Vintage Kamloops family photos discovered hidden in second hand desk after decades | iNFOnews | Thompson-Okanagan's News Source
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Vintage Kamloops family photos discovered hidden in second hand desk after decades

This wedding photo brought tears to the brother of the groom, who is now in his 80's.
Image Credit: FACEBOOK / Dawnica Flatt

Sometimes when you buy second-hand items, you may find a coin, a little note or sometimes something more interesting.

A woman in Kamloops was emptying her second-hand desk recently to resell it and found something she hadn’t noticed before.

“I bought it off of Facebook so it came to me empty a few years ago... I sold it so I made sure it was empty, emptied all the drawers and piled stuff on to the table and when I was going through I noticed an envelope,” says Dawnica Flatt.

Flatt purchased the desk two or three years ago and had never noticed the envelope. In her Facebook post, she mentioned the envelope may have been tucked under a drawer. Curiosity got to her, and she peeked inside.

“I was curious about it in one way because I didn’t remember putting it there," Flatt says. "When I opened it, it was the three pictures and I thought they might be important to somebody, so I posted on Facebook.”

The photos were found inside this desk, years after it had been sold on Facebook.
The photos were found inside this desk, years after it had been sold on Facebook.
Image Credit: FACEBOOK / Dawnica Flatt

In just ten minutes, the Facebook community had found a family member. The photos, one of a wedding party and two shots of young children, belong to Tammy Harbidge’s family.

“A good friend of mine got a hold of me and went, ‘Uhm, is this your family by any chance?’ And I was like, ‘Dude, yeah, that actually is my family,’” Harbidge says.

Harbidge zipped over to Flatt’s house to pick up the photos and then brought them to the Hamlets Westsyde Assisted Living, where her father is in care.

“I said, ‘Daddy, I've got a huge surprise for you.’ I peeled this one picture in particular out of the envelope. I can’t even explain to you, he was very, very emotional. It was very, very touching and amazing to see the reaction I got from him,” Harbidge says.

The photo she showed him was of his brother Art’s wedding, and although Harbidge isn’t sure about the year, she notes her father is in his mid-80s now and was a young man when the bride and groom got hitched.

“For us, this is pretty special stuff because my auntie and uncle are no longer with us, the ones that got married. And my one other auntie who is in the wedding photo is no longer with us either, so that's pretty huge for us.”

This photo shows two of Harbidge's cousins when they were babies.
This photo shows two of Harbidge's cousins when they were babies.
Image Credit: FACEBOOK / Dawnica Flatt

Harbidge says she has contacted various family members but will let the closest relatives decide what to do with the photos, be it to duplicate them or to keep a sole copy. Regardless of what is done with the photos, Harbidge and her family are grateful to Flatt for the lucky find.

“Thank god for Dawnica for posting them... A lot of people would’ve probably just thrown them away not thinking anything of it, but she had a conscience and a heart and she reached out to find who the actual owners of these are.”


To contact a reporter for this story, email Jenna Wheeler or call (250) 819-6089 or email the editor. You can also submit photos, videos or news tips to the newsroom and be entered to win a monthly prize draw.

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