We are fortunate to have three photographs from 1924 donated to us of the Brookside Ice Company. These are from a wonderful lady in California. She stated they’re a gift from Barbara Stone Kendrick (b.1925; d. 2020). Barbara Ruth Stone was the youngest child of Archie and Anna Stone.

Also, included are two 16 mm films, one being the negative, of the Brookside Ice Company harvesting ice from the same time period. We’re going to inspect both of these and have them properly archived.

I and others have previously written about the process of harvesting ice so I won’t go into detail again here. A few of the old ice houses still stand in our community including the one on Lakeside Road.

Thinking back 100 years to when these photographs were taken, there were no home refrigerators, only iceboxes which I’ve also previously discussed. The one photo depicting the exact stacking of the harvested ice blocks gives validation to this labor intensive job in the midst of winter so members of our community would have the means to store food at home during the warm summer months. The precision of the stacks is astounding!

And, apparently this was a time before safety standards were the norm in the workplace. I, for one, would not be standing that high up, on a slippery block of ice, without a safety harness and line! Yet, everyone in the photo appears at ease with the conditions. Maybe gravity hadn’t been invented yet in 1924.

Another interesting thing is the number of horse drawn wagons which practically are double that of the gasoline powered trucks. This is a great demonstration of the technological changes which were taking place 100 years ago.

I wonder if photos taken now, in 2024, will show evidence in 2124, of the advancement of the electric automobiles and trucks which are now coming into play. Will our descendants fondly look at these images and contemplate what life had to be like in the “good old days” of 2024? Will they be able to use the photos we’re taking with our cell phones today and turn them into 3-D images and holograms, with artificial intelligence animating the scenes? There are already a few platforms which allow you to animate a photo now. Rather eerie, as I’ve done a few.

We’re presently using various software platforms to enhance and colorize old photos. Facial recognition is now beginning to be used to help identify unlabeled vintage photos. I believe the future will be able to harness technology to bring history to life. We only need to capture and save what we have now for those upcoming times. We must remember some of the funny and “cute” photos we’re memorializing ourselves in today will provide endless laughter for our great-great grandchildren.