Photographs of the 1980 eruption of Mount St. Helens have been found on an old camera donated to a Portland, Oregon-area Goodwill.
Kati Dimoff has a habit of developing old film she finds in cameras donated to thrift stores, USA Today reported. In May, she found an Argus C2 camera and took the film to be developed at a specialty store that still develops discontinued film types.
When Dimoff returned to pick up the film, she found a note written on the back of the envelope: “Is this from the Mount St. Helens eruption?”
The volcano erupted unexpectedly in Washington in 1980, killing nearly 60 people, spewing ash into the air, and causing more than $1 billion in property damage.
The photos appeared to capture the beginning of the eruption, with a few faraway shots showing a small ash cloud and others showing a larger one. Several were taken near John Glumm Elementary School in St. Helens, Oregon, the Smithsonian Magazine reported.
The photographs, including one of a family, were published in The Oregonian, and Mel Purvis recognized himself and realized the camera must have belonged to his grandmother, Faye Gardner, who also was in the picture, the Smithsonian reported.
Purvis told the magazine his grandmother had come to Eugene to visit after his son, her great-grandson, was born. Gardner, who owned a clothing store in St. Helens, died in 1981.
Purvis didn’t know how her camera got to Portland 37 years later with film still undeveloped.
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