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GRAND ISLAND, Neb. — Two growing boys, posed by a glittering Christmas tree, showing off their bounty from Santa Claus.
For nearly 20 years in the late 1890s and early 1900s, professional photographer Julius Leschinsky of Grand Island took his cameras home to capture yuletide images of his sons and their Christmas tree.
The photos, among 28,000 glass- plate negatives in a collection owned by the Stuhr Museum of the Prairie Pioneer, provide a fascinating glimpse of the Christmases of yesteryear, from the intricate ornaments that decorate the tree to the toys beneath it.
Leschinsky emigrated to Nebraska from Germany in 1880, when he was 20 years old. An apprentice storekeeper in Germany, he laid railroad track, taught school and worked as a bookkeeper before embarking upon his award-winning photography career in 1884. He and his wife, Minnie Doll, were married in 1888 and had two sons, Oswald, born in 1889, and Armand, born in 1893.
The series of photos depict the transformation of Oswald and Armand from plump-cheeked little boys to gangly young men. They seem especially poignant since neither son survived to carry on happy Christmas traditions with his own children.
In May 1918, Armand was drafted to serve in the Army during World War I. He died of pneumonia in France that fall. Oswald died in 1926, just short of his 37th birthday and just six months after his marriage to 21-year-old Clara Booth.
Stuhr curators so far have found about 40 Christmas photos among the Lumbard-Leschinsky collection, also named in honor of the nephews who inherited Leschinsky's business and donated the negatives and other materials to the Stuhr in 1980.
There may be more. Curator of Research Jessica Waite said less than 10 percent of the photos have been digitally archived.
Curators have not yet viewed many of the negatives in the collection. Waite said she hopes to pursue a federal grant to hire someone to catalog the negatives.
The photos are used to help plan the Stuhr's annual Christmas Past and Present event, a re-creation of Christmas in an 1890s railroad town. This year's event began Dec. 5 and concludes this weekend in Grand Island. It is open from 6 p.m. to 9 p.m. this Friday and Saturday; and from 2 p.m. to 5 p.m. Sunday.
Kay Cynova, the Stuhr's director of historical interpretation, said the Leschinsky's Christmas traditions appear to be unusually lavish. She has spent 20 years researching the Christmas traditions of the late 19th century.
“Only one house in 20 probably had its own Christmas tree,” she said. “In the late 19th century and early 20th century, they made a big deal about people who had a Christmas tree — because not everybody had one. There were mostly community trees, displayed at schools, churches and social organizations.”
The Leschinskys likely didn't walk out to a pasture to chop down a cedar tree. Their Christmas firs probably were shipped in to Grand Island by rail from Minnesota, Cynova said.
Some of the same toys depicted in one year's photograph show up in later pictures, leading Waite to conclude that at least some were photographer's props or decorative items, not actual gifts.
“(Leschinsky) was a professional photographer,” she said. “Even though these are family photographs, he's going to use the same props.”
The photos show the year that electric Christmas lights supplanted candles in the Leschinsky household; the year when a failed attempt to flock the family tree ended in a heap of fallen needles; and the year the family assembled an intricate miniature village, made of cardboard, for display beneath the tree.
One of the earliest was taken in 1898, when Oswald would have been 9 and Armand, 5. In it, the boys are seated behind and to the right of the tree. Bathed in natural light from the window, the boys' faces glow behind a shadowy fir tree with ornaments glittering in the sunlight.
In a later photo, taken in 1913, a mustachioed and handsome Oswald, then 24, sat behind a small table laden with nuts and other Christmas treats, while Armand, then 20, played an upright piano.
Former curator of research Karen Keehr studied the Leschinsky photos extensively during her tenure at Stuhr.
“It is an amazing collection — finding those Christmas photographs were always a big bonus,” she recalled. “It's a wonderful collection that peeks right inside this one family's tradition.”
Contact the writer:
402-473-9581, leslie.reed@owh.com
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