I've written several times now about Russell Ries. As you may recall, he's the guy who purchased a cigar box full of old photos and other personal effects, all pertaining to the same person (who I refer to as John Doe). Russell did a little digging and discovered that John Doe was accused child neglect that resulted in the death of one of his children. Russell also discovered that while John Doe himself was now deceased, another one of his children was living in the Nashville area -- where Russell himself lives. He wondered if he should get in touch with the son and offer the photos and other items to him, or if he should keep his distance because the subject might be too painful. Several Permanent Record readers offered their own opinions on this.

Russell ultimately decided to get in touch with the son, whose name is Bill. (I had referred to him as Andy, to help protect his identity, but Russell is now ready to use his real first name.) Bill agreed to meet with Russell, and the meeting took place in Westmoreland, Tennessee, a few days ago. The photo above shows Russell on the left and Bill on the right.

Russell provided a detailed account of the meeting, including the following:

Until starting my drive to Westmoreland that morning, the full reality of the situation hadn't dawned on me. This was probably the final chapter of my connection to Bill and his family.

I had purchased the cigar box over Memorial Day weekend in 2011. And since that time, I had come to see myself as something of a steward of the memories contained within it. I had always hoped this day would come. But now faced with it, I began to lament the loss of my role in the story.

The truth was, no matter how close I may have felt to Bill or his father, I was a complete stranger to him. Some guy who, only last week, sent him a letter about pictures of his dad. He had been a compelling character in my life for over a year but I had literally just entered his. Would I be able to find any real connection with this man when we met? How would I feel about preserving and returning these memories to him if he turned out to be a jerk? It was a petty and small way to feel, I know. Fortunately, it proved to be without merit when we finally met.

There's more -- a lot more. To see how it all turns out, check out the full story on Russell's blog.

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A few housekeeping notes: It's been over two weeks since the last post here on the site. Sorry about that -- been busy with other projects. But Permanent Record is very much alive and well. In the coming days I'll be posting about a very PermaRec-ish book that I'm extremely excited about, along with the latest installment of Charlene Dodds's rephotography project, and hopefully a few other things.

Several people noticed the note at the end of last month's PermaRec article on Slate, which mentioned that there would be no more Slate articles for the foreseeable future. Just to clarify that, I plan to keep researching and investigating the stories behind the Manhattan Trade School report cards, and the Slate editors are happy to keep publishing PermaRec articles if I come across a student with a particularly powerful story. But they feel the basic goals of the series -- to tell about the school and its students -- have now been met. So any future articles will only be about report cards with particularly extraordinary stories to tell. (Of course, I think they're all extraordinary, but I understand the editors' point.)

My best wishes to all PermaRec readers for a safe and happy Christmas.

Back in July, I wrote about a guy named Russell Ries, who had acquired a cigar box full of old snapshots, all of or pertaining to the same person, along with the person's military medals and some other personal effects. He purchased them from a flea market vendor, who had obtained them at an estate sale. The person in the photos was deceased, but Russell was thinking about tracking down the person's relatives and giving them the photos and other objects. (If you missed this entry or want to refresh your memory on the particulars, look here.)

Russell recently got in touch with me because there's been a new development, as follows (Russell doesn't want to disclose the name of the person shown in the photos, so I've changed it to John Doe, and have also changed the names of John Doe's children):

A few weeks ago I met a couple named Larry and Donna Conzett at the farmers' market where I work on Saturday mornings. After talking for awhile, I got to telling them about the photos in the cigar box and how I have a bunch of John Doe's military medals and other stuff too. It turns out that the Conzetts are passionate about genealogy and other historical research. ... Even better, they enjoy returning lost personal items to the families to which they belong. They generously offered to help me find out more about John Doe and help track down his relatives, so I sent them all the information I had on him. They've now given me the results of their research, and what they've discovered has left me dumbfounded.

The very last John Doe photo I posted on my Flickr account was one that shows John Doe's mother standing beside a grave site in a cemetery [which you can see at the top of this page — Paul]. The grave is for Joey, John Doe's second son. All along, I thought this was the saddest photo in the set and I wondered what caused Joey to pass away at such a young age. But now the Conzetts -- the researchers who offered to help me -- have discovered that Joey died of malnutrition brought on by child neglect at the age of two.

