My father, Ray L. Albright, was born in Souderton in 1921, the son of Rolland G. Albright, a longtime employee of the Souderton Independent, and his wife, Sue F. (Loux) Albright. Ray had an older sister, Vivian, and a younger brother, Stanley. The family lived in a row house at 320 Railroad Avenue. As a young boy Ray worked as a paper carrier for the Independent, delivering papers in Telford. His father would give him a dime for the round-trip trolley fare. Ray would take the trolley to Telford, deliver the papers and then walk home, saving a nickel in the process. Ray attended Third Street Elementary School before moving up to Souderton High School in 1936. He was a member of the debating team and President of the Senior Class of 1939. His skills were put to use when it came time to plan the senior class trip, which had always been to Washington, D.C. In 1939, school administrators planned to follow tradition, but the students had another idea. 1939 was the year of the World’s Fair in New York and the Class of 1939 felt that this was too great an opportunity to miss. So Ray, as the Class President, visited Principal E. Merton Crouthamel to propose the students’ idea. Crouthamel was skeptical at first, but my Dad was prepared. He had meticulously researched the costs of a trip to New York and was able to demonstrate to the Principal that the trip could be undertaken at an expense no greater than the usual trip to Washington. My Dad’s debating skills and detailed proposal persuaded Principal Crouthamel, and the Class of 1939 was able to attend the New York World’s Fair!
Ray was an aviation enthusiast from an early age and decided that he wanted to work in the aviation industry. After graduation from Souderton, Ray applied and was accepted into Curtiss-Wright Technical Institute in Glendale, California. His cousin, George Albright, drove him to California in July 1939, a trip that lasted a week. After completing his training there in August 1940, Ray took a bus back to the East Coast, stopping briefly in Souderton before traveling to Buffalo, New York, where he began work as a draftsman in the Curtiss-Wright facility there.
In December 1941 the United States declared war on Japan and Germany, an event that was to profoundly change the lives of many people, including Ray. Although he had envisioned a career as an aeronautical draftsman and engineer, the war was to change all that. My Dad related to me how the large engineering department at Curtiss-Wright in 1940 began to dwindle as 1941 rolled into 1942, until there were only a handful left. He could see the way things were going and realized that eventually he was going to end up in the service. So, in September 1942 he left Curtiss-Wright and enlisted in the army, and was sent to Fort Niagara, New York. Enlistment was a smart move for him, as it gave him some say in which part of the Army he would serve in. Originally his plan was to “try to get into the photographic division of the Signal Corps,” but this apparently did not work out, for he was sent to the St. Louis School of Aeronautics in St. Louis, Missouri, to learn to be an aircraft mechanic. After brief stays in Spokane, Washington, and Oklahoma, in October 1943 he was shipped to the East Coast, put on a troop ship, and sent to Great Britain. On October 20th the ship anchored at Greenock, Scotland. Ray was then put on a train and taken to the place that would be his home for the duration of the war: Base Air Depot (B.A.D.) #2 in Warton, Lancashire, England. (By an amazing coincidence, he was stationed less than 50 miles from the town where my Mom’s mother had grown up.) While there, Ray served as both a draftsman and mechanic. B.A.D. #2 was a major repair and transport hub for the Air Force, and he saw many different types of aircraft fly in and out of the base. At the end of the War in Europe, Ray shipped home, sailing into New York on the Queen Elizabeth, which was used as a troop ship during the war. He was then sent to Drew Field in Tampa, Florida, and was scheduled to be shipped out to the Pacific. Fortunately, the War in the Pacific ended before this would happen. He was discharged from the Army in November 1945 and returned home to Souderton.
Planning to continue his career in the aviation industry, in January 1946 Ray got a job as a draftsman at Kellett Aircraft Corporation of Philadelphia. The postwar economy proved tough for manufacturing firms which no longer had the volume of business they had had during the war, and in August 1946, Kellett laid off a large portion of its workforce, including Ray.
Unemployed, and realizing that his prospects for employment in the aviation industry were not promising, Ray decided to turn to another one of his interests: photography. He used his G.I. Bill benefits to attend the Progressive School of Photography in New Haven, Connecticut. After completing his training there in 1947 he moved back to Souderton, where he opened a photo shop, called Penn Studio, at 11 Penn Avenue.
In 1952 (possibly using benefits from the G.I. bill) Ray purchased a house in Montgomeryville, where he lived for over 50 years. Though he no longer lived in Souderton, he continued to work there and was well known to people in the borough. In 1954 he moved the studio to a larger facility at 34 West Broad Street, where it remained for almost 30 years.
Over the years, countless Souderton residents bought cameras and film from him and brought in their photos to be processed. It was a profitable business for many years, but by the 1970s the photographic business had changed. Color photography had clearly won the competition with black and white, and my Dad only had the equipment to process black and white film. Equipment for color processing was much more expensive, so he had to send color film to Kodak or other labs for processing, which was more costly. In addition, he now faced stiff competition from large stores, which could purchase cameras and film in bulk and sell them for reduced prices. My Dad told me of a number of occasions when customers came into his shop to ask about a particular camera and, after he had explained to them all the features and how to use it, they left and bought the camera from a big retailer. By the end of the 1970s, it was clear to him that he could no longer compete, and he made the decision to retire. In 1981 he liquidated as much inventory as he could, and on December 29, 1981, Penn Studio closed for good.
Fortunately for Souderton, Ray’s legacy has lived on. He took many photographs of people and places in the borough which are still being enjoyed today by residents, old and new. Among these are numerous aerial photographs. Ray had earned his pilot’s license shortly after leaving the Army and took many aerial photographs of Souderton, Montgomeryville, and other communities. There may be only a handful of fellow SHS graduates who remember that class trip to the New York World’s Fair, but there are many residents and former residents who remember my Dad as a fixture in the Souderton business community or enjoy the photographic record he left of their community.
