An ode to the anonymous antique

The antique store overflows with left-behinds. Tattered rag dolls spill from wooden crates onto the carpet, model planes dangle from the ceiling, and parked tricycles and kick scooters clutter the narrow aisles. It’s a Saturday afternoon and I’m not looking for anything in particular, until I find it. Past a glass display case replete with salt shakers and porcelain figurines, I find a nondescript cardboard box that smells like musky vanilla, the sweet aroma of aged paper. I lift the dust-coated lid to discover a trove of photos — memories of people I will never meet.
Antique shops, like other secondhand stores, offer a master class in what it means to be human. Every object in this small store in downtown Salt Lake City once meant something to somebody. Now it waits, discarded, for a new person to come along and give it some new value or meaning. I was drawn here by the sentimental relics I typically turn to in such places, like postcards, rolls of exposed but undeveloped film, letters and photographs, all windows into the lives of others. They remind me that I’m part of a larger storyline, that all these little moments speak to something universal. Looking through them feels both intimate and anthropological.
I gently file through the photos, fingertips grazing the edges. Some are almost a century old and it feels like they could crumble under even slight pressure. I see a happy family on vacation and smile back a little. I see mountain peaks and find it easy to presume the person behind the lens has been to the top. I see polished vintage cars and consider the hours their owners must have devoted to their care. Then I find it, the one I didn’t know I was looking for: a square image of a rolling pasture, stained sepia by time. There is no labeled name or location, only the words, “THIS IS A KODACOLOR PRINT. MADE BY EASTMAN KODAK COMPANY. JANUARY 16, 1943.”
The image is not breathtaking. The landscape is sparse and monotonous. Sun-bleached grass, tame hillsides, scattered sagebrush. Not a posed figure or notable landmark in sight. Yet it feels authentic. The photographer seems to have stumbled across something they found to be beautiful and this is how they paid tribute. Maybe they lived there once, or hoped to live there one day. Maybe they just admired a stretch of uninterrupted land at a time when life was on hold — at the height of the Second World War, when most Americans were left wanting for food or gas and missing their loved ones in the service. I wonder who that person was and what else we might have in common besides this photograph and the urge to bear witness.
For 50 cents, I leave the shop with a new connection to a person I’ll never know. That’s more than I walked in with. More than enough.
This story appears in the November 2024 issue of Deseret Magazine. Learn more about how to subscribe.