Listen, I know my scams. I’ve written about them, done TV stories about them, lived through them.

But last spring, my sister got an email pitch that was new to me.

HelloI am trying to get in touch with any living family member of Mary Ellen Edgerton (1904-2001) regarding a very large photo album and scrapbook of her childhood and high school days in Aurora, Nebraska, where she graduated with the class of 1922. If you may be Mary Ellen’s granddaughter, please contact me.Thank you, Aaron Turner

I am trying to get in touch with any living family member of Mary Ellen Edgerton (1904-2001) regarding a very large photo album and scrapbook of her childhood and high school days in Aurora, Nebraska, where she graduated with the class of 1922. 

If you may be Mary Ellen’s granddaughter, please contact me.

Okay. So many questions.

Who is this guy? How did he reach my sister, who has virtually no online presence? How could there be a “very large photo album” that nobody knew about? How the hell did he get it?

And above all, what’s his angle?

The most unsettling part was how he’d nailed the details. Mary Ellen Edgerton was our grandmother (our dad’s mom). She did grow up in Aurora. She did die in 2001.

After consultation with my sister, my brother, and my father, I responded to this Aaron Turner character, asking for more information. And I got it:

In August of 2025, I purchased an old photo album from an online antique dealer in Florida. It contains numerous photographs of Mary Ellen in her high school days with friends; her with her violin in various orchestras; and at the back, many pictures of her family, including her parents Frank & Mary, her brother Harold, and her younger sister Margaret. 

In August of 2025, I purchased an old photo album from an online antique dealer in Florida. It contains numerous photographs of Mary Ellen in her high school days with friends; her with her violin in various orchestras; and at the back, many pictures of her family, including her parents Frank & Mary, her brother Harold, and her younger sister Margaret. 

(“Her brother Harold” grew up to become celebrity MIT scientist Harold Edgerton, pioneer of the strobe light, sonar, and high-speed photography.)

Turner also attached some photos of the photos — and they were amazing. Grandma as a teenager, as a little girl, as a baby.

And then, inevitably, the offer:

If you may be interested in retaining this album for the family, I would ask $150 to include my original costs and outbound shipping. Perhaps this would be a good 98th birthday present for Dick on April 26, 2026. 

If you may be interested in retaining this album for the family, I would ask $150 to include my original costs and outbound shipping. Perhaps this would be a good 98th birthday present for Dick on April 26, 2026. 

Okay, enough with the creepy insider family knowledge!

Dave:How in the world did he find us?And, even more amazing, how did he know about me and my birthday?I would say that he earned the $150!                      Dad

How in the world did he find us?

And, even more amazing, how did he know about me and my birthday?

I would say that he earned the $150!

                      Dad

Whatever Aaron Turner’s game was, he was indeed enterprising. I Venmo’d him the money and began a convoluted, eye-opening journey through an online network I hadn’t even known existed: people who find, sell, and collect strangers’ old photos.

The album arrived overnight, impeccably packaged.It was spectacular. It was a three-dimensional snapshot of Mary Ellen’s life more than 100 years ago.

As her grandson, I’d known only the elderly Mary Ellen: sweet, erudite, a little dotty. Every year, without fail, she sent us the same Christmas gifts: objects d’clutter from her attic.

But here was Mary Ellen in full flower: beautiful, lively, funny, talented, accomplished. According to her high-school yearbook clipping, she participated in “Student Council, Junior Play, Senior Play, and Basket Ball.” She played violin all over town. Before even graduating college, she’d become a travel columnist for the Hamilton County........

© Daily Intelligencer