The Shoebox Negatives
In the late 1930s my father was just out of high school and an avid amateur photographer.  Decades after he died at age 43 my mother handed me a shoebox stuffed with his film negatives, shot mostly in and around Chicago's Near West Side, and then developed in a makeshift darkroom.
I never had the chance to ask my dad about the people or situations captured in his photos. But this is the next best thing.