Frances and Steve Waltien To-day my thoughts wandered back to our evening together out on Smith s road on Saturday and I thought of holding you close to me and I could actually hear and feel you breathing. But I don t know what comes of all this thinking except pleasant memories of the past and a grim realization of the circumstances of the present. Excerpt from a letter to Frances O Brien from Steve Waltien, October 21, 1930, Saranac Lake, N.Y. Ali Waltien didn t expect much when she read the email s subject line: Grandparent Letters. A child life specialist at the University of Vermont Medical Center, she routinely coached her clients and their families through end-of-life work, including helping terminally ill patients write letters to loved ones.
Photographer Herman Krieger s 1994 s Blue River Anthology a record of what was and what may be after Holiday Farm Fire
Photography accompanies and accounts for photographer Herman Krieger’s adventurous life journey. From photographing for the UAW-CIO in the Motor City in the 1940s to (illegally) cataloging Soviet Russia in the 1960s, through his viewfinder, Krieger captures an essential essence, a flicker of the immortal in a mortal world.
Using his lens to point the way, Krieger’s film arrests the subject in time, creating a visible testimonial to what once was. After September s catastrophic Holiday Farm Fire, Krieger’s work documenting the McKenzie River Corridor at the turn of the century became all the more indispensable.