These two wonderful people are my GrandUncle Dale & GrandAunt Jean. Dale is the son of my 2nd great-grandparents, Claude Albert Ellis & Blanche Octavia Huband. Dale was a math teacher. These pictures strike me as yearbook photos. Do they have that feel for you? I love the bow tie!
These photos come from the sixth page of the album. Here are pages six and seven to give context for this photo:
This post is part of a series sharing this wonderful old family photo album. You can learn more about the album here. Living descendants of Dale & Jean, please feel free to contact me to obtain scans of the photos that contain living family members. My email address is on the sidebar. 🙂
Francis Cyprien Duval & Alice Hyde, 1903, Oakland, California
Isn’t this photo of my 2nd great-grandparents beautiful?
❤️❤️❤️
It was in a small bundle of negatives my Mom left with me a few years ago. I recently scanned it and was so delighted by the clarity of the image. It’s not the original negative. I believe it is a negative created by my great-grandfather, the son of this couple, by taking a photo of the original photo. When I first worked with this image I was so happy to see a better version of a photo I already had. But when I tried to find the “other” version I realized it was actually a different shot from the same photo shoot. This is the photo I had before:
Francis Cyprien & Alice Hyde DUVAL
Both are lovely. But I am so happy with this new photo!
I spent a little time cleaning it up. Here is the original scan of the negative:
Happy Thursday, I hope you make a fantastic photo discovery this week! xoxo
ps – I was scheduled to have cataract surgery today but it was moved to next week. I’m nervous and excited. Here’s hoping it goes well! (I’m a big fat chicken, so it’s probably going to take A LOT of deep breaths for me to make it to the actual moment of surgery.)
Isn’t this portrait lovely? Beth is my GrandAunt. She is the sister of my Grandma, Mary Margaret Ellis. This photo wasn’t dated so I can’t be certain, but doesn’t it look like an engagement photo? Darwin and Beth were married in 1938.
I generally don’t say much about living people, but today is a day worth mentioning for these two. Darwin turns 100 today! Aunt Beth passed away in 2011 at the age of 91. That is 73 years of marriage!! They have a wonderful posterity of 53.
This photo comes from the second page of the album. Here are pages two and three to give context for this photo:
This post is part of a series sharing this wonderful old family photo album. You can learn more about the album here. Living descendants of Darwin & Beth, please feel free to contact me to obtain scans of the photos that contain living family members. My email address is on the sidebar. 🙂
Back, l-r: Orval Jerrain Maffit, Emma Esther Jerrain; front, l-r: Maynard Seth Maffit, Hilan Thorne Maffit, about 1913
On Monday, I shared some details about a child of my 2nd great-grandmother Emma Esther Jerrain. Emma buried her first two children as very young babies. She went on to have at least ten more children. Here she is with her first three children to survive infancy:
Maynard Seth Maffit was born 13 April 1907
Hilan Thorne Maffit was born 3 March 1909
Orval Jerrain Maffit was born 12 May 1910
All three children were born in Chicago. After the previous losses Emma experienced, I imagine this photo was particularly meaningful to her.
This photo was labeled by Emma’s grandchildren who gave it an approximate year of 1913. My great-grandmother, Hope Estelle Maffit, was born in June of 1913 in Montana. If Grandma Emma was pregnant with Estelle in this photo, it must be very early in 1913 or else she sure is hiding it well under that girdle!
Don’t all four look so similar? Especially their eyes. According to family notes, eleven of the Maffit children had brown eyes, and only one – my great-grandmother – had blue eyes. Both Emma and Seth had brown eyes. This caused my Grandma to speculate, in later years, that Seth was not Estelle’s father. But recently, my mom told me that her Mom and Grandma (Estelle), always told her that Emma had one brown eye and one blue eye. Is it just me… or does her right eye look lighter than her left? Maybe that tidbit is correct! And for the record, I don’t question whether Seth was really Estelle’s father. On top of my gut instinct, DNA supports the paper trail, Seth is Estelle’s father. 😉
What a treasure to find this photo on that CD from my Grandmother’s records!
Happy Thursday, I hope you make a fantastic genealogy photo discovery this week! If not, I hope you choose to preserve and share a precious photo today. xoxo
ps – Remember that Maffit/Jerrain book I was wishing I had a copy of? Well! My cousin Heather scanned the whole book and emailed it to me!! I am loving it! There is a memories section that is the very best part of the book. Thank you, again, Heather, for taking the time to scan and share. It means so much to me! ❤️
Beth, Margaret – my grandmother, & Dale Ellis, likely 1929
Oh my goodness! Isn’t my Grandma absolutely adorable?! She is the wee one in the middle. Really, they are all adorable. I love all of the details in this beautiful portrait, one of my favorites has to be Grandma’s shoes. I’ve never seen shoes quite like them before – so many cute little straps.
Beth was born in 1919, Dale in 1922, and Grandma in 1927. All three have passed. Grandma went first in 2004, then Beth in 2011, then Dale in 2014. I had never seen this photo before. What a treasure!
