Jefferson County Online A part of the IAGenWeb and USGenWeb Projects Who's Who in Jefferson County, 1931 Delzell Green

"The Fairfield Daily Ledger"
Tuesday, July 21, 1931
Front Page

Who's Who In Jefferson County
By Herbert F. McDougal

DELZELL GREEN

Babies, the traditional bugaboo of photographers, are the delight of Delzell Green, Fairfield photographer who has been longer in the same place of business than any other man in the city.

He likes children as subjects so well that he often takes extra pictures of them in some cute pose, merely for the sake of the picture. He has been forty-two years at it, and never but once did he fail to get a child's photograph. Often, however, he spends an hour or more at the task, and he remembers once when a mother, who knew to handle her own offspring, waited from ten a. m until after noon for the child to get the idea that it had been brought there to have its picture taken. That wasn't the time he failed.

Mr. Green was born over near Perlee, October 10, 1872. His father was in partnership in Perlee for a time with Dr. Calvin Snook. Then he quit the mercantile business and went to Bloomfield to learn photography from his brother-in-law who had a gallery there. It was in the days when the photographic dry plate was revolutionizing the art, and the father established himself in Brighton for a time. About 1889 he came to Fairfield and brought the studio which had been located in the same place ever since the building was erected. A man by the name of Hilbert owned it first, then Meyer and finally Sunderland. Mr. Green purchased the studio of the latter.

Young Delzell went to the Old Franklin school, graduating in 1890. He at once took up seriously the work in the studio at which he had been engaged at odd times for a year or two(.) When his father sold out to J. B. Meyers, Delzell stayed on. After six years Myers sold to J. G. Browning, but Delzell went along with the fixtures. When Mr. Browning suffered a stroke of paralysis, Mr. Green took over the management of the business. That was in 1917. Four years later he bought a partnership. He became sole owner in 1926.

Mr. Green married Miss Maude Gift, daughter of Charles Gift, one time county treasurer, April 20, 1899.

He got into photograpy about the time that George Eastman went onto the market with his first small camera, and has grown up with the development of the Eastman business, using its products. He can remember when the first film roll contained yards of film and was unloaded in the dark room, the photographer cutting off the exposed part and threading up the unexposed end again. He missed the hoopskirts, but has photographed many a belle with a bustle. Leg-o-mutton sleeves and hobble skirts have passed before his lense in a gay parade that now runs to bare legs or beach pajamas. He has taken many a whisker.

The third generation of customers is now coming to him to be photographed, and women who as brides rested their hands lovingly upon the stalwart shoulder of happy grooms, sometimes come with their grandchildren to the same studio where all those years ago they found satisfactory service. The Browning studio never has been very vociferous, but it has strived to please.

The tintype still was in vogue when Mr. Green went into business, and photographers still were sensitizing their own print paper. But, for that matter, the fire department then had a hand pump and the first drayman to the fire house got the job of towing the apparatus to the scene of the fire--and collected 50 cents therefor(.)

Mr. Green has two hobbies--coin collecting and archery. He has 2,000 coins, dating from 330 BC. to the present day, including a full date series of United States cents. Archery is more recent as a fad with him, but he is deep enough into it that he makes many of his own arrows.

He is a Methodist, a life member of the Walton club, a Rotarian, a member of the Chamber of Commerce and an Odd Fellow. He is the representative of the Grand Encampment of the I. O. O. F. and a past representative of the Grand Lodge.

His great-great-grandfather was Thomas White, a member of the Boston Tea party and the father of twenty-one children. A monument, reciting that fact and that he was an aide to General Washington in the Revolutionary War, was unveiled to him July 4, 1899 near North Point, Bedford county, Penn. A lead candlestick, presented to him by General Washington, still is a valued heirloom in the White family.