Minerva

One recent Fall day, I was doing plumbing down at the old milk barn by the bridge, connecting the pipes coming down the hill to my hydro generator.

I was working on the south side of the building, where the cream separator had been up until 2013, when I took it to the recycle yard. There is a lot of debris in the ground around this building, broken glass, rusted metal, plastic scraps, etc. I had been stomping around in my boots in the wet soil, connecting pipes when I spotted what I thought was a bottle cap. I picked it up to dispose of it, but realized immediately that it wasn't a bottle cap at all, but the cover from a brass locket, something that would hold a photo and perhaps lock of hair or a memento from a loved one.

I rubbed a dirty gloved thumb over the front of the cover and was astonished when the faded image of a woman's face emerged from the mud!

I can see how the brass locket cover held up in the soil, but it is way beyond my understanding how the photograph wasn't totally destroyed by the moisture. It must have been buried for decades, perhaps even longer.

I put the locket in my flatbed scanner and scanned a digital image after using a toothbrush to scuff off the worst of the loose dirt. The image you see above has been run though Photoshop to enhance the contrast then convert the photo in the center of the locket to grayscale with a sepia filter, as it was a B&W photo originally, and the clear covering over it was badly yellowed. (did they even have plastic when this was made?) Also used some tools to touch up some of the worst of the blemishes on the photo

I'm naming this woman "Minerva" in honor of the small community that used to be at the intersection of my road and Upper North Fork Road, just over the river past the fire station. Minerva was the Greek goddess of Wisdom and Crafts. Also of War.

I'll take the locket cover back down to the barn after placing it in a frame of some kind. The pack rat who lives there would consider this a choice prize and carry it off to his nest if he could.

Too bad for him, I found her first...