View allAll Photos Tagged InfantMortality
Photos from the Anyox Ghost Town Abandoned Cemetery taken in May 2024
These are mostly graves of WW1 soldiers who left Anyox to fight in the war. The ones who returned to Anyox were promised a proper soldiers burial in the town cemetery once they passed away.
Learn much more about this incredible site here:
freaktography.com/anyox-ghost-town-abandoned-anyox-cemetery
And a video here:
© Ann Longmore-Etheridge Collection.
The mourner in this stunning image wears a large hair memorial brooch on her wide, black collar.
© Ann Longmore-Etheridge Collection.
Neither of these twins look happy with the lot befallen them. Unfortunately, we will never know who they were or who they had lost.
A mom and her newborn baby at the Maternal & Child Health Training Institute for medically needy in Dhaka, Bangladesh. Maternal mortality remains a very serious concern in Asia and the Pacific – especially in South and South-West Asia, which has one third of the world’s maternal deaths. Only 5% of births in Nepal and 19% in India were attended by skilled personnel in 2006, according to UNESCAP.
Photo ID 451897. 14/06/2010. Dhaka, Bangladesh. UN Photo/Kibae Park. www.unmultimedia.org/photo/
This is a trimmed version of the card, which is marked "Photographs from J. E. Taylor, Mercersb-g, PA," and about the size of two carte de visites laid crosswise. The image shows seven young women in white or light colors. An eighth young woman, who is dressed in black, is almost certainly mourning. Four of the women look to her with obvious sympathy, while another hangs familiarly upon her shoulder. My deduction is that this group of friends posed for this tableau with the bereaved to create a lasting image of the support, empathy, and love they felt for her.
Shortly after I moved to California in the seventies, I attended a rally against the construction of this nuclear power plant so close to three or four earthquake faults. I remember hearing Bonnie Raitt and Jackson Browne performing and speaking there. Now PG&E is planning to close the plant. The consumers who had to pay extra for the construction of the plant will now have to pay extra for its mothballing...
Edit: Now they were given more than a billion dollars to keep it open for five years longer than originally considered safe...
« Safe, clean, too cheap to meter!... »
Apart from the danger of earthquake-related nuclear disasters and the impossibility of safe waste disposal, a scientific study now found a remarkable and statistically significant 28% overall increase in infant mortality rates near the Diablo Canyon power plant, correlating significantly with cumulative releases of Tritium from the nuclear power plant to the sea.
Mark Bryan, The Neighbor (2014), oil on canvas, 30 x 24 in.
Seen at the GALA Center Gallery in San Luis Obispo.
Written on the reverse in contemporary script is "Mifs Maggie Webber, Trindle Spring Hold, PA" with a hand-cancelled blue 2 cent revenue stamp.
I've found Trindle Spring, but cannot find a Maggie or Margaret or even M. Webber in that area. This beautiful girl remains a mystery at the moment.
© Ann Longmore-Etheridge Collection
"Hannah McCracken Kelly, our mother, taken after her death."
Hannah B. McCracken was the daughter of John and Mary McCracken (or Mecracken), who farmed in Claysville, Washington County, Pennsylvania, during the early 19th Century. Named after the “Great Compromiser” U.S. Senator Henry Clay (1777-1852), the town is located on the line of the Cumberland Road which forms its Main Street. Claysville is 18 miles east of Wheeling, West Virginia, and 10 miles west of Washington, Pennsylvania. The town was laid out in 1817 and remained unincorporated until 1832.
John McCracken was born about 1795 in Pennsylvania and died 28 December, 1865, in Claysville. His wife, Mary, the daughter of Samuel Caldwell of Buffalo Township, was born in about 1797 and died 4 August, 1878. The couple married in Washington County on 30 December, 1820. They are buried together in the old Purviance Cemetery, Claysville.
A second copy of this daguerreotype exists and was sold on eBay in July 2012. Almost unbelievably, a third copy, located in Australia, was sold on eBay in October 2012. It must be assumed that each of Hannah's children had a copy of this image. Mine appears to be the original and the only one with identifying information enclosed.
