Our House - 16

Why is the theme song for the old TV show My Three Sons suddenly running through my head?

Our House - 14

It is a bit harder to get a sense of the architecture with this family photo. It's probably the 1920s, and the trim on the porch is intriguing.

A Church of Hats

For the second #ThrowbackThursday of every month, I usually feature a school class, but today it's a church congregation. One of the really fun things about the decade between roughly 1900 and 1910 were the really austentatious hats most women wore...and the hats shown in this photo are wonderful!

One has to wonder if these women felt pressure to compete with one another to have the more outrageous hat.

This is one of those times when I wish these old photos were in color: those hats must have been spectacular!

The minister is the only adult present not wearing a hat.

Even one little girl has gotten into the hat thing in a big way.

Kids at a Train Wreck

A passenger train has met with misfortune, and several neighborhood kids have shown up to gawk and get their photo taken...the kid on the right is a crack-up...is he, perhaps, pretending to be an outlaw train robber?

The photo as it appears prior to enhancing:

Which Brookfield School?

All sorts of confusion can occur when there are two towns with the same name in a state. Take Ohio and the Brookfield Townships: there is one in Trumbull County, and another in Noble County. So when a vintage photo shows up of the 1st and 2nd grades from Brookfield, which one is it?

The original photo is extremely faded, this is an enhanced version.

Our House - 8

This is a delightfully beautiful Victorian gingerbread...I only wish I knew where it was! Clearly this was built when manual labor was cheap but still carried great pride in craftsmanship.

A Day on a Riverboat

It's unclear whether this is some special excursion event, or these are just people traveling on a riverboat, but the photo clearly shows these folks are enjoying the trip.

Our House - 7

The height of this house, and the way the flagstones are built up intrigues me, but also doesn't look terribly stable and permanent. A mother, grandmother and little girl pose.

The New Farm School

This class photo is quite likely the first to be taken at this farming community school, judging by how new the building looks.

Our House - 6: Homemade House

This late 1800s house and family cabinet photo must have been extremely precious to someone, given how well-worn it is.

The back has an inscription that seems to have been written by a child (and in handwritting that looks feminine rather than masculine), which reads, "This was our first home Dad and Mother build it almost alone. This is where I was born. Father with Evelyn, Will on the stoll, Lucy, Mother with Anna Mary on her lap." Sadly, neither the writer nor the parents are named.

Rich School, Poor School

In the same antiques store, on the same day, I found these two mounted photographs, which from the clothing appear to come from about the same time period, but which show quite a contrast. First, the poor school:

And now the rich school. Everything from the quality of the clothes and the shoes (or lack thereof!) to the children's expressions, to the backing board that the photos are mounted on highlight the class disparity. Unfortunately, I have no information on where these schools were, nor any of the names of the children.

On the off-chance that some reader might recognize an ancestor, here are higher resolution crops of all the faces.

FamilyPhotoFriday

Every Friday we bring you a vintage family photo with character, and this one has it in spades!

Down on the Farm - Grampa's Horses

This little girl, I wonder if years later she thought about those days on Grampa's farm with his horses, how big and strong they were. I wonder if she looked back on those days as magical, from a different era, when the world was a simpler place. The tack indicates that these horses were set up to pull a wagon.

Our House - 5: Beauty is in the Details

For such a small house, it's nice to see how much effort and craftsmanship went into all the decorative trim on this house.

The scan above shows the photo in its faded condition, and the baby next to the little girl almost goes unnoticed. In the enhanced version below the baby is better seen.

The Teeter-Totter

For #FamilyPhotoFriday, I offer you the simple pleasures of spending some time on a crude but effective teeter-totter.

Miss Howarth's North Side Grade 4 Class

I hate it when valuable bits of family history get separated from their families. This class photo, picked up in an antique store in a Chicago suburb, is worn and faded, but two things help: the photographer notated the class and teacher on the negative, and the sister of two of the students pictured wrote names on the back. This is presumably North Side school, grade 4, with a Miss Howarth as the teacher. The photograph itself is typical of the 1890s.
On the back has been written "George Hasel, Margaret (Meg) Hasel, bro & sister of Ann (Hasel) Gourley".

Contrast enhanced and tone mapped in order to bring out faded details. Presumably that's the principal or headmaster at the far right.

So here are the results of my short bit of research (for the benefit of anyone doing genealogy research on these names) who these folks were: Findagrave.com has an entry for an Anna Hasel Gourley, born June 25, 1891 in Fairbury, Livingston Co. Illinois. The site also has an entry for Margaret G. Hasel, born 1888 (and listed on the site as Anna's sister); while nothing is said of the location of her birth, her grave is in Fairbury, Livingston Co. Ill. Since most fourth graders are nine or ten years old, that would put this photo at 1897 or 1898, consistent with the physical characteristics of the print.

Information on George Hasel is much more tenuous. Findagrave has several by that name, but none buried in Illinois, and only one, George Frank Hasel, who was born in the right date range (June 3, 1887); he is buried in California, so he might be the brother...or his birth date might be just a coincidence.

Geni.com has an entry for Simon J Hasel who lived (and died) in Fairbury and had eight children, three of which are Anna B. Gourley, Margaret G. and George Frank, which to me confirms that this is the correct family matching the photo. If anyone is doing research on this family and has thoughts on these kids, please leave a comment below!

As for Miss Howarth, Findagrave has an entry for a Alice Hindle Howarth, also buried in Fairbury, Illinois. She was born April 6, 1849, so if this photo was taken in 1898, that would make her 49 years old, consistent with her appearance in the photo. As for her being referenced as "Miss" when Howarth is her married name, that is still today a common practice for teachers (my wife is one).

Fairbury is a small town in north-central Illinois, about 80 miles as the crow flies from Elk Grove Village, where the antique store is that had this photo. The population of Fairbury in 2000 was 3,968 and in 1900 was 2,187.

The two Hasel children are marked with blue pen X's.

Car Trip to the Beach

What a better use for that new invention called the automobile than to pack up the kids and head for a day at the beach? Because this photo is a bit blurry, I'm not certain of the car's make/model, but the windshield shape is remniscent of a pre-1920 Studebaker, and the radiator badge appears to be an iron cross. Any suggestions? Please comment below!

Yawning in the School Photo

As a professional photographer, I can attest to the fact that almost invariably, there is one kid in every crowd that will do his utmost to ensure that he leaves a unique mark on the group photo he's a part of. This school crowd is no different: look in the front row, far right, and you'll find a kid who just had to pick the moment when the shutter tripped to yawn. Shows what he thought of this whole exercise.

The name of the school is written in stone above the main entrance, but despite a high-resolution of the scan, the original image is note quite clear enough for me to discern the name. First four letters appear to be S-T-E-N..... The second word is possibly "TRADES" or "GRADES" (although plural doesn't make much sense.

Yawn...

At the Lumber Mill

This is a downright fascinating photograph. It appears to be in logging country (rather large trunks on the wagon), and is presumably a lumber mill...given all the cut lumber on the far right. What I find curious is the presence of two women and a little girl (and her rather large doll).

Now that's a doll!

White shoes? In that environment??