Who Were They?

Lost and forgotten photos from the past

Taylortown Normal School 1902

Mrs Marvel

7 comments

May 1, 2011

Here we have another group shot from a school. This is the Taylortown Normal school, June 19, 1902 and the teacher was J. H. Herrod. A much smaller class and much more casual photograph. The group is made up of 16 boys & young men, six young women and two adults. The boys in the middle are holding a baseball glove and the boy in the center row left is holding a baseball bat. One would assume they either enjoyed that past time or perhaps had a team representing the school.  I do wonder if the building behind them is the actual school?

UPDATE: The amazing Iggy found that Taylortown is a small township in Dunkard County, PA, about 8 miles north of Morgantown, WV. And! The teacher was Jarret H. Herrod, born May 1873, putting him right at 30  years old at the time of the photo. 

Time Stand Still

Mrs Marvel

8 comments

April 29, 2011

One day in the fall of 1935 or so, Dennis Harrington and his buddies on the “L” football team stopped their practice long enough for this team photograph. There are 32 boys and two coaches. Their faces are universal “boy” faces, from Everytown USA. With only a few changes to the uniforms and helmets, this photograph could have been staged last fall instead of 75 years ago.

Time stands still and yet tempis fugit.

The photo comes from an antique store in Orange, CA but we don’t have school buildings like the one in the photo. So, this must be from elsewhere, which is incredibly common. Until about 1960, everyone in California was from somewhere else. This is a proud Sepia Saturday submission. Click through and enter a time warp of sepia photographs from around the world.

Fancy mount

Mrs Marvel

5 comments

April 28, 2011

I have seen this kind of fancy mount one other time, on my pictures of Irene Monroe, but considering of the hundreds of cabinet cards I own this is only the second one I’ve seen, I suspect that this fancy mount is somewhat uncommon. The photo dates from the 1890s based on the clothing, which appears rich and expensive. A silk certainly and I picture a jade green with yellow wheat pattern and the trim in ruby red. It may sound garish to our modern sensibilities but it would have been lovely to see!

The photographer was Theo. Brinkmeier of Sistersville, W. VA. Sistersville was originally known as Wells Landing and has an interesting history for such a small place. It sits along the Ohio River at a wide spot that surely looks like it will flood the next time the river rises. The story goes that Richard Wells landed at this spot, and established a trading outpost in 1802 which later expanded into a small village. Upon his death, two of his 22 children laid out the town in plots. These two children happened to be sisters, and so the village was renamed Sistersville in their honor. The small town epitomized the “brother against brother” concept during the Civil War, as it lies only 12 miles south of the Mason-Dixon. Men went off to join their respective side and fought against one another for four bloody years. Later on in the 1890s, the town enjoyed an oil boom and swelled from a population of 300 to 15, 000. I now wonder if the lady pictured above is a descendant of the founder Richard Wells – who had twenty-two children after all, great potential for descendants – or a wife of one of the oil men who came to town to reap the benefits of black gold.

The information above was gleaned from this delightful history and I hope you will click through and visit for more detail.

Pleased to meet you?

Mrs Marvel

5 comments

April 27, 2011

I giggle a little every time I look at this cabinet card, because the couple looks so stiff and uncomfortable, like it’s the first time they ever met. But noting that they both are wearing a flower corsage, I really suspect this is their wedding photo. Maybe an arranged marriage? Oh my.

The photographer was Van Drimmelen of Sioux Center, IA and I will date this to the 1890s. The photograph has that “look” of the collodion process as well, suggesting it was made after 1894. It’s in the sharp colors and contrast, plus a bit of a blue tint to the mount.

Family Reunion Revisited

Mrs Marvel

4 comments

April 26, 2011

You may have read that our wonderful site regular Intense Guy (aka Iggy) had tracked down the grandchildren of beautiful Irene Monroe, pictured below. Click here to visit the original family reunion post I ran back in January 2011.

At the time it didn’t make much of an impression on me that I only had photos of Irene, her mother and her brother. As Iggy discovered, Irene was married to Fredrick H. Monroe. Well, while I was sorting though my photos the other day, I found this:

Darn my filing system that got messed up, but I’m so happy I found this. There were two copies of the photo, one damaged on the corners. I’ve been in touch with Irene’s family and they are excited to be receiving these newly discovered photos of Irene’s husband.

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