BY COLLEEN FITZPATRICK, PH.D.

W at a photo trying to

gure out where it was taken, when it was taken, or who is in it that we lose sight of the big picture—the story behind the photo.

Unfortunately, only a small part of that story is ever handed down to us, and o en we get no story at all.

Wouldn’t it be great to discover the bigger picture behind the photo?

is photo was sent to us by Tom Tullis, a fan of our weekly photoquizzes at < www.forensicgenealogy.info>. As part of the quizzes, pictures are posted and readers have to sleuth out the story behind the photo.

Tom told us that this was a picture of his dad and asked us to puzzle out when and where the photo was taken.

anks to a few clues from Tom and a little detective work, we did a pretty good job.

Tom’s dad is holding an issue of the Commercial Appeal, which we discovered was published in Memphis, Tennessee. In the distance, a tugboat is pushing a barge carrying a large cylindrical cargo. We gured Tom’s dad must be sitting on the bank of the Mississippi River because it passes by Memphis and is one of the few U.S. rivers navigable by barge.

e Commercial Appeal’s headline reads “Soviet Alive Well into 17th Orbit.” A Google search told us that the headline refers to cosmonaut Gherman Titov, who made 17 orbits of the earth on 7 August 1961. A comparison of the photo in the newspaper with a picture of Titov con- rmed this.

Tom told us that the barge’s cargo was part of the big picture. What was going on in Memphis that day? Was there something interesting happening on the river? Here’s what we found out.

On 5 August 1961, NASA began transport of the booster stage of the Saturn V rocket from Marshall Space Flight Center in Huntsville, Alabama, in preparation for assembling and testing the rst ight vehicle at Cape Canaveral later in the year.

Tom later explained, “My dad heard that something important related to the U.S. space program was going to be coming down the Mississippi River on a barge on this date. Since he worked at the Medical Center in Memphis not that far away, he went down to the river at lunchtime. While there, he was approached by a photographer for the Commercial Appeal asking if he could take his picture holding the newspaper with the barge in the background. At the time, I don’t think they knew exactly what was on the barge or what it was going to be used for, only that it was related to the U.S. space program.”

e photo of Tom’s dad was taken on 7 August 1961 as the booster stage of the Saturn V rocket, transported by the barge Compromise, was passing Memphis on its way to Cape Canaveral. e exact time was 3: 10 p.m. We didn’t contact NASA to obtain that information. We looked at Tom’s father’s watch. He must have taken a late lunch that day.