Woman asks for help in identifying some people in old family photos

Last month, a woman named Kristie Baeumert found an unknown family’s pictures in an old projector. She’d bought the projector at Goodwill and found the slides inside its case.

The woman has since posted the images on Facebook explaining her story. She hopes to find the family and return their photos to them.

Kristie Baeumert bought an Argus 300 Model III slide projector at a Goodwill store in North Georgia. At the time she had been looking for items to add in a vintage camper that she was restoring.

The projector caught her eye on the electronics aisle. She recalled that the outside of the case looked like a vintage item which prompted her to open it and have a look.

For more on this story go to our Twitter account @amomama_usa. Baeumert discovered the slides when the cashier opened the box when she was paying for it.

‘Because the internet is a magical place, I thought I would share them and see if they could possibly make their way back to someone in the family. Perhaps someone will recognize them.’

Kristie Baeumert, Facebook, June 15, 2018

At home, she looked at the slides and was so fascinated by the family photos that she invited her friends over to look at them. Both the projector and the slides cost $14.97.

She then took to Facebook asking for help in finding the family. Her post has been shared more than two thousand times.

"The more I looked at them, the more I wanted to know their story," said Baeumert, who lives in Fairburn, Georgia. "These pictures are part of their family's story," she added.

She explained that she felt the family should have the memories to pass down and tell their story. Unfortunately, the photos don't have names or locations.

However, they do offer other clues. One image shows a long plane with the words ‘Wake Island’ inscribed on the slide which appears to point to a military family.

The island in the Pacific Ocean was mostly known for its role in World War II and its namesake 1942 film. Owned by the US, it was mostly home to military and civilian contractors, with more than 400 military aircraft stopping there to refuel every year.

The Defense Department said that Wake Island was the site of the first unsuccessful attack by Japanese forces in December 1941. Most of the children in the photos are black but there were white children pictured with them in some images.

One of the photos features a DeSoto and a Chevy from the mid-to-late 1950s according to Greg Morrison, an automotive journalist at Bumper2BumperTV.com. During that period, such cars cost about $2,000 and were owned by middle-and-upper-income families.

If the photos were taken in the US, then it would be around the time of the Supreme Court's landmark 1954 ruling that led to desegregation in schools. Another sign from the pictures that the family was well off is that the women wore gowns and party dresses, minks, and pearls.

The children also dressed formally and alike most times. The projector's box had one word scribbled on it: Kansas.

Plus North Georgia's Goodwill has 60 stores and almost as many donation centers. It collects about 2.8 million donations a year, said Summer Dunham, a Goodwill spokeswoman for the region.

Hopefully, the many shares on social media will lead the family to their history.