According to a bunch of newspaper articles the Conzetts found, John Doe and his wife (who was pregnant with their third child at the time) were charged with and convicted of involuntary manslaughter in Joey's death. They then appealed and were granted a new trial due to juror misconduct. That's as far as the information goes. I don't know what happened in the second trial, but I'm not really sure it matters, because the coverage of the first trial doesn't paint a very pretty picture. It all gives me a better guess about why John Doe's personal possessions were not kept by his family after his death. [Russell provided me with copies of the newspaper articles. They portray John Doe and his wife in an extremely unflattering and upsetting light. — Paul]

Another thing the Conzetts discovered is that John Doe's oldest son, Andy, is his only living relative and he happens to live here in the Nashville area -- where I live. [John Doe's family was not living anywhere near Tennessee when the manslaughter trial took place. — Paul] Based on what I now know, I very much doubt that Andy would want to have his father's possessions. Still, I'm wondering if I should locate him and offer them to him anyway. That way it would at least be his decision to reject the items, rather than some stranger (me) deciding for him.

How would you play this? Should I let sleeping dogs lie, or should I seek out Andy? (The fact that he just happens to live in the same place as me kind of seems like a sign...) If I am to approach him, how should I go about it?

For now I'm going to give this info time to settle in my brain, rather than take any action. I look forward to hearing your thoughts.

Wow. I sent Russell a lengthy response, the gist of which was basically "It's complicated." If it were me, I'd probably go ahead and contact Andy, because that's part of what I do as a journalist and storyteller -- I follow the rabbit hole, even if it leads in potentially uncomfortable directions. And as I mentioned to Russell (who readily agreed), there's no getting around the fact that this is now a tantalizingly juicy story, even if the juiciness is rooted in tragedy. It feels like a puzzle that wants to be solved, a mystery that wants to be resolved.

But it's certainly possible that Andy -- John Doe's son -- doesn't want any reminders of an unpleasant past, especially not from a stranger. So I can see a strong argument for not contacting him. Indeed, maybe Andy is the one who sold John Doe's belongings at the estate sale in the first place.

One of Russell's big motivators here is that he wants John Doe's military medals to have a proper home. Perhaps he should give them to a veterans' group and leave Andy out of it..?

I suggested to Russell that it might be good to ask for feedback and advice from the Permanent Record readership, so here we are. What do you think? Post your thoughts in the comments, or e-mail them to me and I'll pass them along to Russell. Thanks.

I recently received an e-mail from a Permanent Record reader named Russell Ries, who had this to say:

Much like yourself, I am fascinated by historical detritus -- items, like your report cards, that have been carried to strange places by the undulations of time. The mystery of returning them is a fun puzzle to solve, but it also gives them back their full historical significance.

A while back I bought a cigar box full of old photos [shown above — Paul] for $10 at a flea market in Monteagle, Tennessee. When I got home and started looking through the photos, I realized that they were all of the same individual. As it turns out, I had purchased some guy's entire life's worth of photographs without realizing it. Even better, there are handwritten explanatory notes on the backs of most of the pictures. So I arranged the pictures in chronological order as best I could and have been periodically posting them on Flickr. There are 144 pictures up right now, and I still have another 80 or so yet to post. You can start at the oldest photo, when the guy was 14 months old, here.

Intriguing! I wanted to know more, so I asked Russell if he'd be willing to do a quick phone interview with me. He readily agreed. Here's a transcript of our chat:

Permanent Record: First, tell me a bit about yourself. How old are you, where do you live, and what do you do for a living?

Russell Ries: I'm 28, I live in Nashville, Tennessee, and at the moment I advise people with small businesses.

PR: Interesting. How would you advise someone who's trying to make a living by writing about old report cards?

RR [laughs]: Ah, that's a good question...

PR: Just kidding, obviously. Okay, let's talk about your project. In your first email to me, you said you found the photos "a while back." When was it?

RR: It was Memorial Day weekend of 2011.

PR: What attracted you to the photos to begin with?

RR: I like collecting old photographs, because I sort of view them as the earliest stage of the visual information age in which we live. So whenever I go to flea markets, I'll go to the various booths and say, "Hey, got any old photographs?" And this one lady said, "Yeah, I've got this box -- $10." And I said okay.

