Preserving Memories ~ The Mystery of Grandpa Webster's Property

As I've mentioned previously, I've worked on a large family history project. I've scanned photos, slides, and negatives of various sizes that I inherited from my parents and my maternal grandparents. I have also scanned photos and negatives from my own collection. I'm not finished with this scanning project yet.

Part of my family history scanning project included scanning small black and white photos from a Kodak envelope. The writing on the outside of the envelope looks like my mom's handwriting. She wrote, "Pictures from the lot Dad had and Oswaldo Silva is the agent."

My mom's dad was Debs Warren Webster. Regular readers of my blog may remember that Debs and my mom were born in Brazil and immigrated to the United States of America in the summer of 1952, along with their family. I wrote a series of blog posts about their immigration trip, which can be found by clicking "The Debs Webster Immigration Story" tab at the top of my blog.

The Kodak envelope contains eleven photos with writing on the front and/or back of each photo. They were written in Portuguese. Unfortunately, I can't speak or read Portuguese so I turned to Google Translate for help. I won't share all eleven photos here.

I wish I knew the story behind these photos. Sadly I can't ask my mom about them because she passed away in October 2018. I'm thankful she wrote what she did on the Kodak envelope to give me a sense of what was happening in the photos.

From the photos, it looks like my grandfather, Debs Warren Webster, owned a piece of land (lot) in Brazil. I think the piece of property was in Brazil because the sign indicating my grandfather was the owner of this property is written in Portuguese, and my grandfather was born and lived in Brazil.

According to Google Translate, the writing on this photos says, "Sign on Site" and the sign says, "Property of D. Warren Webster, Attorney Dr. O.A.Silva," and I assume that is the telephone number at the bottom. Unfortunately, I don't know the specific location of this property.

Here are more photos from the Kodak envelope.

I believe the man wearing a tie was Oswaldo Silva, my grandfather's attorney (agent). I don't know who the other men were in this photo.

As you can see in these next few photos, it appears that my grandfather's lot was subsequently enclosed by a wall and a door was installed to access the property.

This looks like my grandfather's Attorney (agent), Oswaldo Silva in front of my grandfather's lot. The arrow is pointing to the "Property of D. Warren Webster" sign in this photo and in the next one.

Here is a photo of Oswaldo Silva in front of his 1950 Chevrolet. On the back of the photo Oswaldo wrote that his car was a dark green 1950 Chevrolet 4 door Fleetline, that he owned it for four years, and that it only had eighty-thousand kilometers on it.

I have questions about the circumstances surrounding these photos. When were these photos taken? And who took the photos? The information about Oswaldo's car is an interesting clue. The car was a 1950 Chevrolet that Oswaldo owned for four years. Did Oswaldo buy the car when it was new or later as a used car? Were these photos taken in 1954 or later? My grandfather and his family immigrated to the U.S.A. in the summer of 1952. Did my grandfather go back to Brazil in 1954 to help oversee the sale of his property? Or were these photos taken by Oswaldo Silva and sent to my grandfather at his new home in the United States? I know my grandparents visited Mexico in 1955 because I have their pictures from that trip. But, I am not aware of any trip they may have taken to Brazil in the 1950s. They did visit Brazil in 1986. And my grandfather visited Brazil in 1992 after my grandmother passed away.

In any case, this is an interesting find in my scanning project.

Thanks for stopping by!

Jana

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