To read more about this dag and this family, visit Your Dying Charlotte:
dyingcharlotte.com/2018/09/24/a-mirror-image-of-mother/
Note: www.flickr.com/photos/60861613@N00/6827629872/in/photostream
Here is a lovely example of a monotone ensemble that appears black actually being, without doubt, black. If her clothes were not black, the hand-colorist would have surely let us know.
When we look at various types of 19th century photos, there is no reason to believe that what looks like mourning black is actually bright yellow or orange or some other color, just because some photographic processes could make these colors look black. We need to keep in mind that just because it is possible, it is not probable when other contextual clues tell us that garb is indeed black.
This woman is beautifully dressed in what appears to be wool with applied woven trim. At the throat, surrounded by her magnificent crochet collar is a large ambrotype photo brooch of a man, probably her husband.
This image has been used in the PBS series "Finding Your Roots."
On the reverse is an orange 2-cent tax stamp. No photographer's mark.
© Ann Longmore-Etheridge Collection
The plate bears the hallmark in the upper right corner of the Gaudin brothers: a rosette, lamb (Agnus Dei) between 2 crescent moons.
If there are any medical professionals viewing this, does it appear to you as if the mother might have something wrong with one eye? The eye on the left, as we view her, seems clouded. I'm not sure of this is a cataract or merely reflection of the photographer's light source.
Additionally, I feel confident that this woman is mourning. Her monotone clothing, not even broken by a white collar, makes this almost certain.
"L. H. Feyen, Liege, Boulevard de la Sauveniere, 137."
It is hard to imagine the heartbreak. It is too terrible to compass.
"New York Portrait Co., Geo. G. Utt, Manager, Nos. 1426 and 1428 Franklin Avenue, Saint Louis, MO. The negative of this photographis preserved for future orders and can be reduced to the smallest locket or enlarged up to life-size and finished in Crayon or Water Color."
The folds of her skirt are so crisp that they almost take my breath away.
© Ann Longmore-Etheridge Collection
"Hannah McCracken Kelly, our mother, taken after her death."
Hannah B. McCracken was the daughter of John and Mary McCracken (or Mecracken), who farmed in Claysville, Washington County, Pennsylvania, during the early 19th Century. Named after the “Great Compromiser” U.S. Senator Henry Clay (1777-1852), the town is located on the line of the Cumberland Road which forms its Main Street. Claysville is 18 miles east of Wheeling, West Virginia, and 10 miles west of Washington, Pennsylvania. The town was laid out in 1817 and remained unincorporated until 1832.
John McCracken was born about 1795 in Pennsylvania and died 28 December, 1865, in Claysville. His wife, Mary, the daughter of Samuel Caldwell of Buffalo Township, was born in about 1797 and died 4 August, 1878. The couple married in Washington County on 30 December, 1820. They are buried together in the old Purviance Cemetery, Claysville.
A second copy of this daguerreotype exists and was sold on eBay in July 2012. Almost unbelievably, a third copy, located in Australia, was sold on eBay in October 2012. It must be assumed that each of Hannah's children had a copy of this image. Mine appears to be the original and the only one with identifying information enclosed.
To read more about this dag and this family, visit Your Dying Charlotte:
Recently, I was besieged by a commenter who tried to tell me that no matter how many images or actual surviving pieces I produced (and I can produce a lot), these "exceptions" are trumped by the etiquette and fashion books from the era--some of which command that women should not wear any jewelry but black jet, gutta percha, pressed horn, or bog oak jewelry when in mourning. This photo, however, indisputably shows a woman in first-stage (or deepest) mourning doing just that.
While one exception often proves the rule, a pile of exceptions should lead a reasonable historian to conclude that just because 19th-century fashion and society arbiters proclaimed that all women should behave according to their rules, real women did not actually do so. It would be wrong to assume that all modern women live and die by the dictates of fashion houses, designers, and magazines, or that all slavishly follow what soi-disant social and religious dictators command. It was just as wrong then. No matter how much more restricted women's lives were in the 1800s, the rules of mourning clothing and jewelry were not something commanded by law, and so women followed cultural guidelines as much or as little as they chose or could afford to do.