Here are the first two pages of the album to give context for this photo:
These are my 2nd great-grandparents, Susan Kaziah Davis and Frederick William Ellis. They were both born in England. They each joined the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints and immigrated to America. They made their way to Utah where they met. In 1869, they were married in Salt Lake City. They had ten children. Their youngest son, Claude Albert Ellis, is my great-grandfather. His daughter, Mary Margaret Ellis, is my grandmother. In 1930, Frederick was a widower and is found living in the home of his son Claude. This means that my Grandma spent some of her growing up years with her Grandpa Ellis living in her home. She knew him well. And, that is probably why I have so many Ellis family treasures.
Back to Frederick and Susan. And Sarah. In 1881, Frederick married Sarah Jane Barker. Frederick was a polygamist. He and Sarah had six children. It wasn’t long after his marriage to Sarah that polygamy became a felony. LDS polygamists were forced to make a choice. Frederick was not willing to divorce Sarah. And so, on two occasions, he spent time in the Utah Penitentiary.
Growing up, my Grandma only had happy, positive things to say about her grandparents. She had a framed picture hanging on her wall of the Frederick William Ellis family. At the time it was taken, Sarah was no longer living. Front and center are Frederick and Susan, surrounded by 12 of the children from both wives. (One had died, I’m not sure why the other three were not in the photo, maybe they lived too far away at the time it was taken.) Grandma seemed to have no negative feelings about polygamy. And since it was so close to her, generationally speaking, it had an impact on my perspective. I just really didn’t think much about it. It just was. And now that I am older, I wish I had thought to ask my Grandma more questions about what polygamy was like for her grandparents. But I did not ask. And so I am left to try to glean what I can from the bits of their lives they left behind.
This letter, was among the treasures in my Grandma’s boxes. It was written by Frederick to Susan on 1 January 1887. It is 131 years old. What a treasure!
Transcription:
Utah Penitentiary
Jan 1st 1887
Dear Susey,
I recived your letter yesterday and wase very glad to hear from you and to know you wase feeling better, I have been watching for a letter evry day for a week, Mother and Father sent me up a cake and a Pie and apples and candy for Christmas, I expect thay well come up and see me before thay go Back,
We had a concert on Christmas eve and we had a good time, being on of the committee you know what part I have to take, We have one evry week, I feal a little more at home now I have on my my new close, I do not feal
-page 2-
so much like a black sheep thay say I look good in them
Bro Tracey Left here the other day and I expect he will call on you some day
I have got one of the school arithmetic now but I do not know wether I well go to school or not yet, as Bro Butler is in this Cell he his willing to tell me all I want to know
I have sent to Father to get me some Books and some over shoe’s and you can fix it with him when he comes home
I sent to you the other day for a few things I expect you have recived the letter before this
Pleas tell Fredy not to do anything to the hay Rack before I come home as I well be home in time then I well make a new one tell him
-page 3-
to get some good strate stakes about 3 or 4 feet long to go around the rack if he has time
I would like the children to write to me at any time as it well be all the news I well get from home and tell them to be good children and I well see them again some day
I hope you had a Merry Christmas and I wish you a happy new year remember me to the Bishop and tell him I well write to him some day this is about all I have to say at Present
Hoping this will find you all well
I Remane yours
Truly
F. W. Ellis
If I had my slippers I would like it
That last line may be my very favorite part. There is something so gentle and understated about it as well as the fact that it just catches me off guard each time I read it and I usually laugh out loud a bit.
There is something so cool about holding a letter this old. What a joy to be the current steward of this family treasure.
Happy Monday! Do you have any old family letters? If so, what is the oldest letter you have?
ps – If you are curious about polygamy in my tree, let me tell you a bit. My Dad descends from all LDS pioneers. In his part of my tree, I counted 19 pioneer men and only 4 were definitely polygamists and 2 might have been (more research is needed on those men). Additionally, I have one female ancestor, Sarah Jane Marler, who was married to a man who was not a polygamist (from whom I descend) and then when he was killed she married his best friend who was already married. Many people are under the impression that polygamy was practiced by all members of the LDS church. That is not true. Many LDS men were never polygamists. The church issued what was known as the Manifesto in 1890, officially ending the practice of polygamy. Of course, that wasn’t something that could be followed immediately. But it did mean that no more men entered into the practice of polygamy. I have heard that a few more marriages somehow happened, but generally speaking, no more polygamous marriages occurred after 1890.
This wonderful photo comes from the collection of my GrandAunt Barbara. Pictured is her husband, Uncle Dan. What a lovely photo of a wonderful man! I am very grateful that Aunt Barbara is so willing to share. If I remember correctly, Uncle Dan served in the medical corps of the US Army during WWII.
I took a photo of this photo using my ShotBox. Didn’t it turn out great?
Happy Thursday, I hope you make a fantastic genealogy photo discovery today! If not, I hope you will choose to scan and share a photo today. xoxo
ps – Are any of my genealogy friends US military uniform buffs? Does his uniform match up with my memory? I did a little google searching and couldn’t find what I was looking for in the time that I had.
