Week 2 - Favorite Photo

I am one of the fortunate few who inherited most all the photos that my parents and grandparents (on both sides) had collected over their lifetimes. A few of the original photographs I have are more than 150 years old. I know who sat for each of these photos, in most cases, but a few have escaped identification. Nonetheless, I keep them safe, and they've all been scanned. For Christmas this year, to divest myself of a ton of photos of my own descendants, I presented each of them with a box containing all those memories from their own childhoods. Photos are memories on paper and it was fun going through them all. It's incredibly difficult to pick just a single "favorite" photo, but for the purpose of this week's topic, I present you with this one.

This particular photo is 113 years old. It has meaning to me, as the lady on the right is my grandmother, Henrietta Anthony Patton. Henrietta was born in 1890 in Hannibal, Missouri. Her father, David Williamson Patton, was born in Pennsylvania in 1854, but at some point before 1880, he became employed by the Wabash Railroad and migrated west to Kansas City. In the early 1880's, he was transferred to Hannibal. It was at this time he met and married my great-grandmother, Maria Rosina Neth, the daughter of German immigrants, and they began their family. Their oldest son, William, was born in 1888, followed by my grandmother, then a son and one more daughter. By 1897, another daughter was born in Moberly, Missouri, when the family was transferred for the final time.

I love pictures that tell a story, and there is so much history in this photo, but what does it really say? I'm about to tell you...

Let's first talk about the date it was taken. On the back is 8/25/11. I spent summers in Moberly as a child. If you've ever been there in the summer, there is no doubt in my mind that my grandmother, and her fellow photographed few, must surely be steaming in their elaborate garb. It made me wonder if the date on the back could really be accurate. I decided to do a little investigative weather research and to my surprise, the average lows in Moberly in late August, historically, run in the 60's to low 70's. In 2023, for example, the low on this date was only 57 degrees. If the photo was taken in the morning, it would make perfect sense for the ladies to be wearing a light jacket over their dresses. It also occurred to me that by this time on my summer visits, I would have already been home preparing to start back to school.

What about their clothing (this is one of my favorite parts of this photo)? I remember my grandmother telling me she used to make hats before she married my grandfather, but I'd never seen any proof. In the 1910 census, just the previous year, she is enumerated as a milliner! While I can't be certain, there is a great likelihood that she made the hat she is wearing. On a side note, her maternal grandfather, Peter Neth, was a hatter who brought his craft from Germany, and although I'm pretty sure she never knew him, I wonder if that is where her inspiration came from.

What about Henrietta herself? This is the only photo of her as a young woman. I do have several of her as a child along with her parents and siblings, and a few of her as a wife and mother, but no others at this age. I see her in this photo as being happy and carefree. A young woman with her whole life ahead of her; smiling, almost celebratory in a way. She married my grandfather in 1913, and although they spent fifty years together, they did not have an easy life.

Finally, what about the location? Why would a group be standing on some sort of wagon or railcar in the middle of the train yard? It was certainly Moberly, which was home to the large "Wabash Shop" that my grandfather oversaw. The other folks in the photo were not identified, and I can't discern who they are from other old photos I have. They could be anyone, but surely they were known to my family. I wouldn't think that this location would have been a common spot to pose for a photo. Why would they be there?

If I've said it once, I've said it a thousand times - old newspapers are a treasure. After going through my stack of notes, I found a newspaper article related to my great-grandfather. It read, "Moberly Man, Inventor" and went on to tell that he had received a patent, the previous day, on a hot-water injector which he had invented, and that he had received several offers from other railroad companies who wanted to purchase it. The date of the article was August 25, 1911, the same date as the photo.

We've pieced the story of this photo together and while I'll never know who those other three folks are, to see the smile on my grandmother's face is all I need.