In this image, we can plainly see that this particular woman is wearing with her mourning attire a gold-bodied brooch that almost certainly contains the hair of the deceased. Why the choice of plain gold over gold and black enamel? Who knows. But it happened by her own personal choice or circumstances. In any case, it is certainly not an outlier and testifies as primary source evidence of good weight. A book--even one from the age--does not carry a higher weight on the evidence scales against copious numbers of actual photos and extant pieces of the jewelry.
Photos from the Anyox Ghost Town Abandoned Cemetery taken in May 2024
These are mostly graves of WW1 soldiers who left Anyox to fight in the war. The ones who returned to Anyox were promised a proper soldiers burial in the town cemetery once they passed away.
Learn much more about this incredible site here:
freaktography.com/anyox-ghost-town-abandoned-anyox-cemetery
And a video here:
She may be English, as the white crape caps were favored by widows there, but she may also be American--stylistically the image points to that. She also appears to wearing a brooch incorporating woven hair surrounded by pearls, which symbolized tears.
"J.M. Keniston, Danville IL."
I believe this woman is wearing mourning, although I am not completely sure. The white flowers in her coif may indicate widowhood; she may be wearing a hair mourning brooch. This American CDV can't really date any earlier than 1859, but her gown appears fashion-retro. The bodice shape is completely wrong for the era, unless she either wore this cut of gown when younger and refused to change style, or it is an old mourning dress being re-worn for a new loss. The other option is that this is a copy of an earlier daguerreotype, although I am not seeing any real signs that it is. Your thoughts?
© Ann Longmore-Etheridge Collection.
Here is yet another image of a woman wearing a mourning brooch in a sloppy way--in this case, cocked nearly vertical. I wouldn't have expected this from a Victorian, as it has the air of disregard for the deceased. That said, I now have multiple images of such in my collection--enough, perhaps, that this no longer an exception, but indeed part of a rule. And *that* said--I completely love this image. She has totally won my heart. What a dear she must have been!
The card is stamped with the name of a Russian photographer and there is faded Cyrillic writing on the reverse.
© Ann Longmore-Etheridge Collection
Plate is Hallmarked "WHH 40". The sitter is probably in mourning and may be wearing a hair memorial brooch, although the gold paint has made it impossible to tell.
"Vaughan, Photographer, 223 Bowery, New York."
This hand-tinted image is a home run of 1860s mourning photos. Because it is tinted we can be absolutely sure that a black dress was indeed a black dress, that her collar and her belt both were also black, and--as the coup de grace to any possibility that this is not a mourning ensemble--she is wearing a large gold photo brooch that probably contained a lock of hair in a reverse compartment. This is the fashion plate for what an 1860s, Civil War-era woman in mourning looked like, minus a black veiled bonnet, which would not have been normally worn inside. When one sees non-colored CDVs of women wearing similar outfits, you can be sure that in reality those outfits were black and that those women were in mourning.
I am not sure what the gold object tucked beneath her belt is. My first thought is a gold pocket watch, but I see no chain. It may also be a small mirror.
Red velvet inner cushion marked: "C. C. Scoonmaker, Market Bank Building, 282 River St., Troy, N.Y."
This woman in full mourning wears a good chain and pencil case and may have a gold brooch at her throat, as well as a black bracelet. This once again shows that gold jewelry was worn by some women in first-stage mourning.
© Ann Longmore-Etheridge Collection. A mother in an old-fashioned widow's bonnet poses with her daughters. Her white frill, while they wear solid black, implies that the loss is of her husband and the daughters' father.
(I should also note that another possible relationship between these ladies is mother, daughter, granddaughter.)
It's interesting that the magnificently colored red drape is barely seen in the final matted format.
