My Secret Family History

This is a work of fiction, or mostly fiction, consisting of vintage photographs with accompanying captions. The photographs tell the story of a strange, quirky, and sometimes bizarre group of people, relatives distant and close, who exist on the fringes of memory and imagination.  


From the Introduction: "When I was about twelve my mother announced that she was driving to Wisconsin for the weekend. She wasn’t bringing my father, or my sister, or me. This was rather unusual. She didn’t want to explain, but she finally admitted that she was going to a reunion of distant family members. When we asked why we couldn’t come along, she said only that the people on that particular branch of the family were a bit different. These are photos from an old album we found in the attic many, many, many... many years later. I believe they are those distant relatives from Norway and Denmark who moved to Wisconsin in the early 1800s. They settled on small farms near New Glarus and Mineral Point and lived out their lives in the traditional ways of the Olde Country. Their stories and histories are mostly lost, with only a few childhood memories and the notes on these photographs to document their lives. Among these photos, in the back of the album, were some more recent photographs. They seem to be of me, or someone like me, and a different family that I barely remember, and a “secret twin,” and several sisters and cousins and uncles and aunts marked on the back as 'other'. There were a lot of twins."


Steve Curtis is an award-winning  graphic designer, writer, and photographer who has been making books for over thirty years. He has lived in Indiana, Colorado, Ohio, North Carolina, Germany, Italy, and now lives with his wife and twin daughters in a bucolic corner of Illinois.


Praise for My Secret Family History


“Weird... but extremely beautiful!”

—Ann


“I love all these *family* photo *thingies*... they seem to be somehow hilarious, poignant,

and pretty gorgeous at the same time. Nice work!”

—Karen


“Oh. My. God. This is one of the funniest photo projects I have seen. FABulous. In 100 years,

the anthropologists will be very confused...”

—Karl


“I’m not buying this family history. I think the evidence is overwhelming that you are somehow

related to Edward Gorey.”

—Karin


“Oh, Lordy”

—Linda