Stranger returns lost bridal photos from 1959
Sandra Poindexter was at an auction in Lynchburg, Va., when she spotted a pair of bridal portraits in a box of old picture frames. She was mesmerized by the black-andwhite photos, and the bride posing in them.
“I just couldn’t believe how gorgeous they were,” said Poindexter, 66. “The woman was stunning and the dress was stunning, and I could tell that they were professionally done.”
So, Poindexter bid $5 for the portraits that day, Jan. 13, and won. But she didn’t plan on keeping the photos for herself.
“I wanted to figure out how something so precious like that could end up at an auction,” said Poindexter, a retired nurse who now spends her time writing fiction novels and making art. She regularly attends local auctions in search of craft supplies. “Something told me these are special to somebody.”
Sure enough, she was right. The bride who was photographed in 1959 had been searching for the portraits for several decades. She eventually lost hope of finding them.
“I kind of just gave up,” said Harriet Galbraith, 85.
Poindexter’s path to find Galbraith started with the help of an internet sleuth.
After the auction, she posted photos of the portraits in a local Facebook group, and asked if anyone might know the woman or her family. One of the frames had a piece of masking tape on the back with the name “Harriet Elizabeth Marshall (Galbraith)” written on it, offering a significant clue as to who the bride might be.
Donna Reichard, a Lynchburg resident who enjoys researching in her spare time, stumbled upon the post and immediately got to work. She spent three hours using a search software to track down the bride, Harriet Elizabeth Marshall Galbraith, and her descendants.
“I probably called 10 or 15 people,” said Reichard, 65. “I kept going until I found one gentleman; it happened to be her son.”
“I was so excited to find that the bride was still alive,” said Reichard, adding that it was the ninth anniversary of her mother’s death, and her mother was an avid genealogist.
“My mom would have loved this,” said Reichard. She excitedly phoned Galbraith to tell her that her portraits had been found.
Galbraith — who was 21 years old at the time the photos were taken — was dumbfounded.
“I was flabbergasted and thrilled,” Galbraith said.
Reichard also shared the good news with Poindexter, and she was stunned that the dots were connected so quickly.
“I was just blown away,” Poindexter said.
Poindexter told Galbraith she would ship the portraits to her home in San Antonio. Galbraith moved there from Mathews County, Va., in 2017 to be closer to her family after her husband’s death in 2016.
Galbraith had long phone calls with Poindexter and Reichard and shared some of her backstory with them — including details about the dress. The gown she wore in the photos was designed by Christian Dior and, surprisingly, it was given to her by her ex-boyfriend’s mother.
“It didn’t fit her daughter,” Galbraith recalled, adding that the mother, who lived in Baltimore, offered it to her instead. “It fit me perfectly.”
The portraits of Galbraith were taken by Bradford Bachrach, a Washington photographer, who died in 1992. He and his family are renowned for photographing luminaries and high-profile people, including many U.S. presidents. Galbraith had no idea Bachrach was a celebrated photographer when she happened upon his studio in Dupont Circle — near where she lived.
She and her then-fiancé, William “Jack” Galbraith Jr., would often peek into the studio.
“We’d walk by and see the pictures, and I thought someday he’d do mine,” said Galbraith, who was photographed by Bachrach in 1959, just after they eloped at the Arlington Courthouse on Aug. 24. She wore the Dior dress only for the photos.
“It took me a year and a half to pay off the bill,” she said, explaining that she didn’t expect the portraits to cost as much as they did. “I had no idea what I was doing.”
Galbraith’s husband was an officer in the CIA, and Galbraith worked alongside him on operations as a spy, she said. They spent several years overseas in Morocco, Algeria and Poland.
“It was extremely stressful, but we were serving our country and we wanted to do that,” said Galbraith. The couple had two children together, one of whom, a daughter, died when she was 16, of meningitis.
The Galbraiths retired in Mathews County and both became artists.
“We enjoyed our life on the Chesapeake Bay,” Galbraith said.
She had always hoped to give the portraits to her two granddaughters — now 23 and 30 — but after many years of fruitlessly looking for them, she figured they had vanished for good.
Galbraith originally gave the portraits to her mother, who lived in Lynchburg, and they ended up in her sister’s possession. When Galbraith asked about them, her sister said she couldn’t find the portraits, and Galbraith believes they were sold in an estate sale about six years ago when her sister moved into a retirement home. The journey the portraits took from the estate sale to the auction remains a mystery.
Finally, though, the long-lost portraits are now back where they belong. They arrived at Galbraith’s home on Jan. 23.
“It was just thrilling,” she said, adding that her family came over to see the photos. She intends to stick with her original plan and give one to each granddaughter. “It’s so exciting.”
Seeing the portraits again “brought back wonderful, happy memories,” Galbraith said. “My husband and I were married 56 years, and we had a very strong, loving marriage; the old-fashioned kind.”
Poindexter and Reichard are both delighted by the outcome of the story, which was first reported by local TV stations WDBJ and WSET.
“It couldn’t have happened to a nicer person, and I’m just glad to have been a little part of it,” Poindexter said.