Carlos Baker was born in Ohio, 1 October, 1827. He was the son of Ebenezer Baker, a veteran of the War of 1812 (13 Sept., 1787, Vermont – 21 Nov., 1859, Allegan, MI), and Mary Chase Spalding (23 May, 1795, Waitsfield, VT – 16 April, 1873, Beatrice, Nebraska). The couple wed on 1 February, 1815, in Waitsfield, Vermont. Carlos was the fifth of their ten children born during the course of four decades. The others were: Sarah M. (29 May, 1816 – 1895); Horace W. (17 Feb., 1818-1850); Artimas N. (b. 1821); Cordelia (4 June, 1824 – 1900); Julia C. (b. 12 May, 1826); Rodney Spalding (6 June, 1830 – 1905); Norman (8 Feb., 1832 – 1850); William H. (2 June, 1835 – 1870); Philmer (b. 22 July, 1838); and Littlejohn (8 Feb.,1840 – 1904).
Carlos’s paternal grandparents were Johnathan Baker (d. 4 Feb., 1850, Marcellus, NY) and Sarah, last name unknown (d. 30 April, 1833). Carlos’s maternal grandparents were Abel Spalding (28 December, 1764, New Ipswich, NH – 16 June, 1844, Norton, OH) and Hannah Chase (24 Dec., 1769, Cornish, NH – 2 March, 1832, Delaware Co., OH). Abel and Hannah were married in 1790. Before becoming husband and wife, Spalding had been a private in the company commanded by Captain Charles Nelson of Delaware County in Col. Benjamin Wait's Vermont Regiment for seven months in 1781. Spalding appeared before an Ohio court to battle for his pension payments, and he gave evidence that was recorded verbatim. This included that he was one of the troops raised to defend against attacks by “the invading Tories from Canada…. The Indians and Tories were continuously hovering around us, keeping us in a state of alarm, and occasionally either killing or carrying off our scouts.” He continued that, after being mustered out, “I was paid for my services in Vermont bank paper money, which was then worth almost nothing.”
In 1850, the census places Carlos Baker in the township of Lyme, Huron County, Ohio, as a 24-year-old cabinetmaker with personal goods valued at $700. He appears to be living as a lodger. He arrived in Allegan, Michigan, sometime in the next few years—perhaps he came to join his father, Ebenezer, who was in Allegan County by 1850, as was Carlos’s brother Littlejohn. Wikipedia says that the town had its roots planted several decades earlier, when “The men after whom Allegan's downtown streets were named—Elisha Ely, Samuel Hubbard, Charles Christopher Trowbridge, Pliny Cutler, and Edmund Monroe—patented land in the area in 1833. They considered the site a prime location for industry, due to its potential for waterpower (since it straddled the Kalamazoo River) and water-bound transportation. By 1835, a dam and sawmill had been established.”
Carlos soon met the woman who would become his wife, Eliza Higgins (15 April, 1829, NY – 3 April, 1903, Allegan, MI). She was the daughter of Jabin Strong Higgins (b. 9 March, 1799, Windham, New York) and Betsey Aldrich (b. 10 November, 1802, Poultney, Vermont). The pair wed 8 April, 1854. In short order they had three children: Willis J. (b. 1854 or 1855); Albertis Otis (b. 2 June 1857); and Ernestine (b. 18 August, 1859).
Carlos’s father, Ebenezer Baker, died 21 November, 1859, of consumption in Gunplain, Allegan County. He was buried in Oakwood Cemetery—the first to be laid to rest in the family plot.
On 17 November, 1860, we can read Carlos Baker’s own words in a letter to the editors he wrote to the publication The Scientific American. The subject was most delightful: pans for boiling maple sap. “We use sheet iron pans almost entirely, for the purpose of making maple sugar, and I suppose no other population in this nation, of equal numbers, makes as much and as good maple sugar as we do.” One can almost hear the Ken Burns-style voiceover. After describing the pans’ construction, Carlos concludes, “Pans made in that fashion, of common stove pipe iron, have been in use in our ‘bush’ fifteen years, and are good pans yet, not being half worn or rusted out.”
On the 1860 census of Allegan, Carlos is enumerated as a cabinetmaker with real estate worth $1,000 and personal goods worth $800. His wife, Eliza, had real estate worth $4,000. That same year, an agricultural census was taken in June. Carlos is recorded to have had 8 improved acres, 22 unimproved; the cash value of the land was $1,000; he had 1 cow and 4 swine valued at $50; and 200 bushels of Indian corn. It sounds peaceful and bucolic—no doubt it was, but the darkness of war was coming, even to rural Michigan.