PR: Do you collect other found objects, besides photos?

RR: Some, yeah, I've started to. I'm actually getting into metal detecting. It's really prevalent around here with Civil War stuff.

PR: So you buy this box of photos for ten bucks. At what point did you realize that the photos were all from one person's life?

RR: As soon as I drove home and started flipping through the photos, it sort of dawned on me. I saw the same names repeatedly written on the back of the photos. It wasn't hard to figure out.

PR: Maybe I'm missing something -- it certainly wouldn't be the first time -- but have you listed the guy's name anywhere? Like, your Flickr captions say, "With his wife and son" or "In his father's garden," but you haven't actually listed his name anywhere, at least that I can see.

RR: That's right.

PR: Do you know what his name is?

RR: Yes. In fact, I actually went back to that same flea market dealer about a month after I got the photos. I said, "Hey, you sold me this guy's photos." And the dealer said, "Oh, yeah, I got that at an estate sale. I actually have more of his stuff." I wasn't expecting that -- I just wanted to learn more about the photos, where they came from -- but I said, "Give me everything." So I now own this guy's military dog tags and medals, and also his wallet and false teeth. The only thing I didn't buy was the guy's military jacket. Some of the photos in the cigar box actually show him wearing that jacket. But the dealer wanted too much money for it, so I didn't buy that. Anyway, yeah, I know his name -- I know a lot about him.

PR: Why have you not listed his name? Was that sort of an artistic choice on your part, or just respecting his privacy..?

RR: My feeling when I started the project was that while I do own the photographs, that doesn't mean I really know the true story of his life. Photos sort of represent the down time in people's lives, when they pause to pose for the camera. I didn't feel like I could truly do justice to this guy's life. So while I do own the photos, I didn't want to say, "Hey, this is this guy's full life and this is what he was about." And yes, there was also the privacy thing -- I felt a little weird about that. But when I discovered Permanent Record and started looking at your approach, I've kinda been rethinking that. I don't know. I just chose to err on the side of caution, basically.

PR: Looking at your Flickr stream, it appears that you've been uploading the photos in batches, often with long breaks in between. Like, you did some in late October, then some more in mid-November, and then you didn't upload any more of them until early June. Is there any rhythm to all of this that you're shooting for, or is it just one of those things that you deal with when you can get around to it?

RR: Just when I can get around to it. And I had some issues with my hard drive.

PR: What will you do when you finish uploading all the photos?

RR: I'm not sure. I have wanted to go and find the guy -- well, not the guy, because he's passed away, but his relatives.

PR: Yeah, I was gonna ask you that. Have you done any research in terms of finding them?

RR: A little bit. I've been kinda wondering about that, though. I mean, nobody wanted this guy's stuff when he passed away. Like, what if his relatives didn't like him? They might not want to be contacted. I think I'd like to do it, but it's one of those bridges that I'll cross later, once I'm done uploading all the photos. I would definitely like to return his war medals to a proper home -- if not to his family, then maybe to a veterans affairs group.

PR: Did you see, I recently blogged about a guy who tries to return old war medals to the soldiers' families?

RR: Yeah, that's what got me thinking about doing that.

PR: It's weird, isn't it, to have this sort of intimate knowledge of a stranger's life? I think about that all the time with Permanent Record.

RR: It is. I think of him almost as a friend, in a strange way, because I have these tangible connections to him. But at the same time, when I got all those other artifacts -- the medals, the wallet -- it was a little bit disappointing to lose some of the mystery of just having a box full of photos.

PR: I know that feeling! Sometimes the questions, or the mystery of the questions, can be more fun than learning the answers.

RR: Absolutely.

PR: If you had the chance to do this again with another person -- going down the rabbit hole of someone's life -- would you do it?

RR: Definitely. But I feel like it was just providence that led me to this one, and that kind of thing doesn't happen very often. I don't think I'll ever find another cigar box full of one person's photos.

PR: Well, maybe. I think certain people don't have to go looking for artifacts -- artifacts find them.

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Great stuff. Big thanks to Russell for sharing his project and his thoughts with us.