Flutterby™! : Whimpers from the Past

Two plaintive calls from the past:

1. Victorian funeral photography, Where the deceased were not only captured on film but posed with their family or their favorite toys. It seems utterly creepy today, but as some commenters suggest, this may be the only picture ever taken of the child. Constant death of children was common in all ages before the mid-20th century, but it took the Victorians with their overheated sentimentality to elevate it to cult status, plus the invention of photography.
2. Missing Persons , courtesy of Lileks.com. These are ads placed in national magazines from the early 20s looking for people who have wandered off. Once thinks their brother ran off with the circus, while another wonders if his relative went crazy and is in a lunatic asylum. One helpful clue is that he was a Mason, and Elk, and an Odd Fellow. The saddest ones are two orphans searching for their parents. Although you can always Google somebody today, it is still possible to disappear if you don't have the FBI after you.