In July 1862, 34-year-old Carlos Baker was one of the men who signed the articles of association of the First Congregational Church of Allegan, the house of worship that he and his family may have been attending since its nascence in 1857; they had been officially received into the congregation on 31 December, 1858. Then, on 5 September, 1862, Carlos enlisted as a private in Company B, 19th Michigan Infantry Volunteers. It was organized at Dowagiac, Michigan, on that day, and would not muster out until 10 June, 1865. (Carlos’s brother, Littlejohn, enlisted 13 Feb. 13, 1864, in Company B of the 13th Michigan Infantry as a corporal, and mustered out 25 July, 1865.)
The 19th Regiment has a rather concise regimental history—albeit not because they saw no action:
“Left State for Cincinnati, Ohio, September 14, and duty at Covington, Ky., until October 7. Moved to Georgetown, Lexington, Sandersville and to Nicholasville, Ky., October 7-November 13. Attached to 1st Brigade, 3rd Division, Army of Kentucky, Dept. of Ohio, October 1862, to February 1863. Coburn's Brigade, Baird's Division, Army of Kentucky, Dept. of the Cumberland, to June 1863. 3rd Brigade, 1st Division, Reserve Corps, Dept. of the Cumberland, to October 1863. Coburn's unattached Brigade, Dept. of the Cumberland, to December 1863. Post of Murfreesboro, Tenn., Dept. of the Cumberland, to January 1864. 2nd Brigade, 1st Division, 11th Army Corps, Army of the Cumberland, to April 1864. 2nd Brigade, 3rd Division, 20th Army Corps, Army of the Cumberland, to June 1865.
“SERVICE: Moved to Danville, Ky., December 12, 1862, and duty there until January 26, 1863. Moved to Louisville, Ky., thence to Nashville, Tenn., January 26-February 7, and to Brentwood Station February 21. To Franklin, February 23. Reconnaissance toward Spring Hill March 3-5. Action at Spring Hill, Thompson's Station, March 4-5. Regiment mostly captured by Bragg's Cavalry forces, nearly 18,000 strong, under Van Dorn. Little Harpeth and Brentwood March 25 (Detachment). Exchanged May 25, 1863. Regiment reorganized at Camp Chase, Ohio, during June. Moved to Nashville, Tenn., June 8-11. Middle Tennessee or Tullahoma Campaign June 23-July 7. Moved to Murfreesboro, Tenn., July 23, and garrison duty there until October 25. Stockade near Murfreesboro Bridge, Stone's River, October 4 (Co. "D"). Moved to McMinnville October 25, and duty there until April 21, 1864. Ordered to Join Corps in Lookout Valley. Atlanta (Ga.) Campaign May 1-September 8. Demonstrations on Rocky Faced Ridge May 8-11. Boyd's Trail May 9. Battle of Resaca May 14-15. Cassville, May 19. New Hope Church, May 25. Operations on line of Pumpkin Vine Creek and battles about Dallas, New Hope Church and Allatoona Hills, May 25-June 5. Operations about Marietta and against Kennesaw Mountain, June 10-July 2. Pine Hill June 11-14. Lost Mountain, June 15-17. Gilgal or Golgotha Church, June 15. Muddy Creek, June 17. Noyes Creek, June 19. Kolb's Farm, June 22. Assault on Kennesaw, June 27. Ruff's Station, July 4. Chattahoochee River, July 5-17. Peach Tree Creek, July 19-20. Siege of Atlanta, July 22-August 25. Operations at Chattahoochee River Bridge, August 26-September 2. Occupation of Atlanta, September 2-November 15. March to the sea, November 15-December 10. Campaign of the Carolinas, January to April, 1865. Lawtonville, S.C., February 2. Averysboro, N. C., March 16. Battle of Bentonville March 19-21. Occupation of Goldsbore March 24. Advance on Raleigh April 10-14. Occupation of Raleigh April 14. Bennett’s House April 26. Surrender of Johnston and his army. March to Washington, D.C., via Richmond, Va., April 29-May 19. Grand Review May 24. Mustered out June 10, 1865.
