauline Pahl-Dietrich (1858-1939), August Julius Pahl (1882-1957), Jack Pahl (1911-1984).
Front row, left to right:
Joel Pahl Dardis (1921-2021), Emil Pahl (1915-1968) and Warne Pahl (1918-1995)
Pauline Pahl was the matriarch at that time, her husband Emil Max Pahl passed away in 1913.
Next portrait is Joel in middle school or high school, mostly likely around age 15.
This was quickly followed by his St-Mary’s High School graduation picture in May 1940.
Showing again the April 1942 image of Joel with his camera, he’s a student at Stockton Junior College. This is a year prior to his WWII military service.
A very recent addition to the collection is this tintype taken in St-Louis, Louisiana during Joel’s training.
There unfortunately a lot of damage due to poor varnish process.
The rear gives us some more information.
WIth some digital processing, I was able to pull Joel, and his date, out of the noise.
Joel and his date, Bettye Miller, are both carrying a camera. This is the first image we come across showing one of Joel’s “miniature format” camera.
There’s insufficient information in the above image to identify the cameras at this point in time. Joel’s camera appears to be a rangefinder. It doesn’t appear to be an Argus, a very common, very decent camera at the time. To be determined at a later date.
Last image of the day is Joel’s graduation picture from College of the Pacific in 1948. This mid 1948 date sort of brings us current with all the other images we’ve seen so far.
We’ll post more portrait style images of Joel over the course of this continued discovery.
Cheers !
Finding Joel Pahl Dardis 