stevewhitaker:

Della Storm, 1910.

I found this shot on Shorpy, my favorite site for old pictures.  I love shots like this, and I’m always reminded of the haunting observation made by Roland Barthes when studying Alexander Gardner’s photograph of condemned Lincoln conspirator Lewis Payne: “He is dead, and he is going to die.”

That juxtaposition between now (“he is dead”) and then (“he is going to die”) captures precisely what I find so entrancing about vintage photography: it’s that spark in the eye of the subject that, at the time, was so vital and conveyed such life.  Here is a young woman, her life mostly ahead of her in the instant the shutter opened, and who is now gone and buried.

I happened to note a comment below the photograph that provided more information about her:

Della was born on May 29, 1890. She married Harry Farver about 1916. She died in McLean, Virginia, on September 24, 1972, at the age of 82. According to her obituary, she is buried at the Lewinsville Presbyterian Church Cemetery in McLean. She was survived by three children, 11 grandchildren, and one great-grandchild.

As it turns out, this church is less than five minutes from a friend’s house that I regularly visit in McLean.  The next time I’m up there, I’m going to take a trip to visit the grave of Della Storm, so alive and yet long since gone.