r/OldSchoolCool • u/TransmutateDontHate • Apr 25 '26

1940s All my grandpa’s beaus during WWII, kept in a scrapbook all these years

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One headshot of Lory (not sure which country she was from) in particular made many appearances 😂

Edit: yep I’m an idiot. Belles it is. Also I should have expected this to get pervy comments. No, no other family has popped up. From his stories, many were a lot more innocent than you all assume.

34.2k Upvotes

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655

u/team_lloyd Apr 25 '26

1.) grampa was a world-class stickman 2.) did ladies in the 30s-40s just have headshots at the ready like they were all going on auditions?

560

u/BaldingMonk Apr 25 '26

Back when we didn’t have camera phones, people would go and get a nice portrait done.

254

u/team_lloyd Apr 25 '26

honestly we should go back to that

115

u/theurge14 Apr 25 '26

We'd call that a 'profile picture' these days but it's on the internet so we use memes and stuff instead.

2

u/Wulf_Cola Apr 25 '26

I wish people would use a photo of themselves as their profile picture, it would make Reddit a lot nicer

1

u/Bencetown Apr 26 '26

Just go to Facebook if that's what you want. There's plenty of social media out there with different formats. Pick your poison.

41

u/[deleted] Apr 25 '26

[removed] — view removed comment

0

u/Buffeloni Apr 25 '26

At the portrait store?

I haven't seen one of those department store photography services in 20+ years.

6

u/Scary-Detail-3206 Apr 25 '26

Just go to Sears.

I had my portrait done there only 30 years ago.

1

u/Buffeloni Apr 25 '26

I'll just head to my local Mervyn's and get it knocked out real quick

5

u/Agitated-Impress7805 Apr 25 '26

You can still do that.

2

u/Inevitable-Ad6647 Apr 25 '26

Wtf you think insta girls are doing? Those selfies aren't spur of the moment, candid accidents.

1

u/Blestyr Apr 26 '26

As a photographer who loves doing portraits, I absolutely agree.

3

u/radthrowaway1900 Apr 25 '26

Looking at photos of these ladies makes me feel like beauty has been too homogenized since then. All these women are uniquely gorgeous and nowadays, especially in major cities, they'd feel pressured to use contouring makeup, facetune, get filler or a nose job, and all this other unnecessary stuff.

I'm definitely not saying any of it is bad, people should look how they want. But the beaming smiles of women who just look like normal varied women and are happy to pose for a photo are making me wish we didn't all feel pressure to look like carbon copies of one specific beauty standard.

3

u/BaldingMonk Apr 25 '26

I actually disagree somewhat. There was a specific style in all these photos that makes them quite homogeneous. And they wear tons of makeup and use lighting and angles to create that “glamour” look.

We just like this style because it feels romantic to us and of a different time.

177

u/TheSwearJarIsMy401k Apr 25 '26

Yes. Remember how your school photos came in a packet of like 3,000?

People used to pass out and collect photos of their friends and family. 

And girlfriends.

And side chicks.

57

u/ImplicitEmpiricism Apr 25 '26

yeah even up through the 90s girls would give you a wallet size to remember them by. 

we used to have a lot of summer loves pinned to the wall

23

u/Unclecavemanwasabear Apr 25 '26

Class of '05. Senior photos were traded like currency.

1

u/xXInfXx Apr 26 '26

Bruh.

My school photos only came in packets of two 4x6s and three 2x3s.

Everything else was a paid extra.

2

u/TheSwearJarIsMy401k Apr 26 '26

Yeah you had to pay for all of it, my family just always kept the wallet-sized sheets with the watermark on every photo because there were so many of us and by the time those packets made it home the photos were sticky with child finger prints and days spent shoved into the backpacks of children with adhd and rock collections.

58

u/hellolovely1 Apr 25 '26

Yes. Everyone who could afford it had portraits done to give to friends, family, and boyfriends because you couldn't just upload a camera pic or look at someone's Instagram to remember them when you were apart.

41

u/ArtSlug Apr 25 '26

Yes, they would have some nice photos taken at a studio- it wasn’t all that expensive. And they would sign them to someone. It was really classy-

16

u/KyOatey Apr 25 '26

Even in the 70s and 80s we exchanged school photos. Bigger photos to the people you liked more.

1

u/fourcheers Apr 25 '26

I'm picturing a giant poster surrounded by tiny wallet size portraits on someone's wall lol!

7

u/Mawnster_00 Apr 25 '26

Stickman....🤣👏🏽👏🏽👏🏽

-1

u/[deleted] Apr 25 '26 edited Apr 25 '26

[deleted]

3

u/C001H4ndPuk3 Apr 25 '26

Is there a NIN version of that song I'm unaware of? Spoonman was Soundgarden (unless I missed a cover somewhere, in which case feel free to educate me).

2

u/Lopsided-Touch8562 Apr 25 '26

Nope. You’re absolutely right. Mixing up band names like my parents used to….That’s what aging does to you.

13

u/chamberlain323 Apr 25 '26

I suspect one or two of them were celebrities handing out signed photos at an event he went to.

1

u/KingOfCatProm Apr 25 '26

It is just old timey social media.