Four cards: The memory road back to Walter Henry Camp

Walter Henry Camp circa 1881. Cabinet card. Private Collection.

I’ve mentioned before I enjoy the idea of finding photographs of the same person throughout life, and I rarely have the opportunity to come across a lot of the same person that fits my theme. And I’ve also wanted to find another memorial card, only having one other in my collection. I satisfied both wants with Walter.

Walter was born of Ellen Eliza Glazebrook (born October 6, 1842) and Sterling Teague Camp on June the 2nd 1871. When the photograph above was taken, Walter was a sweet looking boy of about 10-12 living in the Midwest of the early 1880s. This cabinet card along with two others of him were found in near pristine condition, safely tucked away in a keepsake box. They had been stacked together for so long one of the cards has the shadow of another’s grooves on the back.

With the three cabinet cards was a funeral card.

Here is Walter in his teens and still looking like something between a boy and a grown man.

Walter Henry Camp in the late 1880s. Cabinet card. Private Collection.

But unfortunately, Walter never made it much past his 24th birthday. He passed away a summer day of 1894. He had never married and was without children. This silver and black memorial card’s message is sad yet remains hopeful.

Walter Henry Camp’s memorial card #1.

The message carried by the bird:

“Let us be patient! These
severe afflictions
not from the ground arise,
but often times celestial
benedictions
assume this dark disguise”

His heartbroken younger brother, Frank Bartley Camp (born July 12 1875), was 21 when he printed a beautiful memorial cabinet card in Walter’s honor a year after his death, on August 6, 1896. On here Walter looks all grown up. The card is in excellent condition, as if printed last year.

Walter Henry Camp. Memorial card #2. Private Collection.

Printed by F.B. Camp. August 18, 1896

Researching this family, I was reminded just how common untimely deaths were back in the Victorian era. The father, who passed in 1915, had survived all three of his children by at least a decade. A family genealogy page reveals that by 1905 all three siblings- Frank, Walter and their older sister Minnie G.(born April 11, 1870)- had all already passed away. Their mother too had died early, at 39 in 1883 when the siblings were in their early teens and younger. Sterling, the father, remarried a lady named Sarah Jane Johnson and remained with her until his death. Sarah then passed away 3 years later in 1918.

All three siblings are buried at “old Pace home”, at least that’s what the family cemetery was called back in 1905. I could not confirm if it is in Illinois or not. And I don’t know anything more of Walter’s life, or why he passed so young.

In this digital age maybe we’re just never truly forgotten anymore. Walter was gone from hearts and minds for decades, yet here he is now on this blog because all this time someone lovingly kept his cabinet cards tucked away in a box.

Sources: 

Genealogy of the Clark and Pace Families.

Walter Henry Camp @ Ancestry