ASHEVILLE – The photos are weather-beaten and water-damaged, faded images of family life along the Swannanoa and French Broad rivers before the wind and the rain came and swept homes from their foundations.
In one, generations of a family pose stiffly in their Sunday best, sporting fashions of another time – late ’70s, early ‘80s? — pleasant smiles creasing their faces. An older man and woman – grandma and grandpa? – sit on a flowered sofa, her with a corsage pinned to her dress, him a boutonniere. She has an arm draped over the youngest – a boy who’s flashing an impish smile.
In another, the same couple pose at a church altar with a small boy. A tiered cake in another photo holds a clue. It’s topped by the number 50. An anniversary?
Who could they be?
They were taken in a time before iPhones, when cameras marked special occasions – births, weddings, graduations – not a trip down the grocery aisle. Perhaps they were tucked away in albums, closets and drawers and forgotten.
When the rain and the wind from Tropical Storm Helene subsided, the photos surfaced as reminders of memories made in places that no longer look like they used to. They were scooped from the mud and debris by first responders.
The Asheville Police Department posted dozens of photos and keepsakes they found to their Facebook page on Oct. 17. “Though the water was strong enough to demolish buildings, uproot trees, and bend and tear steel, it could not wash away the memories contained within these photos,” the department wrote.
Now, they’re hoping to solve a few mysteries.
Do they look familiar?
The trove of photos offers a peek at the everyday lives of families along the rivers.
In one, children tear through presents on Christmas morning. One boy beams as he holds a tiny Santa up to the camera. There are kids heading out for Halloween, one dressed as Bugs Bunny, the other some kind of creature in red. A studio photo captures a dark-haired baby in a christening dress.
Since the post appeared, several folks have used the comments section to claim ownership or identify loved ones.
Dallas Moss was among them.
Moss, 27, was 8 when his brother Tommy died from a rare genetic disorder called Hunter Syndrome at the age of 12.
Among the photos found is one of Dallas and Tommy sitting on a sofa shooting a sideways glance at the camera in a photo taken by their father Tommy, a professional photographer. “I have like a bowl cut and my brother is sitting up behind me,” he said.
His parents house in East Asheville – one where they’d lived for 40 years – was destroyed by Helene. He estimates it’s roughly five miles from Azalea Park where police told the family the photos were discovered.
“Yeah, the house is gone and no one can really understand that but it’s really the memories,” Moss said. “You can’t replace photos. You can’t replace any of those situations. Those things are irreplaceable.”
His brother would have turned 31 on Oct. 19.
‘How can we get this back?’
It wasn’t only pictures that turned up.
By a soccer field near Azalea Park, someone found a horseshoe-shaped piece of wood signed and dated: “106-107 years strong. 7/28/2024”
Carlie Alderfer’s father, David Shope, was the first to spot the post on Facebook. He told her to contact the police.
“How can we get this back?!,” she wrote on the police department’s Facebook page, letting them know it belonged to her family. “Please please please send me a message!”
Her name was on the top right of the wood piece along with her husband, Wesley. The same day – Oct. 17 – she heard back from an Asheville detective who said she could come pick it up. The next day, she took the wood piece and delivered it to her great aunt Judy Bridges.
They’re part of a large extended family – the Shope, Gregg and Burnette families – who’ve been holding reunions together for more than 100 years.
Colby Shope, Carlie’s brother, hasn’t missed one in all his 33 years.
“Even when I was younger you could barely fit everybody in the picture there were so many people,” he said. In 2017, at the 100th reunion, the entire clan posed for a photo outside the Bee Tree Christian Church in Swannanoa that ran in the Citizen-Times.
Reunion: For 100 years, a Bee Tree family tradition
At this year’s reunion in late July at the church, someone brought a cut of wood for all in attendance to sign. But how did it end up in Azalea Park?
A mystery is solved
Shope says it was stored in a car owned by a cousin that washed away during the flood. The cousin, Joseph Pitts, survived.
But the Bee Tree Christian church, which has been around since 1872, was badly damaged.
Shope took pictures at the church last week during a rare break from working 16-hour days as a reliability engineer for Duke Energy.
“It’s destroyed,” he said. “I’m not sure they’re gonna be able to build back honestly…When it comes through it comes through hard in certain areas.”
The front of the small white church was torn away. Toppled trees and a stream of water block the path to the front entrance. Mud covers the wood floors.
Biltmore: After Helene forced its closure and furloughs, Biltmore Estate to reopen in November
But the 1950s-era stained glass windows were removed and salvaged, according to Pastor Mike Siemens.
“God takes his light, his spiritual light, and he pours his light through us, through a stained-glass window,” Siemens said.
The Sunday before the storm hit, Siemens looked out at the congregation and told them “crisis puts us on a path that we never would have chosen ourselves and brings us to a place that we don’t recognize.”
He’s not sure why he said it. He wasn’t planning on it. The words just tumbled out.
He would repeat a similar message at a service on Oct. 20, the congregation’s first since the storm destroyed their church. It was held at the Swannanoa Christian Church.
“Even though we don’t have a building we can still be doing good things that He prepared for us to do,” Siemens said.
Thomas C. Zambito covers energy, transportation and economic growth for the USA TODAY Network’s New York State team. He’s won dozens of state and national writing awards from the Associated Press, Investigative Reporters and Editors, the Deadline Club and others during a decades-long career that’s included stops at the New York Daily News, The Star-Ledger of Newark and The Record of Hackensack. He can be reached at tzambito@lohud.com.
This article originally appeared on Asheville Citizen Times: Asheville police reuniting families with photos found after Helene
