The oldest family picture

The best thing about hosting a family history blog is that every once in awhile someone in the family shares a long-lost (to me and most of the family anyway) family picture or tells a really neat family story that is new to me.

The first thing happened again this week. I contacted Kathy Ferguson a couple of months ago after she had talked to Lois Goodson in Albion about some family history and Lois called me to see if she could “borrow” a copy of the material she had prepared for me last year. Since Kathy was asking about Alice Dixon Wick and her ancestors in particular, and Lois amazingly remembered that Alice was my great aunt, she realized that some of what she had already given to me could be recycled. I immediately called Kathy, of course, to tell her about the MomandPop blog. And Kathy said she had a picture of Alice and her siblings as young children…and would send it to me.

Kathy married into the family. Her husband Larry Ferguson is a direct descendent of “Aunt Alice” and “Uncle Tom”.

But then I didn’t hear from her for two months. I knew she would come through eventually and was patient. And what a picture! Not only does it show Alice and several siblings (alas, before my grandfather George was born), but it also shows his proud papa Joe Dixon as a young father… and his mother Mina Kershaw Dixon (the only picture I have ever seen of her) and the house they lived in!

Sadly, this picture also shows George’s mother holding a cute little baby. That baby is George’s big brother Herman, who tragically died of illness (measles complications) as a child. The picture also includes a young boy, George’s oldest brother Loren, who died tragically at the age of 18 in a hunting accident. This is also the only picture of the brothers that I am aware of.

Let’s review the birth dates of the family:

Joseph Freemont (Jr) "Joe Dixon" 8/24//1864 - 9/28/1933

m 1) Mina Kershaw 12/8/1865 - 7/20/1901 (daughter of George & Sarah Fearn Kershaw)

c Alice Ann 1/21/88-10/12/1976m Tom Wick 11/10/1912 (3 kids)

Stella May 10/8/1889-10/31-1943m Benjamin Frankland (6 kids)

Loren Ivan 7/17/1891-12/31/1909killed in hunting accident

Sadie Ray 11/6/1893-3/5/1935m Harry J Glover (4 kids)

Herman Hobart 8/8/1896 - 2/27-1907died of complications from measles

George Dewey 9/5/1898 - 3/26/1982m Della May Fisher 10/13/1903-2/24/1992

Lucy Mina 2/23/1901 - ??/??/????m Carroll Perkins (4 kids)

Kathy reports that the best guess of her husband’s father and aunts is that Aunt Alice is the oldest girl, on the right, in the picture and this makes sense based on her apparent age.

From this info and the birth order above, I’ll conclude that the picture shows father Joe, mother Mina holding baby Herman, plus the young children in front…Loren, Sadie, Stella and Alice.
The picture would have been taken in the fall or winter of 1897, based on the age of Herman and therefore one year before the birth of my grandfather George. This was also before the birth of George's baby sister Lucy. Remember that mother Mina died a few months after the birth of Lucy, from complications related to her birth. Alice then took on the role of mother for her younger siblings. Lucy spent her first decade or so with an aunt and uncle and was later reunited with her family. Joe did not remarry until the children were all teens or older.

I must say that I am impressed with the nice house they had over a hundred years ago. The display of dolls and doll furniture might coincide with a family Christmas picture, although there are no other signs of the holiday.

Uncle Don emailed to point out something significant about an uncle he never got to meet:

We certainly enjoyed viewing and reading about the two latest additions that you entered to the MomandPop Blog. Dad would have been 11 yrs old when his brother, Loren, was killed in the hunting accident. I can remember Dad telling a little bit about this incident and know that is why Dad never had any desire to hunt or ever to own a gun.

Then I realized that my grandfather George would have been only 9 years old when his brother Herman died suddenly at age 11. Imagine the impact on a young boy who first lost a brother who was his playmate (my grandsons are two years apart... and they are very, very close) and then lost the much older brother he probably worshiped. Despite these losses, he sure turned out to be a good husband, father and grandfather!

By the way, my dad had a shotgun, which he almost never used during my childhood. He never took me hunting and never taught me to shoot a gun. It wasn't a political stance. The shotgun just never left the closet. I think that my brother Jay, who somehow did become a gun enthusiast, has it today. I have never owned a gun. Again, not a political stance... I just didn't want one in the house. I went squirrel hunting once with a family friend and his dad as an early teen when I spent a week on their farm. The only other hunting trips were a couple of times with my father-in-law along the White River, behind North 40 Campground, in Chesterfield. I've never bagged a rabbit, squirrel, or deer. Jay took me once down by the bridge in Chesterfield to shoot handguns. Quite exciting, I must admit!

My son Randy has never been hunting with guns (to my knowledge) ... wild hog hunting in the Florida wilds doesn't count because you don't shoot the hog. Our friend Sharon, another gun enthusiast, probably took him to shoot guns at the practice range. I did chaperone his baseball team on Saturday when they replaced targets at a gun range in order to earn some money for equipment. That was an exciting afternoon for a dad/volunteer/school district official/risk manager.