Martha “Bunny” Deller

The Photographer

Martha (Bunny) Deller did not read or write but nevertheless enjoyed visual story telling. She appears to have been a prolific photographer and documentarian of family get-togethers.

 The trouble is, very few of the photos in her collection had markings or names as a result of her inability to write. Needless to say, this made identifying people in photos difficult.

 However after much painstaking detective work, names have been attached to many of the undocumented photographs. There are still several people you will notice listed as “Mustachioed Man” or “Mystery Soldier #2” for example.

I have done this intentionally in the hopes that someone will recognize these people and email me with a name that can be attached. If that happens, the name will appear on all of the photos containing that person’s pseudonym.

The Collection

Bunny Deller collected photos in albums as well as in boxes and envelopes.

The photo archive consists almost entirely of images believed to have been captured by Bunny herself, along with a few that have obviously been taken by others.

They are mostly of people rather than landscapes per se; unnamed friends, relatives, possibly suitors. And woven through the mix are a variety of themes. The annual Thanksgiving and Christmas birds, for example, are honoured with a photo each year, and there are some candid moments of the extended family at play as well.

I have endeavoured to capture any captions that existed, either around the photos on the album pages or on the front or reverse sides of the photos themselves.

In cases where a caption appeared in the album, along with similar (or sometimes conflicting) information on the reverse of the photo, I have combined or used my best judgment to determine which caption is correct. In some cases you will note that both bits of information have been provided for the viewer.

In rare cases where notes are written on the backs of the photos – by the owner or a subsequent organizer – I have scanned these reverse sides and included them in the resulting collection. I have also done this in any case in which data appears on the reverse of a photo -- in the form of a Kodak processing date, for example.