My Photo Story

Photograph Courtesy of Frank and Ida Novak's Granddaughter: Katie DeMoussett (Millard). Click here or see bottom of page for photo details

For me, family photographs give renewed life to my ancestors; bringing me closer to knowing them, to understanding their stories and their place in my own (hi)story; creating a tangible link between us.

I may never meet them, except through the stories told about them. I may never see their faces, except through the photographs I am able to find. By looking into their eyes, I discover a sense of connectedness, an understanding, "I come from you. I am a part of you. You are a part of me. We belong to each other."

I find myself driven by this desire to not just know their names, but to know how we might be alike, what feelings and ideas we might share. How my personality might be just like that of my great grandmother. How I might have my grandfather's sense of humor, or my father's eyes.

This desire has made the acquisition of family photographs essential, and I am privileged to be the caretaker of hundreds of family photographs from all branches of my family. Some images tin types dating from the mid 1860s.

This particular photograph was sent to me via the Internet by Katie, a cousin I have never met (the granddaughter of my great grandmother Mary's brother, John, the young groom in the photograph). I found Katie because I have developed a habit of, what I like to call, cold calling. This involves searching Internet telephone books and printing out all the addresses and telephone numbers of people with the same last names of family I am searching for. Fortunately, many of the last names I am looking for are fairly unusual, being, in part, of Croatian and Slovenian descent. This may have presented more of a challenge if I were searching for names like Smith, Jones, Chavez, etc.

I found that cold calling often helps me locate a cousin, sibling, parent or child I might otherwise never have found. Through these extended family connections and shared family stories and photographs, valuable information is often discovered. Through my willingness to talk on the telephone (a lot), I feel I have developed an ability to talk with many different people and elicit all kinds of information and stories; an ability to be accessible. This has served me very well in my career.

Finding this photograph and connecting with Katie was a true gift from the beginning and has become an even greater gift as I continue in my own journey.

Just to provide some background...

Formally starting my family history research in 2000, I found many family members who were reluctant to talk with me. In fact, one family member in particular became a self-appointed gatekeeper and contacted other family members, requesting they not talk with me and not tell me any family stories (or secrets). Thus, I met with more than the usual resistance when contacting family members.

It was at my great aunt Elizabeth's funeral (blessings to her as she met with me several times and gave me dozens of photographs before her death, and even allowed me to tape record some of her stories) that I finally began to break through some of the greatest family silences.

After the funeral I was showing this photograph to people when my great uncle John (the young boy seated at the end of the second row), one of the true patriarchs of the family, walked over, stood looking over my shoulder and started to name the people in the photograph. I grabbed a pen and asked, "Tell me again." He patiently sat with me and identified every person in the picture, including positively identifying which young girl was my grandmother, Frances, his sister. He also identified many of the men as having worked along side him in the coal mines. Of the twenty people in this photograph I am related to ten of them. When we were finished, he looked at me, smiled, and said, "You come talk to me," which, of course, I definitely did. I saw him again earlier this year at his ninetieth birthday party and he is still going strong.

After my great uncle identified the people in the photograph, I took the photograph to the owner of the funeral home and showed him the picture of his father (the third man standing in the back row). He told me that his father had died when his mother was pregnant with him and he had only seen one other photograph of his father before now. The opportunity to give him a copy of the photograph and have such an affect on him, gave me the idea that it would be invaluable if I could identify living family members of the people in the photograph and get a copy to them. I set to that task with all the research skills I had been learning; surfing genealogy websites, using Internet telephone books, cold calling, perusing primary source documents and asking questions of family members. In the end, my task proved to be an amazing success, and with the exception of two of the women and Tom Devich, this photograph has been passed on to all other represented families.

Some interesting tangents to this story...

Growing up, my mother used to tell us the story of "Silk Stockings, Chicken Legs," the man my grandmother, Frances, had been promised to as a bride. This man, she said, used to chase them around when they were children, grab them and try and kiss them. When she saw this photograph she identified Tom Devich as the man who used to chase her and her friends.

My mother has often told me the story of how her parents met, fell in love and married. My grandmother, Frances, who was ten years old at the time of this photograph (Tom Devich is the second man standing in the back row and my grandmother, Frances, is the young girl seated in the front row directly below him), was promised by my great-grandmother, Mary, to wed Tom Devich, the man in the photograph (clearly 30+ years her senior). Five years after this photograph was taken, when my grandmother was about fifteen years old, my Italian grandfather, Robert Albert Gatti, who lived in the same coal mining camp in northern New Mexico, came to her door, telling her he had heard she was promised to marry this man and offered to marry her instead. She agreed (my grandfather was a handsome young man) and they were secretly married (she added a few years on her marriage certificate to make it legal).

