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This is a continuing series of stories about the donation of black & white negatives we received in January of this year from a gentleman in Kentucky.

In a previous blog on February 21st Majorette Found in Middlebranch… we introduced you to Victory Chapman who photographed many weddings in the Canton, Ohio area in the 1940’s and 1950’s. Victory was born on the last day of The Great War, participated in the Pacific Theater in WWII and had a long career at the Timken Company in Canton.

Eric Chapman writes: My dad was born on November 11, 1918 – the day WWI ended. When my dad was 17, he heard that the Timken Company was hiring, so he went right down there and applied, lying on his application that he was 18. The gentleman that interviewed him said something like this: “Hmm, you were born exactly one year to the day before WWI ended and your parents named you Victory? They must have had amazing foresight!” The guy hired him knowing full well he was only 17. He worked there for 46 years, retiring in 1982. Eric Chapman continues, my dad was a chemist and he worked his way up from the bottom of what he called the “Chem Lab” becoming chief chemist sometime in the mid to late 1970’s. When he retired, he was the last person in that position in any steel mill in the country with only a high school degree. Victory Chapman is a Marine Corp Veteran and fought on Okinawa in the Pacific Theater. He must have stopped over on Hawaii because there are photographs that appear to have been shot by him, and a small collection of period postcards of the islands. He also documented the First Marine Division cemetery, his barracks, some of the natives, and their lifestyle, the landscape, military trains, and Bolo and Yontan airfields.

These are just a few of the printed photographs in this archive, wait until we get to the negatives!

Thank you to Eric Chapman for his contribution to this blog, and the wonderful donation of invaluable photographs.

Eric Chapman, PhD
University of Kentucky

Mark G. Holland
Archivist
McKinley Presidential Library & Museum

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