Kingston, Ont. man searching for mystery couple in photo found during renovation

A Kingston, Ont., man is looking to solve the mystery of a photograph discovered during a bathroom renovation in early December.

Garrett Elliott was renovating his home’s en suite washroom on Pimlico Place when he found an old polaroid photo of a couple from the 1970s or ’80s hidden under the vanity.

“I was surprised to see it,” Elliott said. “It was kind of just like, ‘OK, who was this? Was it former owners of the house, was it somebody from the neighbourhood, was it friends?’ So it was just kind of figuring out how we could (find) out who these people are and get in touch with them.”

He took to social media in his search and got a couple of leads.

The first lead was confirmed to not be the photo’s owner, but another lead found through the Vintage Kingston Facebook group may still be a match.

Elliott has reached out through Facebook in an attempt to connect, with the intent to return the photo and learn more about the place he now calls home.

Through connecting with others in his search, Elliott has had a chance to learn more about the history of his neighbourhood through old pictures and videos that were shown to him.

“It’s just a cool sense of connection, I think,” he says. “Especially right now in a pandemic when people are disconnected, potentially. You get that sense of history and that reminder that people are connected in different ways, which is really cool.”

According to a former neighbour, the mystery picture points to the previous homeowners of the house during the ’70s. Elliott is now trying to get in touch with one of the possible daughters of the couple.

“I just want to show them that we found it, maybe send it back to them,” says Elliott. “Hopefully, you know, revive some old memories that they had, some experiences that they had in the house. Hopefully bring some happy memories to the holidays.”