My grandmother passed away in November of last year and since then my grandfather has been trying to clean out the house. He recently told me that I can have anything I want. Today I stopped by to rummage around in his attic.

I found some family documents, some letters, and a lot of great photos of relatives, but the most interesting find was an autograph book of my grandmother’s.

I picked it up and the first few pages were entries by friends and relatives, a nice find for me as a genealogist, but nothing too exciting for the general person… but after a few pages I came across autographs of Ozzie Nelson and Harriet Hilliard!

Holy Crap!!! This is awesome! I grew up watching “The Adventures of Ozzie and Harriet” on Nick at Night. I loved that show… mainly because of Ricky Nelson, but still.

The next few pages had even more celebrity autographs, some of them more well known than others…

Bing Crosby (singer/actor):

Bob Hope (comedian/actor):

Alan Ladd (actor):

Johnny Long (big band leader):

Bob Allen (a singer with Tommy Dorsey):

Harry James (big band leader):

John Loder (actor):

Van Johnson (actor):

Humphrey Bogart (actor):

There are two other autographs in this book too. I just can’t make out the names. Maybe some of you can and will let me know who they are:

Exciting stuff! I only went through, at most, five percent of everything in grandpa’s attic, so who knows what else is stowed away up there! I’m excited to find out.

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UPDATE:

The first “unidentified” autograph is by Paul Henreid.  I checked it against other samples online.  Thanks to Jen for letting me know.