Goldie & Ivor

They were married in 1925; by the time I knew them, they had been married well over 50 years. They lived in a tiny house in town, and when I was a child I had reasoned that they'd had no children because there would have been no room in the house.

Goldie outlived Ivor by more than a decade. After her funeral, I returned home with two of her remaining treasures: a tarnished locket he had given her, and this photo. There was no one left who would have wanted the items for purely sentimental reasons. I was afraid they would be thrown away sooner or later, as the photo was worn almost to pieces already. On the back of the photo, Goldie had written a heart-breaking message to her deceased husband about how much she missed him.

I remember Goldie and Ivor as very kind. I didn't want this happy picture of them to disintegrate, so I restored it. I have it displayed in my office. It is a reminder of them and that they are, as she so desperately wished, complete again.

Goldie and Ivor's well worn photo on the left, and the restoration on the right