Among various photos in an envelope marked "Before 1930" I recently found this childhood portrait of my grandfather Gustaf T. It's one I can't recall ever having seen before - it's not included in his photo albums.
I doubt I would even have recognised this boy as my grandfather if the photo had not been found together with other later photos of him (probably sorted at some point by my father).
Gustaf was born in 1904, and I'm not sure which year this was taken, but this is probably the earliest photo of him that exists. I don't know the year but I'm guessing ~ 1909. The outfit he's wearing does not look like anything I've ever seen! - but it vaguely reminds me of illustrations of Little Lord Fountleroy (book by Frances Hodgson Burnett from1886...)
This is where Gustaf grew up though - more like "the little house on the prairie"!
Until I found the portrait at the top, this one was the earliest I had - found in one of my grandmother Sally's albums. A childhood portrait of Gustaf (born 1904) together with my grandmother's brother Nils (born 1902). I'm guessing it may be from Gustaf starting school (1911). - At first, I only recognised Nils in this photo, and had no idea who the other boy was. It was only later that it dawned on me that it must be Gustaf, and that he and Nils had been friends since early childhood.
They're also both in this Sunday School photo from 1912. Gustaf (8 years old) is 4th from the left. Nils (10 years old) is 5th from the right (front row).
And this is from the village football (soccer) team, a few years later. Nils is (unmistakably) the tall one in the background (captain/coach?), and Gustaf the one with the "attitude" standing in front of him...
I remember that it was comparing it to another photo of the two of them as grown up young men that convinced me who was Gustaf in the football photo!
This is another photo from the envelope, which I can't recall having seen in any album.
I also found two portraits from his military service in 1925:
And this one is glued onto a hard cardboard frame with the embossed text "Memory from my military service".
