Joe Medeiros, a writer/photographer who goes by “Papa Joe Grappa”, published a story today which chronicles 16 glass negatives from the early 1900s found in the basement of a Glenside house he bought in 1978.

Medeiros, who has been a resident of California since 1992, said he printed a few of the glass negatives, one of which was taken in front of the Glenside home on July 12, 1914 (featured above and below).

An excerpt:

The person who took the photo had written the info on the paper envelope that the negative was originally in. The photo was of “Meta & Norman.” Meta was Meta McDermond, the woman I bought the house from in 1978. She was in her 90s at the time. Norman was her son, who was present at the sale.

Medeiros counted a total of 177 4×5 negatives and 39 5x7s. The dates “range between 1905-1915, with the bulk of the photos taken in 1910 and 1911,” he wrote.

The full story, titled “The Mystery of the Glass Negatives”, is here.

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Photos: Joe Medeiros