Most people believe that selfies are a recent phenomenon, made possible by digital cameras–especially cameras on cell phones. But in today’s photo we have proof that selfies have been around much longer than most people imagine. For all I know, this may be proof that my father invented the selfie.

This is Lloyd and Florence Wright on their honeymoon at Crater Lake in July 1933. Lloyd is using the stick he is holding to trigger the shutter on the camera.

This may mean that Dad was not only the inventor of the selfie, but also the inventor of the selfie stick! ;–)

The Great Depression is normally regarded as having started with the stock market crash in 1929. But its effects were not immediately felt in rural Oregon. 1933 was the year the Depression came to Oregon in a big way.

Dad had set a goal of saving $1000 before he married Mom. (That would be equivalent in purchasing power to almost $19,000 today, 2019.) As he was getting close to reaching that goal, the bank holding his savings was closed by the Federal government. So Dad wasn’t able to start marriage with the nest egg he had worked hard to accumulate. (I think he received a paltry payout of pennies on the dollar some years later when the bank was liquidated.) Dad never forgave FDR for this.

Here is the story in Dad’s own words:

In the meantime [between their engagement in April 1933 and the wedding July 9], the banks closed. I had established as my goal to have $1000 in the bank when I got married, but the Great Depression was causing that goal to stretch out much further than I expected. That’s when I decided to cut back a little. Now Roosevelt [President Franklin Delano Roosevelt] cut it back to nothing. What a way to start a married life! My $800 (approximately) was all gone. I discussed it with Florence and she was in favor of going ahead anyway. Irvine had an insurance policy that he was going to have to drop. It was with Sun Life in Canada, so he would be able to cash it out and get the money. He owed me some money anyway and offered to pay me what he could, about $80, I think. Talk about being married on a shoestring! We were sure reduced to that!! Florence had $20. That’s what we got married on. A dollar bought a lot more, though. To give some idea, I bought my suit for sixteen dollars. When we got back from our honeymoon trip to Crater Lake, then across to Winchester Bay, where we stayed a couple of nights, what I had was all gone. We had to live on Florence’s twenty dollars until my job started and I got some twenty-five cents-per-hour money in.

So they were able to put together a honeymoon at Crater Lake in spite of the financial set-back. And it’s a good thing, too, because without that the selfie may never have been invented!