Artist And Writer, Celia Rabinovitch has created an exhibition for the Manitoba Museum featuring photographs by Nick Yudell, a cousin who grew up with the Rabinovitch family in Morden and died as a RAF Pilot in World War II.
Celia describes how when Yudell was twelve, a family member gave him a camera and over the next decade he took 300 photos. He wrote the time, date, place and the names of the people in each picture, and put the negatives in brown envelopes in a gray box he made for them.
"He became very passionate about photography. He had to study it, and in 1933, he came back to Morden, and because there was no work, he worked in the store with my father, Milton. I know this because I have the records from the store from the old account register, which was a McCaskey account register right out of Deadwood - a big, wood, oak register, and there was a book with all the receipts from the store, and I can tell the difference between Nick's handwriting and my father's handwriting."
This collection of pictures taken in the 1920s and 30s, looks into the lives of everyday people living in Morden, Winnipeg and Southern Manitoba.
Celia explains these pictures captured different themes of play, place, portraits and self-portraits.
"All of these stories, whether the family members and then of the townspeople, are interwoven in his photographs. We have a number of photographs of Nick Burgess, who is the son of the Baker. We have photographs of Edith Dickie and Marian Vrooman like some of the people who are nurses Marian Vrooman who was the Head of the Nurses. So, he had great both artistic and professional ambitions as a photographer and also as a pilot.
Rabinovitch said the Morden community, especially Morden's Ron Laverty and his sister Lenore Laverty encouraged her to develop an exhibition of these photos, hidden for decades, into something to share with others.
The exhibition at the Manitoba Museum has been extended through Fall of 2022. The Manitoba Museum is open daily,11-5.
For more information about the exhibit click here. Donations towards the exhibit are gratefully accepted.
You can watch the full interview with Morden born, Celia Rabinovitch in the video below.