Long-lost photo returned to family

Courtesy Chris Christensen presents a picture that was donated to SWNGS to Diane Eshleman.

Perhaps you are a crafter who buys a frame to use in a project and a photo is still in the frame. Maybe you rehab homes and find photos as you remodel. At an auction you buy an old trunk and find a collection of pictures in it. What do you do with the photos? They mean nothing to you, but it is very possible they would mean the world to someone else.

Southwest Nebraska Genealogical society welcomes those pictures and goes to great lengths to match them to families. Our success stories include the photos from an old house that were returned to the Enright relatives and a photo given to the Warburton family just to name two.

Recently, Rose Sines brought a photo to the genealogy library. She had purchased it at a yard sale nearly 15 years ago and filed it in her “to do” box thinking she would trace its’ history. When she came across the photo again, she brought it to the library and asked us to try and find a descendant to the name listed on the back: Robert George Petersen.

The photo was of Company C, 127th Battalion, 32nd Regiment, Recruit Training Command at Camp Livingston, Louisiana, dated around July or August 1945. Looking back at World War II, V-E Day (Victory in Europe Day) May 8, 1945, marked the acceptance of the unconditional surrender of Nazi Germany’s army. August 15, 1945, Japan surrendered after the atomic bombs were dropped on Hiroshima (8/6/45) and Nagasaki (8/ 9/45).

While many people think those surrenders were an end to our sending soldiers to the front, but, recruits were still being shipped overseas to participate in the closing days of the war and to relieve the soldiers who had been in the fight.

SWNGS member, Chris Christensen, felt the call to return Mr. Petersen’s photograph to family. Members researched online at www.familysearch.org, www.ancestry.com, www.findagrave.com, and within the obituary records held at the genealogy library. Ultimately, his obituary was found within those records and it named his surviving (at time of death) wife and children, his birth and death dates, and that he had been buried in Curtis. Further investigation found a long time Curtis resident who remembered Mr. Petersen and knew that he had a daughter, Diane Eshleman, living in North Platte. The telephone directory listed a number for her and a phone call finalized arrangements to bring the picture back to those who will treasure it.

If you have historic photos of people, places, or things that have no value to you, please consider gifting them genealogy society. We will treasure these items, return them to their families if possible, or if not, catalog them for reference materials. Our library is open on Tuesdays and Thursdays from 1-4 PM, 110 West C Street, Suite M-3.