In the 1950s, the masses did not allow or accept homosexuality. Instead, many people live secretly, but photos of gay weddings in the 1950s prove that even behind closed doors, people found a way to fall in love freely.
However, this mystery will still be nearly 70 years later. Who is the person in the photo, and why don’t they retrieve the photo after putting down the movie at a Philadelphia drugstore?
Documentary producer PJ Palmer encountered these photos a few years ago in the LGBTQ+ archives in California. For Palmer, these pictures are worth a thousand words.
"It does move to some extent because it's like, oh wait a minute, we have history. We do have history."
He and his team are determined to find these people in the mysterious photos. Half of the collection is located in an archive at the USC Library in Los Angeles, and the other half is donated to the Will Way Way LGBT Community Center in Philadelphia. CBS News Philadelphia visited the archives and saw some originals.
According to Philadelphia’s archivist, the film was laid down at a drugstore on the corner of Allegheny Avenue and Broad Street. Now, it's a corner shop, but photos from the City Archives show it's a drugstore from the 1950s. Wedding photos are never returned to the owner. Decades later, when they were donated to archives, they surfaced. Palmer spent three years trying to identify these people.
He said, “I can’t tell you how many times we jumped, saying, we found them, we got them.”
Palmer's research includes negotiations with South Philadelphia's Mel Heifetz. He will be 90 later this year, and in the time of these photos, he was in his gay twenties in Philadelphia in the 1950s.
Hefts told CBS News that Philadelphia told CBS News: "I was actually at two weddings, they were in their apartment in Philadelphia, but I didn't know these people. If I did, I wouldn't remember them."
Heifetz spent his life among LGBTQ+ philanthropists and activists, saying that in the 1950s he and other gay friends went to gay bars and restaurants.
“Philadelphia has always had a gay community in the heart of the city,” he said.
We may never know who the person in the photo is, but Palmer did not give up.
"I don't know if they're with us, though, if we can find family members, they know these guys are having a really good life and that's lovely for them."
If you think you may recognize someone or more information about these photos, please contact CBS News Philadelphia and we will contact your team for this project.