“Regiment lost during service 7 Officers and 88 Enlisted men killed and mortally wounded and 160 Enlisted men by disease. Total 255.”
Carlos kept a diary during his war years and Eliza kept a daybook. Both of these are now in Duke University’s rare book and manuscript library. I have not yet been able to access the documents, but the university describes them as follows: “The collection comprises two volumes. One is a 127-page diary maintained by Carlos Baker at the end of the Civil War, dated 15 November, 1864, to 10 July, 1865. Baker provides very detailed descriptions of the final days of the conflict, even naming the farms where his company camps or fights. Of particular interest are the descriptions of his company's participation in General Sherman's March to the Sea, their marches through the Carolinas, and their fighting at Savannah, Ga., Averysboro, NC, and Bentonville, NC. The other volume in the collection is a 60-page commonplace book (1863 - 1871) maintained by Carlos Baker’s wife, Eliza. In it are diary entries containing poignant descriptions of her anxiety about her husband's safety and many moving descriptions of her uncertainty about the future; poems and letters she composed; and notes about items she purchased, bartered with, or sold over the period.”
After the war had finished, Carlos returned to Allegan and took up his life where it had left off. On the 1870 census, captured on the date of 14 June, Carlos was enumerated as a cabinetmaker with real estate valued at $3,000 and a personal estate of $1,500. His wife, Eliza, had personal real estate valued at $4,000. The children—Willis, 15; Albertis (who seems to have preferred to be called Otis), 13; and Ernestine, 10, were at home. It was a mere six years later, on 1 May, 1876, that Carlos Baker died at the age of 48 of a yet undiscovered cause.
The cabinet card in my collection shows an unknown man in a four-wheel trap parked beside Carlos’s elaborate “white bronze” (zinc) grave marker in Oakwood Cemetery, Allegan. The trap has a business name painted on the side that seems to read: “White Brothers Monuments”—presumably the makers of the memorial. On the reverse of the card is several layers of information, scribbled in pencil. Among what can be deciphered is “Allegan,” “T. S. [unknown word]” “Hight [sic] 13 ft. 6 in., Base 4 ft 6 in. and square,” as well as two columns of numbers. Taken as a whole, it seems to refer to the monument’s dimensions and cost. (Reverse: www.flickr.com/photos/60861613@N00/12837105703/in/photost...)
The year that the monument was installed is not known, but the cabinet card dates to perhaps the late 1880s. Records indicate that the government placed a Civil War veteran’s headstone on Carlos’s grave. Presumably, there was a similar stone on the grave of Ebenezer. Both of these were removed when the imposing monument was put in place. It cannot have been inexpensive, even though it was cast zinc and not marble. No matter the cost, it is a testament to the respect that Carlos had within his family and community.
Eliza Higgins Baker and her three adult children are enumerated on the 1880 Census for Allegan. Willis, then 25, was a cabinetmaker like his father; Albertis was a 23-year-old laborer.
Ernestine died at the age of 21 on 6 April, 1881, in Allegan, and was buried with Carlos and Ebenezer. Her cause of death is not known, but the most likely reason is disease. In December, 1881, Eliza filed for and was granted a veteran’s widow’s pension.
We cannot glimpse the Baker family in 1890 because of the destruction of those census records, but in 1900, 71-year-old Eliza was living in Allegan with Willis, still a cabinet maker, who had married Lillie E. Fowler (b.1861). The couple had a daughter, Inez Emily, born 12 January, 1882, who was then 18.
On the day of the 1900 census, Otis was living two houses down the road from Willis and his mother. Otis had married Mary J. (last name unknown) (b. Aug. 12, 1867, MI) in 1888. The census notes that he was a day laborer. The couple had one son, Otis Marion Baker, born 8 May, 1901, and two daughters: Ruth L. (b. 11 October, 1905) and Ruby I. (b. 1908).
