Sepia Saturday: "V" Is For Victor

 

This week's prompt at Sepia Saturday is "V" and a lovely old photo of a man playing a violin makes me wish I had a photo like that to write about!  Or even, as is noted, one that shows playing "...the vacuum cleaner, the vaudeville stage, or even the vegetable stew if you so wish,"  any one of which would be a hoot, and a really good story.  

After searching, however, I came up with only one V, for "Victor," and it's not the RCA Victor, which featured Nipper the dog, who heard "His Master's Voice" coming from the phonograph.

My Victor is my maternal great-grandfather, Victor Soldati, born in Italy around 1870, and pictured below with an elegant white-haired woman, possibly his mother.  But let me say that I have always thought it was great-grandfather Victor.  Now that I am doing this post, I am wondering why he looks older in this photo.

On the back of the photo card is a stamp from "D??AY Studio, 75 Fourth Avenue/Mt. Vernon, N.Y. 10550."  A search for a photo studio at that address did not turn up anything; the fact that two letters in the name are illegible because too much ink was stamped is challenging.  In any case, the stamp has a zip code, which tells me that this copy of the photo was probably made many years after the photo was taken.  

The picture below shows him with his wife and children;  his oldest daughter, my grandmother, is seated second from left:  Lillian Soldati Gregoire.  Lillian identified all of the family members in the photo to my oldest siblings, and that information has been shared, and is now finally in writing

 

Marianna (Giampoli) and Victor Soldati, standing, with their children.  Middle row, L-R:  Helen, Lillian, Teddy, Mattie.  Seated on floor:  Jean on the left, and Joseph, who were twins.  Helen was born in 1904.  She looks to be about six years old here.  Lillian was born in 1895, and could be about 15 years old, so I would guess that this picture was taken around 1910.

The man in the first picture appears older than Victor looks in 1910.  But the photo looks like it was taken in an earlier time, because of the woman's dress.  Is that my great-grandfather's father, posing with his wife?  The two men do look alike.  If it is the same man, then that photo was taken after 1910, and what's the outside margin for the latest date?  1920?  

When I first thought of this post, I thought it would be a breeze!  Now that I am presenting the photos and the man on my blog, I see that once again, the family historian has to question and research constantly - nothing can be taken for granted.   So it's back to the drawing board to try to find out if that is Victor in the first photo.  But for today, I am very happy that I did introduce my great-grandfather, Victor Soldati, on the blog, posing happily in the c.1910 photo.  V is for Victor!

Check out sepiasaturday.com for more old photos.

 

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