Despite having adopted hundreds more orphans than Angelina Jolie, the life of Lenore Frost is surprisingly low key.
Forget the red carpet and UNICEF ambassadorship. You’re more likely to find the author and historian in the laundry of her Essendon home doing the washing her grown sons have smuggled in on a visit.
“Look, anyone can do it,” she says modestly of her 20-year mission to place miscellaneous photographs in happy homes.
Lenore started Photo Rescue after finding a photo in a central Victorian shop of two little boys in cadet uniforms circa 1915.
“It seemed a shame to leave them there when someone out there might be descendants who would be delighted if they were restored to the family.”
She has never managed to reunite those two lads with their kin, but she has rescued scores of other photos and, in some instances, returned whole albums to family members.
We’ve all seen these strangers somewhere and wondered: is it the curled-up corner of a cousin long lost? Perhaps an aspic of aunts trapped forever in another age, wearing the faintly-strained expressions of subjects kept standing around too long?
These orphan photos that have somehow come adrift from their rightful home and family can be found in op shops, flea markets and at antique auctions.
In most cases, the rightful owners of these images will never be found, nor names ever put to the subjects, but that doesn’t mean we can’t put them in life’s frame somehow.
So next time you see an old photo and the subject takes your fancy, why not consider adoption?
Pick up one of history’s hitch-hikers, take them home and make them part of the family.
