Willard Nelson Handsaker was a railroad employee, a dedicated father of three and an obsessive photographer. From 1932 to 1973, he captured every month in pictures, from his home life in St. Paul’s Mac-Groveland neighborhood to company retirements, track accidents and the giant ice palaces of the St. Paul Winter Carnival.

Handsaker, who studied art in Chicago before becoming a civil engineer with a focus on railroad bridges, compiled photos in hardbound volumes that read like personal diaries. Each as thick as a dictionary, the Handsaker’s Photographic Annuals were painstakingly inscribed with personal remembrances written in large calligraphy reminiscent of the popular fonts of the 1920s.

The annuals chronicle more than 40 years of St. Paul history month by illustrated month, and after spending another 40 years on the shelf, the books are on the move.

On Dec. 10, 40 hardbound volumes and an unbound volume were donated to the Minnesota Historical Society by Handsaker’s son, Bill Handsaker of Minnetonka.

“They all have something of meaning to me,” said Bill Handsaker, 87, a 1946 Central High School graduate who thinks of the family albums as a personal foray through city history. “The first album of this set is from 1932 when I was 4 years old. He was a very talented guy. He was a very avid photographer from the age of 13.”

Jennifer Huebscher, an associate curator of photography at the Minnesota Historical Society, said the organization plans to digitize the entire set and present them online.

Once they’ve been cataloged, hard copies will be available to view by request at the Gale Family Reference Library on Kellogg Boulevard.

“They are one of the highlights in my seven years working with the (Historical Society) photographs,” Huebscher said. “I’ve never seen albums quite like this, the fact that these were handcrafted. He used a lot of his drafting design to augment the albums. These aren’t your run-of-the-mill family albums.”

Born in 1887 and raised in Washington State, Willard Handsaker and his wife, Bertha, married in 1918 and moved to St. Paul shortly after. After a lifetime in the house the family built on Berkeley Avenue in Mac-Groveland, he spent his final years living on Exchange Street in downtown St. Paul. He was 100 when he died in 1987.

Handsaker’s entries touch on topics that range from the mundane to what local history buffs might consider sublime — a pictorial catalog of the city in its prime, before its population declined throughout the 1970s.

The Handsaker’s Annual from 1938 features photos of several sites that would be instantly recognizable to fans of old St. Paul, such as the Robert Street bridge in its early years or the Ramsey County Courthouse on Kellogg Boulevard. Family picnics drew him to Kaposia Park in South St. Paul and Battle Creek.

The photographs also capture the Winter Carnival drum corps parade and elaborate ice sculptures of dog sleds and drum majorettes. Handsaker frequently details the type of camera he used to take the black-and-white photos, and sometimes apologizes when he feels compelled to describe a scene he failed to shoot.

“I made a skating rink out of the back yard, so Bill could learn to skate,” writes Handsaker, in an entry dated January 1938. “Smallpox scare; we all got vaccinated. 12 below zero, the 8th; snow the 10th; fine mild winter weather till we had a storm the 25th.”

“…I painted the basement floor and had one sick night, possibly from paint fumes. The Winter Carnival parade was on Saturday the 29th: about 20 (degrees) and calm.”

“Our office closed at 12; we drove downtown and viewed the parade from just below the Cathedral. Betsy twirled with the … marchers. The evening of the 31st I took the streetcar to the Ice Court on Dayton’s Bluff to see the fireworks.”

A nature enthusiast, Handsaker and his wife took Bill, the youngest child, and their two daughters, Elizabeth and Penelope, on frequent trips to rivers, camping sites and natural areas such as Yellowstone National Park and Kodiak Island, Alaska.

Many of the photos in the annuals capture those out-of-state trips, including the 1962 World’s Fair in Seattle, where the city’s Space Needle and monorail made their debuts.

A collection of Handsaker’s photographs taken from his childhood in Washington state through his early adult years will be housed with the Washington State History Research Center.

“We’ve already received some wonderful diaries that were written by Willard Handsaker,” said Lynette Miller, the collections director for the research center.

Elizabeth, who is referred to as Betsy in the annuals, married Bill Hennon, a World War II fighter pilot from Mound, Minn., whose war exploits — including his escape from the Philippines as Japan invaded — made headlines in Minnesota.

After surviving the war, he died during a routine flight over Long Island Sound while his wife was still pregnant.

Elizabeth later married Don Raudenbush, whose family was known in the Twin Cities for founding the Raudenbush and Sons Piano Co. at University Avenue and Pillsbury Street in St. Paul.

Elizabeth and Penelope, referred to as Penny or Peggy in the annuals, have since passed away, leaving Bill as the sole curator of Handsaker’s Photographic Annuals.

“I don’t have any family left except a niece and a nephew, and I have no children,” said Bill, a retired industrial engineer. He hopes his father’s artistry, photographic legacy and love of St. Paul will live on in the annuals.

He may no longer own the annuals, but he retains his father’s love of travel. After Christmas, he’ll be off on a sight-seeing tour of Panama.

Frederick Melo can be reached at 651-228-2172.

Follow him at twitter.com/FrederickMelo.