As Vickenmargania was evacuated during the Eton Fire on January 7th, the trunk of his car leapt out, bringing out decades of memories.
In a hurry to leave his house, he grabbed a photo album containing photos of his parents, his wife’s parents, and hundreds of families from his engagement party. He threw the photo into the trunk. However, the gust of wind caused the trunk to pop out and head outside, taking photos and soaring into the air.
Photos recovered by Claire Schwartz.
(Personal courtesy of Vicken Marganian)
“I was in the Super Bowl and the photos felt like confetti, but instead of coming down, they were flying into the air,” he said. “I cried, ‘Oh, my god'” I put my hand on my head. I felt like my past had flashed right in front of me. ”
Through the smoke and ashes, Marganian scrambled to pick up as much as possible, but had to give up as the flames approached.
He thought he had lost hundreds of photographs forever.
Thankfully, Marganian, a trained archivist-trained Altadena companion and a sincere dedication to reunite the photographs with the owner, came to his rescue and rescue other fire victims. Ta.
Before the fire, Claire Schwartz loved to find old photos for sale at Pasadena City College flea markets and tried to return them to those who took the photos. Her hobby began years ago when she was looking at photos for sale at a flea market, and the house depicted in the photo has that address, making it look like it was on Silver Lake I realized that.
Claire Schwartz searches the boundaries of the Altadena Golf Course for lost photos.
(Robert Gautier/Los Angeles Times)
Schwartz pulls burnt pages from the yearbook through the fence surrounding the Altadena Golf Course.
(Robert Gautier/Los Angeles Times)
“I looked up the address and it was easy to track certain photos,” she said. “If I find a photo with a clear shot of the house, I grab it and try to figure out who lived in the house. I try to find their living offspring.”
Hobbies have had many different outcomes. Recently, Schwartz had a photo of a woman, and she tried to return to her family, but the woman was horrified and she was told that her daughter never wanted to see the photo again.
However, after Eaton Fire, Schwartz used his hobby as an amateur photo detective to those who lost their photos in the disaster when the winds of the Hurricane Force picked them up and sometimes left them a few miles away. I realized it can be used to help.
She built a website and Instagram called “Eaton Fire Found Photos,” and soon began reaching out to her with photos people found. Schwartz tried to identify and find the owner of the photo, but if she reaches a dead end, she will post the photo on her website and Instagram, hoping that visitors to the site will be useful.
She currently has around 25 photos of herself trying to return to ownership.
In one instance, she received the entire photo album. She has identified a family she believes it belongs to, but Schwartz is waiting for a reply from them.
Schwartz looks around the burned pages from the yearbook she found in Altadena.
(Robert Gautier/Los Angeles Times)
Her hobbies include research work as well as archives. Schwartz previously worked at the Corita Arts Center in Rossferris in the Archives department and has experience in cleaning and storing lithographs. She cleans the photos and stores them in an archive envelope in temperature controlled storage until they are billed. She says she is happy to hold photos of her for the rest of her life.
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Nila Sinnathambee’s husband was cleaning her backyard in Pasadena after Eaton Fire after finding a photo of a woman in a swimsuit.
When Schwartz went to pick up the photos from Sinnathanby, she knew exactly who it belonged to: Vicken and Hower Margania.
The photo is Homie’s mother, someone from someone we saw in some of the 20 or so photos of Schwartz already returning to the couple.
“We’re blessed to have Claire do that,” said the Vicken Marganian. “We have kindness in this world.”
Tracking the owners of other photos was more difficult.
Photos of Claire Schwartz recovering from the aftermath of Eton Fire have been posted on social media to reunite these memories with the victims of the fire.
(Commentary of Claire Schwartz)
At the Altadena Golf Course, Schwartz used his stick to pass through the fence last week. She had turned the picture over and over to have been blown away by the fairway and the green. What she discovered was a semi-burning page of a book that ran out of a burning house.
Schwartz found a photo that appears to come from the yearbook. A bunch of fraternity brothers standing together. They seemed to belong to Jewish fraternity at several universities. He wore a shirt saying, “Wake me up in 2008.” On the other side of the yearbook page is a uniquely-looking campus building.
They are clues to help Schwartz by searching for the owner of the photo.
