Hester Violet Reissig was born in Hammond, Indiana on January 31, 1917. She married Mitchell Colwell in 1943 and moved to California in 1960. They raised two daugthers, Lynn and Gayle. During her lifetime Mrs. Colwell was a Girl Scout leader, an elementary school librarian, and a master at origami. A Library of Congress-certified Braille transcriber she spent twenty years Brailling books for area schools and produced over sixty Brailled volumes for the City of Ontario Library.

From 1936-1947 Mrs. Colwell worked as an executive secretary for the Illinois Central Railroad, and was able to obtain rail passes during the Depression. In 1937 she and her mother, Florence Peterson Reissig, travelled to Louisiana and Mississippi on holiday.

Mrs. Colwell died on August 30, 2004.

The photographs were taken by Mrs. Colwell and her mother during their 1937 trip to Louisiana and Mississippi (dates on the original prints suggest a second visit in the summer of 1938). They show the two travellers and a number of the sites, including the Vicksburg National Military Park, they visited during their holiday. The captions and extended notes were written by Mrs. Colwell. The photographs are not in chronological order.