Family Collections But Not Mine.........

I have posted photos before from another album that had 1880's images.  Most of that album is full of people of the past from the Osceola, Iowa, Graves Photography.  This book is full of photos from the Fort Wayne, Indiana area.  There were two different photography studios that this family used in having themselves photographed.  The album seems to be of a similar time period as the Iowan album.  It has many family members in it that look alike.

I will retell the story of how the two albums that I have were left in an abandoned house.  My dad tore down the house to create a new home.  I am sorry if you have followed me for a while because I do find myself repeating things as the years go by.

The older Victorian had been empty 20 years or more. My dad saved most everything that he could like trunks and small items.  I had never thought about it before but someone must have moved the last family in the house out of it.  No furniture was in the house except for a weathered upright piano and a couple of trunks.  The house had been boarded up for many years because the windows had been broken out of it to require it.

When I sold the newer home that replaced this one in the picture,  I had a realtor that went to school across the street from the old house  He remembered it always being there his elementary school years. He also said kids had nicknamed it the towns haunted mansion.

Being these photos are not of people who lived in the house, the only connection to the story so far is that the album from Fort Wayne, Indiana was in the house and was left behind by relatives.  Maybe it was on an in law side of the family and those who emptied the house just didn't want to bother with the trunks.

Jarrard Photography was the business that took most of the photos. I don't see any identity of a company on any of the smaller shots.

F. Shanz Studio was another business that took some of the photos.  The couple in the left photo above were not to be wed for long as the guy died,  They used a different pose of the man as they made up his funeral card. The photo has the studio identified and even the street number but no name or date was included on the card.

A not so clear photo from the album shows sisters maybe.  At first the top person looked like it could have been a guy but the hair seems to be more like a girls hair with a hat pressed down over it.

Boy or girl I do not know but the young child reminds me of the adults in facial features. It looks like a boy to me but I am sure others could see something differently.

I would like to scan all of the photos someday and put them through a facial recognition program to see what the full grouping would be.  I think their are brothers and sisters in here.  I am assuming some of the smaller ones are cousins to the whole group.  That mystery continues to be until I get my act together.  Right now I am Act 2 and someday will come to Act III when I get some of it figured out.

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