Gene’s Camera working to reunite owners with forgotten photos

SOUTH BEND, Ind. -- A picture is worth a thousand words if it’s placed in the right hands. That’s something Gene’s Camera knows well from being a South Bend stable since 1939.

The shop has gone through three sets of owners, the most recent, Jon Gilchrist and Melaney Miller, acquiring the store a few months ago.

“Gene’s has owned multiple camera stores over time… we had the Mishawaka store which was Dill’s camera, which went back to the 1920’s… we had Circle Camera, we had a store in Goshen… and all of those stores have images here… anyone from the greater Michiana area might have pictures here,” said Gilchrist.

Over the years, each time someone forgot to pick up their order, the previous owners, Jack and Barb St. Pierre, kept all of those items stored in a back room, filling the room to the brim with forgotten photos.

“We have accumulated over time a whole lot of orders that never got picked up. Whether they were film or print orders or video transfer orders… there’s a whole lot of history in all of these boxes and we’d really like to reunite people with these orders if they’re still out there,” said Gilchrist.

“A lot of property in that room… was brought to us by people who have now since passed away… we can’t just bring ourselves to just discard it, like that is really important to someone. It might be the only picture of someone’s grandfather,” said Miller.

To get the job done, they needed help. When they suggested the project to summer employee Kate Fry, a junior at IU Bloomington, she was all in.

“I’ve always been fascinated by…pictures and how they can capture a moment so well… when I’m going through the orders, I’ll open one up to… take a look at it… and even if it’s just basic things like a family sitting around a Christmas tree or someone celebrating a birthday… it’s just been super cool,” said Fry.

Fry pulled all the boxes of memories from the storeroom and has spent the last few weeks sorting them alphabetically, getting them ready for the community to claim their lost items.

“We’re gonna have an online response form… or you can email the info… unfortunately we can’t afford to spend time on the phone fielding every call, but if you think you might have images… we’ll have an email form people can respond to, we may have some kind of an open house kind of thing at some point,” said Gilchrist.

“If someone wants to say, ‘hey I had this picture of a little girl next to a tree and she was wearing a pink dress,’ we will look for that. It’ll be kind of like a scavenger hunt for us… we will keep our eye out,” said Miller.