Vancouver Island woman looking to return family portraits found in thrift store photo album

Gold River -

A local photographer who loves mysteries is hoping the public can help her solve one she's working on right now – trying to reunite some special photographs with their owner.

Maxine McLean purchased a photographic scrapbook for three dollars from the Campbell River Restore after first flipping through it to ensure it was in good shape. When she got it home, she suddenly discovered there was a handful of photographs still in the middle of the book.

"When I threw it on the desk in my house it opened backwards showing me (photos) and I went, 'Uh-oh,'" McLean says.

Inside, she found a couple's wedding photo, a 1952 image of someone's grandmother on a trip to England and a touching Mother's Day memento created in 1977 that shows a tiny handprint and a sentimental poem.

"I think it's kind of unique. It would be really cool to find out if the person was alive, and you could actually contact them and give them back something that they've lost," she says.

Maxine McLean is hoping to return some family photos that were found in a photo album that she bought from a Campbell River thrift store: (CTV News)

McLean purchased the album so that she could put together her own memento, using photos she was recently sent of her. They were images she didn't know existed.

That's why she is making the extra effort to get these photos into the hands of their owner, believing the family that donated the album to Restore may not actually know the photos were still in it because it had been emptied out at both the front and back of the book.

"The fact nothing was at the front made me think maybe somebody had taken things out and forgotten these ones in there," she says.

One of the best clues may be a gentleman in white who appears to be either a doctor or dentist. A stamp on the rear of the photographs indicates it was taken by a newspaper in Waterloo.

Maxine McLean is hoping to return some family photos that were found in a photo album that she bought from a Campbell River thrift store: (CTV News)

"I'm trying to connect the dots and say, 'Is this the son, or is this the dad of the son that left the handprint?'" McLean says.

She posted the images to her Facebook page in the hopes that someone will recognize their relatives in the photographs.

"People, I think, really do care and respect (photos) that show a history of the family and somebody may want to see them," she says.