She continued to live at home and Robert would come to the house to sit on the porch and drink beer with her stepfather. Frances would stand at the door and they would look at each other through the screen. Eventually, she became pregnant and they were forced to confess their secret. Hearing this, my great grandparents lit off after my grandfather, intent on shooting him for this transgression. (I suspect there was a large dowry attached to the promise of marriage with Tom Devich). My grandparents stayed married, however, and went on to have a total of seven children.
When I shared this photograph with Mary, the daughter of Velo Chagenovich, she told me that when she was a child, my grandmother's age, Tom Devich used to chase them as well. At that time, they called him "Skinny Gobbler." This is because, she told me, they felt he had a neck that wobbled like a turkey's.
There are only two people in the photograph whose identities are not certain; both of them are women. Most likely, they were unmarried at the time of this photograph and since marriage customs dictated they take their husband's names, they may ultimately be very difficult to locate.

The second woman in the second row was most likely the coal camp school teacher; last name Craig. This woman also appears with my great grandmother in a number of photographs given to me by my great aunt Elizabeth, so they must have been friends.

The sixth person in row two is most likely Yeta Vukonich. I still don't exactly know her connection, other than friendship, to the group.

During one of my many cemetery searches I found Tom Devich's gravestone in the Raton, New Mexico cemetery. I have not found living family members to share his photograph with. My mother said he never married after my grandmother eloped with my grandfather.
I have never seen a photograph of my Slovenian great-great grandfather, Frank Novak I. He died in 1906 of Black Lung. It is because of his son's picture in this photograph that I am finally able to catch a glimpse of what he might have looked like.

Details of photograph:

Wedding Date: June 27, 1928
Ida Louise Javernick (Novak) (June 01, 1910)
Frank Novak II (May 21, 1904)

BACK ROW STANDING L-R:

Mary Novak (Horacek / Rodman) (July 09, 1901) (holding Tony Rodman, son) (daughter of Mary Oven (Novak / Arko) and Frank Novak I)
Tony Rodman (November 10, 1926) (son of Mary and Joseph G. Rodman, Sr.)
Joseph G. Rodman, Sr. (August 08, 1895)
Tom Devich / Deveich (unknown birth year - June 1965 ?) ("Silk Stockings Chicken Legs" and "Skinny Gobbler" - nicknames given by Mary Rodman's grandchildren, Velo Changenovich's daughter and others)
George Yaksich, Sr. (his family owns a funeral home in Raton, New Mexico)
Velo Chagenovich (February 05, 1893/1895, Monte Negro) (daughter is Mary Chagenovich)
Dallas Frank Wells (1880, Texas) (Bertha Mae Wells' father)
Herman Puerta (January 12, 1909 or November 19, 1910 - July 2, 1984) (son of Maria Sanchez (Puerta) and Joseph "Fabrico" Puerta)

MIDDLE ROW SEATED L-R:

Bessie Javernick (1916) (attendant) (most likely) (daughter of Mary Pacheck (Javernick / Stefanec) and Matthew Javernick)
Female (nee unknown?) Craig (relative of C. J. Craig?) (Was she a school teacher? She appears in another photograph with Mary Rodman)
Joe Devyak (March 07, 1895, Austria) (son of Helen Turk (Devyak) and Frank Devyak)
Bride: Ida Louise Javernick (Novak) (June 01, 1910) (daughter of Mary Pacheck (Javernick / Stefanec) and Matthew Javernick)
Groom: Frank Novak II (May 21, 1904) (son of Mary Oven (Novak / Arko) and Frank Novak I)
Yeta Vukonich / Vukovich (age unknown)
Marko Loncar (April 27, 1895 - August __, 1963)
John P. Rodman a.k.a. Shorty (May 1, 1919 - Living, 2009, Raton, New Mexico) (son of Mary and Joseph G. Rodman, Sr.)

FRONT ROW SEATED L-R:

Joseph G. Rodman, Jr. (December 20, 1923) (seated on floor) (son of Mary and Joseph G. Rodman, Sr.)
Frances Louise Horacek / Rodman (Gatti) (April 8, 1918) (attendant) (daughter of Mary and Joseph G. Rodman, Sr.)
Sophie Javernick (1919) (attendant) (daughter of Mary Pacheck (Javernick / Stefanec) and Matthew Javernick)
Bertha Mae Wells (seated on floor) (1920) (daughter of Dallas Frank Wells and Olivia Freeborn (Wells)