This beautiful photo is affixed to the inside cover of the Old Ellis Family Photo Album. Grandma Ellis labeled it as:
“Luella Orton
Blanche Huband”
Blanche is my great-grandmother and the creator of this photo album. She was born in 1895. I asked my GrandAunt Claudia, Blanche’s daughter, about Luella. She shared that Luella was a friend. If you are a descendant of Luella, please let me know, I would love to know a bit about her.
What a beautiful photo of Grandma Ellis, she is so lovely. I especially love her hair – it’s so pretty and soft around her face. And that sweet, subtle, barely-there smile, so much to love in this photo!
Here are the first two pages of the album to give context for this photo:
This post is the first in a series as I share this wonderful old family photo album. You can learn more about the album here.
My first reaction was that they were sisters! I guess we also start looking like our friends. Beautiful photograph!
Thank you, Amy! They do look alike. I wonder if they are cousins of a distant enough sort that I don’t know the relationship. 😉
Uh oh—a rabbit hole you could get lost in….
Haha! Right?! I did some quick checking last night. I am related to Luella, but Blanche is not. 🙂
Well, that figures, doesn’t it! 🙂
🙂
I think they look like each other. I wonder if they were cousins of some sort as well as friends.
They just might be, they lived in North Ogden, Utah. At the time Blanche was born and throughout her growing up, most people in North Ogden would have been descendants of Mormon Pioneers. They could be cousins that are close enough to still resemble each other, but just far enough that I don’t know about it. I think I’m going to try to figure it out. 😉
My grandmother’s best friend growing up was also her cousin. They lived in the sand town and were the same age. It seems likely here as well. Good luck, you are so good at putting all the pieces together.
Thank you, Ellen. ❤️
They certainly do look like they’re related. The shape of the face, the noses, even the eyes. Lucky you with that album.
Thank you, yes!, lucky for sure. So I better take good care of it and get it digitized and shared with my cousins. I take this whole being the steward of family treasures thing very seriously. 🙂
And, I agree, they do look alike.
Ancestry.com has a lot of information on Luella Orton born about 1895. To me seems like the right person. They even have a picture.
I hadn’t even looked, I should have. Thank you for the tip, Charles. I’ll pop over there and see if I can find a family connection. 🙂
Every time you post your photographs I’m reminded I still have to do something about the old photographs gifted to me. They’ve all been shared but I’ve wanted to do a final post about how everyone was related. From the comments you are getting, this is going to be a very interesting series. Looking forward to future posts.
Thank you, Cathy. I will be sharing photos until I die and still not have shared them all. Sometimes I get a little worried about how to handle them all. I’m not complaining, it’s certainly wonderful, but also overwhelming. I have thousands and thousands of photos that have come to me from all parts of my tree – well, except for John Costello’s part, darn it! I am actually in the process of completely reorganizing my office so help with this situation. So far, I am still in the part where I’m making a bigger mess. But I think today is the today I crest the mountain and start creating more order than chaos. I think. 😉
I’m sure you will be cresting the mountain. As they say, a genealogist’s work is never done.
I’m finally working my way down the other side. 😉 And, so true – we will be working until we die.
Super sweet! And the quality and resolution are great for such a vintage treasure. Lucky you!
Thank you, Lenore. I scanned this one using a high quality flatbed scanner. It turned out so great! I do feel lucky for sure!! <3
I agree with all that the two sweet girls look alike and I thought they were sisters. And I also comisserate with you about having thousands of photos to sort through. The most frustrating are those of beautiful, fascinating people with absolutely no identification. I search through photo style, photographer locations etc. etc. and get nowhere. Sigh!
Thank you! And thanks for stopping by. Oh, it’s nice to meet another genealogist drowning in family photos. It is hard and wonderful all at the same time. Those unidentified ones are the worst. Have heart though, one of my least likely to ever be identified tin types was just identified using a collection of family sources. It feels so good! <3