Riverbend Journal

  Clara Kuck's photo album seems to start with her time in Great Falls, Montana where she worked as a teacher of Latin, German, French and English as well as teaching dramatic arts. After her initial pages dedicated to seeing the local sights, she starts focusing more of her camera on things closer to home. I assume the above picture is of where she boarded during her initial time in Great Falls and local directories at the time seem to corroborate that. Clara is the center lady directly behind the girl on the swing. I ponder the use of the structure the swing is tied to as it seems overly built for a simple swing. Perhaps they used that as a older version of an engine hoist for working on vehicles since it spans the driveway? Maybe they were big hunters and skinned a lot of animals? Subsequent sleuthing however made that less likely. On a whim, I uploaded the photo into Gemini A.I. and started asking questions and one of the things it reported back to me was that the house was bui...

  I am at the point of crying uncle on this project. When I last wrote about it, I had assembled all (except one) of the sets I had instructions for and was trying to figure out the rest by finding unique pieces, searching for sets that used those unique pieces and then going by gut instinct and a bit of trial and error. I would print off all the parts used for the set and see if I had them. If I had all but maybe one or two, I would save the pieces in a labeled plastic bag and add the missing pieces to a growing online list. After I had a half dozen or more of these sets separated, I would place an order for the missing pieces which usually only cost me less than a $1 to order. The shipping always cost more. Once those pieces came in, I would assemble the sets using online instructions found on another site. I kept rinsing and repeating until I got to what you see above.  The one exception I alluded to earlier is the Space Shuttle Atlantis set you see in the back right corner...

  Photo Credit Above is a picture of Handsome Falls which was later renamed to Rainbow Falls. Lewis and Clark named it the former on their way by back in the early 1800's and sometime later, it was renamed to Rainbow falls by the time my 2nd great aunt Clara ventured there in the early 1900's. In fact, by the time Clara Kuck got there, a newly constructed dam and power house had been completed. Being a big fan of Lewis and Clark and have read their journals in unedited and edited formats over the years, I have always wished I could have seen it when the Missouri River was still free running. Even with the dam, I've thought that someday I would like to stop by and see what remains of the lower part of the falls, the upper part being covered by the impounded waters of the reservoir behind the dam. These days, according to the Google Earth image down at the bottom of this post, only a trickle of water goes over the lower part of the falls now. But the above picture taken when ...

  John Kuck Family Home 1897 I blogged about this photo a couple weeks ago when I first saw a low resolution picture of it laying on the Good Samaritan's couch out in Colorado Springs. Now that I have the albums scanned at a much higher resolution, I can actually make out a lot of details that I couldn't before. This allows me to zoom in and see who those people are on the front porch which I couldn't make out previously. Clara, Elizabeth and Paul Kuck On the back of the photo, it says it was taken in 1897 and is of John Kuck's home which I knew already from the previous photo. But knowing the date it was taken lets me calculate that Clara Kuck was around 16 years old, her younger brother Paul would be around 9 years old and their mother Elizabeth would be around 40 years old. Knowing all that I think the young lady holding up the bike is Clara, Elizabeth is the woman with the fancy hat standing on the front porch and younger brother Paul is in the background closer to ...

  Clara Kuck's Photo Album My first order of business upon receiving the albums belonging to Clara Elizabeth Kuck was to preserve them. I started with the photo album by carefully taking apart the album which was fairly easy since it was one of those expandable ones of the era but did require some gentleness since it is over 100 years old. Once apart, I did a high resolution scan of all 75 pages front and back along with the covers front and back. I did this once before with my great grandfather's World War I photo album which was in much worse shape and eventually put all the scans into an online book using Shutterfly that allowed me to see the exact layout and all the pictures as the original album but in new condition. I'm not sure I'll do that with this book but at least I have the option. I would have liked to be able to remove the photos from the album and do individual scans of some of them but time has welded them in place and the fragile pieces that hold the ph...