Ralph Fox worked in the addiction field for decades, receiving numerous awards for his work. But he was also a professional photographer for the Lincoln Journal and the Nebraska State Fair.
After he died, his family began looking through boxes of his negatives. They found a rich history of their family and this community, captured through the eyes of an artist.
In the aftermath of World War II, Ralph聽Fox was put in charge of escorting five hundred Nazi聽Schutzstaffel, or SS,聽troops from Germany back to their hometown of Amersfoort, Holland, by train.聽
One young soldier had begged Fox to release him before the journey ended, recalls Fox's daughter, Paige Namuth.
When they arrived at the station in Amersfoort, an angry crowd awaited them. The SS soldiers were shot as they got off the train,聽right in front of Namuth's father, who could do nothing to stop the slaughter.
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Namuth has the receipt, made out to Ralph Fox for the delivery of 鈥500 Nederland SS troops.鈥
Her聽father, who died in 1998, didn鈥檛 talk much about his war experiences.聽鈥淭hat鈥檚 hard to recover from," Namuth says.聽
But he took pictures.
Black and white photographs of the young Nazis soldiers lined up against a wall, waiting for a train ride toward certain death.
And more photos from a funeral procession in Linz, Austria, where Fox and his men oversaw the remains of a Nazi concentration camp.
The soldiers, there to feed survivors and make their lives bearable as they waited to go to Israel, uncovered a mass grave while disking land for a soccer field. So they聽held a funeral with people from the nearby town, re-burying each body with dignity.
Those pictures are part of an exhibit of photographs taken by Namuth's parents, both professional photographers, which will hang in Brandenberg, Germany, until mid-June聽then move to Berlin.聽
The exhibit's theme is the Cold War, with pictures Barbara Fox, Namuth's mother, took of nuclear bomb testing in Nevada.聽You can see her mother鈥檚 shadow in the bright light of the explosion.
For the most part, however, the exhibit tells the story of a 24-year-old captain in World War II 鈥 what he went through then and what he did when he got home, his daughter says.
There are pictures of a family, friends of the Foxes, putting toys in their bomb shelter; of Namuth's grandfather, a German farmer in the Sandhills; of her mother breastfeeding Namuth's baby brother Kevin; of this "picture-perfect little postwar family."
Beneath that perfect picture was a family with some serious postwar trauma issues, Namuth says.
Both her parents were journalists. Ralph was part of the Lincoln Journal newspaper team that won a 1949 Pulitzer prize for public service for a campaign which brought all the primary presidential candidates to Lincoln.
He lost his job in 1955 because of his drinking, says Namuth. So her mother began Fox Fotos to keep the family afloat.
Her dad聽quit drinking two days after Christmas in 1957, and spent the rest of his life helping other people stay sober.聽The couple took people into their own home, then started some of Lincoln's earliest halfway houses.
Their children joined in.聽The entire family was honored in 1985 as the 鈥淕reat American Family of 东京热app" for their contributions: Ralph Fox as founder of Houses of Hope halfway houses; Barbara Fox for her work with self-help groups; Namuth, who worked in the Houses of Hope program; her husband, Ron, who was director of the Independence Center drug and alcohol treatment program; and her brother Kevin Fox, who ran a halfway house for teenage alcoholics.
Though he eventually stopped working as a photographer, Ralph Fox didn't stop taking pictures until he went blind in one eye, two years before his death.
Nine years ago, Paige and Ron Namuth鈥檚 daughter Ashley began sorting through boxes of her grandparents' negatives for a class project. An artist herself, she recognized the beauty of the work.
The rest of the family got hooked: sorting, scanning, saving the best before the negatives began to smell like vinegar.
They've scanned 4,000 pictures so far.聽Images of plane crashes, floods, rodeos, a plane refueling in midair, blizzards, fires.
For the Journal and as the official photographer for the Nebraska State Fair, Ralph Fox took photos of famous entertainers: Roy Rogers, Dale Evans, Jimmy Dean, Liberace, Charlie Weaver, Mitch Miller, Karl Wallenda, Pat Boone, Tennessee Ernie Ford, Louie Armstrong,聽 Lawrence Welk, Glen Campbell, the Lennon sisters and Brenda Lee.
There鈥檚 Elvis Presley with 10-year-old Paige, who had waited in the Cornhusker Hotel's freight elevator to meet the young star, who was聽on his first tour.
There's Presidents Truman, Eisenhower, Kennedy and Nixon.
鈥淓ventually everyone comes to Lincoln,鈥 Namuth says.
There are pictures of the Nebraska football team during a trip, forced to sleep at a YMCA because their hotel would not take black players. Ralph Fox stayed with the team.
鈥淗e was always on the right side of history," his daughter says. "I think that鈥檚 neat.鈥
Lea Nesbit, a foster granddaughter of the Foxes' whose mother they shepherded through her college years, helped pick, sort and organize the photographs. Now a marketing professional, she formed a limited partnership, got everything copy-written and set up the European exhibits.
Each photo elicits memories.
When her Dad took his family to Colorado, little Paige thought they were on a nice family vacation. They went to a dance, then went on a picnic out on a mountain 鈥 where President Eisenhower showed up to fish.
She remembers that the president鈥檚 鈥済uards came and told us to move back.鈥 And she thought, 鈥淥h man it is awful to be the president. ... So many big black cars, so many guards standing around just so you can fish a little.鈥
Decades later, listening to her dad talk about the photographs, Namuth realized it wasn't a family vacation. Ralph Fox had come on assignment to take the president鈥檚 picture.
Of course there are lots of pictures of Charles Starkweather, the notorious killer. Starkweather with a cigarette dangling from his lips. Starkweather鈥檚 girlfriend Caril Ann Fugate 鈥渨ho was really just a kid," with her big sister.
And, of course, there is a Starkweather story.聽
Barbara and Ralph Fox, looking to photograph the murderer, went to August Meyer's farm after Starkweather had killed Meyer but before he'd been captured.
It was quite a walk to the farm from where they parked, Namuth says, and her mom was having trouble keeping up.聽She decided to wait behind, but asked what she should do if she saw Starkweather.
鈥淚 think F8 at 100 would be pretty good," Ralph Fox replied 鈥 instructions for camera settings.
鈥淭hey were like, crazy brave,鈥 Namuth says of her parents.
She would love to sell their photographs to someone who would preserve them. Perhaps a third party would buy them to donate to the University of Nebraska.
And she would love to be able to tell the story that goes with each picture, in short, Facebook fashion, Namuth says.
鈥淭he actual true story of them is way better than fiction.鈥