Who Were They?

This photograph from the Mearns Family Album is unidentified, but comes from the area of our previous photo. As Iggy pointed out, Columbia City and Fort Wayne are close by to each other. My guess is this is a relation to the lady yesterday, probably her husband? He has an unfortunate combover but quite an impressive beard! His suit coat is double breasted although it looks like it’s pulling on that top button. My mother tells a story of when she and my dad were newly married. He wore a double breasted coat to some function. A short while later they were going out and she had to convert the coat to single breasted because married life and my mom’s good cooking was treating him well!

The photographer was called Roe Jones, although that was not his name. Levi Monroe Jones was born in 1854 and became a photographer for his trade. He lived until 1945. The back of this cabinet card is fairly decorated, putting it toward the latter part of the era, so I will date this 1890 with a margin of error of 5 years either direction. Men’s fashions just stymie me!