Photos Are the Picture of History

There is a love story behind the remarkable collection of historical photos housed at the headquarters of First American Corp. in Santa Ana. Actually, two love stories.

There is the love of history that led the grandson of the title insurance and real estate information company’s founder to begin acquiring photos of Orange County dating to the 19th century. Today, Ted Parker’s effort has led to a massive collection of more than 12,000 images that chronicle the county’s makeover from agricultural kingdom to suburban archetype.

“I’ve been down there and looked at it -- and admired it,” said Betsy Vigus of the Orange County Historical Society, which has a more modest collection of 2,500 photos. “They have just about everything.”

The other love story involving the collection is the one between Barbara and Bob Blankman, who were married for nearly six decades. For many years, Barbara -- who started at First American in the mid-1950s as the head of the typing pool -- was curator of the firm’s one-of-a-kind photo collection. She brought order to boxes of uncataloged images, and promoted the collection to the public. Eventually, the title “historian” was bestowed on her.

When she died in July at 79, Bob, who is 82 and still works as a carpenter, took over.

“She retired in 1986, and after about 10 years she discovered that the library was not really being taken care of,” said Blankman, who still wears his wedding ring and hands out his wife’s business cards -- with no intention of getting his own. “So she came back as a volunteer and put it back in shape.... She was spending so many hours, they put her back on the payroll.”

First American’s collection is open to the public on Mondays, by appointment. Copies of photos can be ordered for a fee that covers the reproduction cost.

Barbara Blankman turned the walls of First American’s headquarters into a huge art gallery of some 1,700 enlarged and sepia-toned images.

Collectively, they depict an Orange County that has all but vanished -- a time when what is now known as Irvine could be confused with Iowa, Dana Point resembled Baja, and downtown Santa Ana could have subbed for a Midwestern burg in the movies.

There’s a photo of a huge crowd that gathered in 1921 for a motorcycle race up a steep hill in San Juan Capistrano. Of the Orange High School football team from the early 1900s.

Each frame tells a story in black and white: A 1930s cattle roundup in what is now Mission Viejo. The Rancho Santa Ana Botanical Gardens in Santa Ana Canyon before it was relocated to Claremont in 1951. Men in suits and women in white dresses milling around the newly opened Balboa Pavilion in 1905.

The bulk of the historical photos come from the files of several local studios. The photos were obtained by First American in the 1960s. Ted Parker added photos he took as well. Over the years, the cache has grown in large part due to donations. New items are always being added.

“They’ve run it as a public service,” Phil Brigandi, head of the county’s government-maintained archives, said of First American’s motivation. “The Parkers have always been interested in history.”

So, too, was Barbara Blankman.

“She always loved history,” her husband said.

The two met in 1943 at a YMCA dance when Bob was a Marine at El Toro. They married in 1945, settled in Orange and raised two children.

“Every project that I took on, she participated in -- and vice versa,” Bob Blankman said. “We did everything with each other -- and with our kids. It was a family project whatever we took on.”

Now, with Bob filling in for Barbara, the project is to outfit two office additions under construction at First American with photos -- just as his wife did for the main building.

In the coming year, Blankman will select more than 1,300 images that will be blown up and framed.

“It was my wife’s first love here,” Blankman said, sitting in the tiny office that serves as First American’s photo library. “I don’t have the history in the back of my head like she did. But at least I have the routine down.”

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To make an appointment to view the collection, call (714) 800-3298.