Sometime after Eliza’s death in April 1903—perhaps after the memorial plaque with her name and dates was affixed to the tall, white monument in Oakwood Cemetery—Willis and his family went west to California. The 1910 census places them in Riverside, Temescal County. Willis was retired and daughter Inez was a stenographer in a law office; they had two lodgers. Willis died in California in 1913 and is buried at Corona Sunnyslope Cemetery, Corona, Riverside County. Lillie and Inez appear to have experienced financial difficulties after his passing. On the 1920 census of Corona, 58-year-old Lillie is enumerated was a citrus fruit packer, Inez was still working as a stenographer, and they had three lodgers. Things may have improved by 1930, when the Lillie was noted on the Riverside census as living at 1025 Victoria Street, retired, with Inez, age 49, enumerated as the office manager of an insurance firm. Lillie lived until 4 January, 1938. She is buried beside her husband. Inez was yet living at the same address a decade later. Her home was owned and worth $3,000. The census also notes that her highest level of education reached was “high school, 4th year.” Inez’s death date is so far undiscovered.
Otis Baker died 22 February, 1918. He is buried in Oakwood Cemetery with his wife, Mary, who outlived him by 40 years, dying on 26 May, 1958. She had remarried by 1920 to John Huggins, a paper maker in a Kalamazoo paper mill. Their son Otis lived until 4 August, 1974, dying in Van Buren, Wayne County, Michigan. His sister Ruth died in Detroit on 16 April, 1987.
Recent pictures of the Baker monument show it still as lovely and serene as when new. I can do no better than to conclude with the poem inscribed on it, which the family chose themselves: “Blest is the turf, oh doubly blessed, where weary mortals stop to rest, where life’s long journey turns to sleep, no weary pilgrims wake to weep.”
Unfortunately, this ambrotype is very softly focused. It can't really tolerate being blown up in size.
© Ann Longmore-Etheridge Collection
A detail shot of her face is here: www.flickr.com/photos/60861613@N00/12060546904/
This sad, proud widow peers at us through what seems to be a hole in time. This is before conservation by Casey Waters. Here she is after that process: www.flickr.com/photos/60861613@N00/14155000700/.
The plate has the hallmark "40," and nothing else. That number indicates that the plate is 1 part silver to 39 parts copper.
This sad image of a Civil War-era mourner features a blue tax stamp on its reverse, dating it to the year 1864.
"W. J. Moulton, Photographer, 116 & 118 Water St., El Mira, N.Y." To see detail shot where you can see her delightful smile, replete with teeth:
www.flickr.com/photos/60861613@N00/6380091443/in/photostream
Helen M. Wisner (1838-1920) was the daughter of Chemung County, New York, Judge John Wheeler Wisner (1801-1852), of which much can be read here: www.joycetice.com/books/1879b283.htm, and Mary Ann Butler (1812-1870). The couple had married in 1835. Helen was the Judge's second child, having an elder half-sister Frances E., and a younger sister, Eliza (b. 1845), as well as a younger brother, Gabriel (1847-1889). The Wisners were descendants of Henry Wisner, and general in the Continental Army during the American Revolution. Helen's grandson, Lawrence Muller Hunter, would go on to apply for membership in the Sons of the American Revolution in 1927, citing his pedigree back to Henry.
(As an interesting aside, Frances Wisner married Henry Loftie in 1861, who is renown as a maker of fishing lures. You can read about him here: www.oldfishinglure.com/henryloftielures.htm.)
Helen married the lawyer William Thomas Lawrence Muller (19 Jan 1841-5 Jan 1891) on 8 December, 1858, in Elmira, New York. He was the son of Adrian Herman Muller (1792-1886) and Catharine Schermerhorn Abeel (1799-1894).
Helen and William had two daughters, Ida Mary (1865-1946), and Kate (b. 1869).
Muller went on to become a judge and a commissioner on the New York Court of Claims and, his obituary notes, "was a close personal friend of the governor, and was his ally and advisor." The obituary states that he died of a blood clot traveling to his brain. He was buried in Greenwood Cemetery, Brooklyn. One must assume that Helen is also buried there. She appears to have outlived him, but is not mentioned in his obituary. She also does not appear with the family on the 1880 census, and I cannot as yet locate the family on later censuses. Also unknown is for whom Helen is wearing deepest mourning in this image. It would have to be a very close relative.