Sometimes historical treasures can smell like trash.

For more than two decades, Richard Finley of China Spring has worked periodically with decaying negatives that once belonged to his father-in-law, Hiram Blaine Sherrill (1914-78). The boxes of 4-inch by 5-inch negatives (cellulose diacetate), alas, reek of vinegar — the characteristic odor of decomposing film base.

Finley could see the negatives’ transparent acidic coating was beginning to become brittle, and wrinkle the gelatin emulsion underneath.

Avid amateur photographer H.B. Sherrill of Waco climbed into the rubble of a demolished school building on Turner Street in East Waco to capture the scarred landscape around him.
The Texas Collection at Baylor University

Rather than see the relentless march of time take even more of the images away, he gave them to posterity.

Finley recently donated some 50 negatives pertaining to the May 11, 1953, tornado that killed 114 people and injured 600 others to The Texas Collection at Baylor University.

Working to save images

And archives assistant Geoff Hunt couldn’t be more pleased to receive them — odiferous and all.

“The Finleys were very generous in giving them to us,” Hunt said.

The Texas Collection is much better equipped to at least arrest some of the damage done to negatives from less than optimal storage, even if it cannot erase the effects of decay, he said.

“The ideal temperature to store them in is between 40 and 50 degrees, and that’s just not doable for most people,” Hunt said.

‘Shriveled up like bacon’

In fact, many of the archives’ “finds” have come from dusty, warm or humid confinement.

“When these are shriveled up like bacon,” he said, gingerly holding one of the negatives, “we can’t really ‘fix’ them, but we can at least digitize the images. And some of these have scanned quite well.”

Finley and his wife Janette, daughter of H.B. and Margaret Trevor (Nunn) Sherrill, said they hoped The Texas Collection could salvage a set of prints, or at least a high-resolution computer scan, before the negatives go the way of all organic compounds.

Photohobbyist Richard Finley tried a handful on his contact printer at home, and said he found the images to be “strikingly good for their age and condition.”

Bell’s Hill School area

At the time of the tornado, the Sherrills lived around Bell’s Hill School, and took many pictures of damage to their own immediate neighborhood in addition to those from downtown.

“He was an ambulance chaser,” Finley said of his late father-in-law, who was known to grab his camera for highway accidents and the like.

Photos of bus crash

In fact, Finley said, Sherrill happened to hear one grim August day in 1952 the horrific noise of two Greyhound buses colliding head-on U.S. Route 81 (now Interstate 35).

The crash and ensuing fireball from the ruptured fuel tanks killed 26 passengers and both drivers.

Sherrill, who lived about 1,500 feet from the highway at 2201 Baylor Ave., sprinted into the heart of the carnage to document the tragedy with his camera.

Finley has yet to locate those images in the negatives in the collections he and Janette inherited, “But I’m sure they’re here somewhere.”

tjryan@wacotrib.com

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