A friend of mine reached out to me recently with a mystery. On a recent trip to Goodwill, he had picked up a memory album filled with old photos, letters and other assorted memories, and was hoping I might be able to post something about it to help find the owner.
Clearly my friend remembered the success I had last summer in helping track down the owner of a GoPro which was found on the shore of Lake Ontario. Perhaps, he thought, if I wrote a blog about the album, someone might recognize the photos or names, or be able to add some clue to its ownership.
The album itself is nothing special; it’s your basic sticky-paged photo album we’ve all used for years for our family photos. It has very little monetary value, but the sentimental value is priceless. It includes 19 pages of photos dating back to the early 1900s, picturing various relatives and a dozen special events including weddings, first communions and baptisms.
After the photos are several pages filled with cards and letters, many of them obviously made by children and grandchildren.
Upon closer examination, we figured out the album was probably created as a memory book for Caroline Kolupski sometime in 1997 or 1998. After doing some quick research, we further discovered that “Grama Kolupski” passed away on Nov. 16, 2000.
Other surnames mentioned in the album include Lisowski, Przybyzewski, Tokarz, Fekety, Bogaczyk and Zielinski. There’s also a photo of the graduating class from the US Naval Training Station, Company 547, at Sampson, NY dated August 14, 1943. It may have been Caroline’s husband’s naval unit.
Caroline attended St. Lawrence Church, and appears to have lived in North Greece. It would be really neat to track down some of her relatives and return these historic photos and mementos to the family. If you can provide any clues, please let me know!
Here are some more select photos from the album:
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webster on the web 
You can add “History Detective” to your CV, Missy!
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Too funny!
Have you contacted the funeral home?
Good thinking!
Or try St. Lawrence Church?
Both excellent ideas and so simple I’m embarrassed I hadn’t thought of them. Thank you so much!
How good of you to do this, Missy.
Andy Weidman
Thank you Andy!!!