|
Leaving Tracks the Rail Photography of WR heath Jr. by Rudy Garbely
Leaving Tracks the Rail Photography of WR Heath Jr. by Rudy Garbely
Soft Cover
34 pages
Copyright 2017
CONTENTS
Introduction4
Biography of W. R. Heath, Jr..5
Tulsa & Environs10
Heath's Travels26
Acknowledgements34
About the Author34
INTRODUCTION
This book is built on the photographs of W R. Heath, Jr., most of which were taken in his hometown of Tulsa, Oklahoma between 1936 and 1941. Heath was between the ages of 17 and 22 at the time, shooting large format black & white negatives. The collection also includes a few images taken on rail trips elsewhere in the country.
While Heath's personal story will be covered on the next page in his biography, there is another story telling how this book came to fruition. It is not often that unseen collections of steam-era railroad photos are uncovered, and Heath's collection presented a rare opportunity.
I first met Heath's granddaughter Sienna during my undergraduate education at Moravian College in Bethlehem, Pennsylvania. We became friends in my freshman year and have retained our friendship for what has now been over eight years. Through visits to her house in Pen Argyl, Pennsylvania, I began interacting with her father, Walter Heath.
One day while at her house, her father casually mentioned that I might be interested in seeing his father's collection of railroad photos. It's a scenario I run into all the time - someone finds out I like trains, and suddenly I have some kind of connection to a long-dead relative of theirs who also enjoyed trains as a hobby. I usually wind up seeing their relative's box of beat-up 1970s Lionel models and a handful of overexposed, scratched, and badly faded 3"x5" photo prints from the 1980s, and I walk away unimpressed.
Therefore, I frankly didn't have much faith in Mr. Heath's association between me and his father's photos - at least, not until he mentioned that his father was an avid photographer that grew up in Tulsa, Oklahoma in the 1930s. In those few short seconds, I went from dreading 1970s Lionel and a handful of photos to expecting a collection of photographs of some significant quality and rarity. A few skipped heartbeats later, Mr. Heath mentioned that he didn't know where the collection was, but he'd let me know when he found it. My viewing of these rare Depression-era Dust Bowl railroading images was put on hold indefinitely.
It turns out that "indefinitely" was about a year - a short period in the scheme of life, but torturously long if you're anxiously awaiting something. Mr. Heath found his father's photo collection, and I got to view them for the first time on January 11, 2013. There are 46 railroad photos in the collection, plus a handful of aviation photos and several photos from his service in the Air Force during World War II. They are all large-format 2"x3" black & white negatives, and almost all are perfectly exposed, well-lit (although sometimes oddly cropped) shots of Frisco and other railroads' steam locomotives in Oklahoma. I was able to identify most of the railroads and locomotives on the spot, and pin the photo dates to the late 1930s. I was thrilled - unseen collections turning up 70 years later is an almost unheard of stroke of luck.
None of the photos came with any kind of caption, so in order to identify them, I researched each and every one, comparing it to other period images and checking dates for cars, locomotives, and buildings visible. Through this process, I was able to pin the dates of these photos as being between 1936 and 1941 based on the content and Heath's personal photograhic history, although I don't know any of the dates exactly. There are some where I was unable to identify the locomotive, the railroad, the location, or any of the above - however, those are presented here too for completeness of the collection and with the hope that someone (who knows more than I do) will contact me later and identify what I could not.
Besides some contact prints that a film student made for him several ago, Mr. Heath has never seen quality positives of his father's images, and most of the Heath family has not seen them at all. This will be much of the family's introduction to the photography of W. R. Heath, Jr., and I'm very happy to be a part of preserving not only railroad history, but a family's history, as well.
Enjoy!
- Rudy Garbely April 2017 Pompton Plains, NJ
All pictures are of the actual item. If this is a railroad item, this material is obsolete and no longer in use by the railroad. Please email with questions. Publishers of Train Shed Cyclopedias and Stephans Railroad Directories. Large inventory of railroad books and magazines. Thank you for buying from us.
Shipping charges
Postage rates quoted are for shipments to the US only. Ebay Global shipping charges are shown. These items are shipped to Kentucky and then ebay ships them to you. Ebay collects the shipping and customs / import fees. For direct postage rates to these countries, send me an email. Shipping to Canada and other countries varies by weight.
Payment options
Payment must be received within 10 days. Paypal is accepted.
Terms and conditions
All sales are final. Returns accepted if item is not as described. Contact us first. No warranty is stated or implied. Please e-mail us with any questions before bidding.
Thanks for looking at our items.
| 
