Joao Henriques de Mello took this photo of my grandmother's
friends (possibly members of her adopted family). He was a quite famous
photographer, born in Santiago (11/8/1871), his mother was from CV and
his father was from Portugal, he was the brother of Jose H. de
Mello who (1907-8) was the first Portuguese war photographer. Joao
was the subject of a recent documentary. Since I may have some facts
mixed up please corroborate. I am remembering this from a conversation
with his cousin who lives in Portugal. Joao was an itinerant
photographer. I spoke to the documentary maker who lives in Brazil to
see if there was any sort of index of the photos that Mr. de Mello
had taken b/c I would love to know who these women are. My gram had
only one such photo which she cherished and she must have brought it
with her belongings on her trip from Sao Nicolau to New Bedford. The
women all look so different. But my gram looks like the woman who is
seated. No names are written on the back. Joao Henriques de Mello died
in 1944 in Mindelo. (Research these names: Victor Jose de Mello/ Anna
da Silva Noqueira (2/18/1895/ Maria Jose Medina Henriques). I jotted
the names down but I am not sure why. Also, for some reason I did not
write down the name of the film or the name of the documentary maker.
On 9/21/2024 I found a (copywrighted) photo of him on Barrosbrito. Most likely the copyright is not still valid b/c it is probably more than 72 years. However, I did not want to copy it here. Please just type in "Joao Henriques de Mello" in any search engine and there should be a photo of him and also his brother, Jose.
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