10/30/2025
✨ A Little Treasure from 1913… and the Heart of This Week’s Lamplight Story ✨
Nestled inside this old cubby shelf of my antique desk is one of my recent finds from Lori, at Lavender & Ivy — a Kodak Vest Pocket Camera, made in 1913.
No batteries. No screen. No instant preview. Just a tiny lens, a metal shutter, and the hope that what it captured would be worth waiting to develop.
They called it “The Soldier’s Camera” during World War I. It slipped easily into a jacket pocket and went wherever its owner did — through trenches, across train stations, over fields, and into homes where papers were read beside oil lamps.
And holding it, I couldn’t help but wonder…
📸 Was its last photograph ever developed?
📸 Is there a face forever frozen somewhere in a forgotten drawer because of it?
📸 Or is its most important story one that was never printed at all — until now?
You know how I am — objects like this don’t sit quietly in my home for long. They wake up the storyteller in me.
So this week on Lamplight Stories, I’m giving this little camera a second chance to speak.
And friends…
Bring a tissue. 🤎
