Life in Sepia

I recently had the opportunity to watch a compilation of old film footage from family videos in the 1940s.  It was strange to see moving images of great-grand-him and great-great-aunt-her whom I have only ever seen in still photographs.

Most of the characters in the silent footage had a grand array of aprons and hats but were sans-glasses.  However, the glasses that were sported by a couple folks made it much easier to pick them out of a crowd through the rest of the video. What a long way eyeglass fashion has come – from thick, horn-rimmed frames with less options to anything you could possibly want to wear on your face.

In the mean time, it makes me wonder if there were fewer folks wearing glasses in these videos because their vision was better or because they could not afford glasses. A small Midwestern town like the one they where they were living in Illinois may have not had a lot of options for eye care professionals. And if the ones who were wearing a pair were wearing that particular style because they liked it or because it was the only one available to them.

There are very few people who do not have to don a pair of eyeglasses at some point these days. And for the most part, eyewear is reasonably affordable and accessible. There are glasses for distance vision, dricing, computer glasses and reading glasses. And don't forget the all important staple of today, sunglasses. Heck, you don’t even have to live with corrective contact lenses or eyeglasses if you don’t want – there’s always laser surgery if you would prefer(though for the record we are not fans).

But the glasses worn by family nearly seventy years ago is one of the reasons I recognize them as I do.