Fisher Family Photo from 1928

Click to enlarge the picture. Do that with all pictures in the blog. The top of the identifications were cut off when I got the picture. Don’t worry.

The Dixon family in Anderson, Indiana always got together around the big summer holidays. We usually met at Killbuck Park, the huge and amazing park operated for the benefit of GM workers in Anderson. Memorial Day, July 4th, and Labor Day. At least two of the 3 main holidays. The neat thing is that everybody was there until my cousin Rich Thacker went to Vietnam and later the Thackers moved to Spencer. We just grew up. I know that sometimes we would get together with the Wellons family instead.

This photo was sent to me by Terry Harper of the Edwards County Historical Society. His mother grew up near the Rude Fisher homestead on the border of Edwards and Wayne counties. How lucky is that? I cold-called him at his accounting office and he spent a half hour or more with me and shared lots of info. Then he followed up with some emails with attachments. I had a chance to share our family history, particularly “where we went to” after the Albion Bank closed in 1929. Plus I was able to share the blog with him.

The photo shows everyone, or almost everyone, in the Fisher family at the time. They all lived nearby. The easiest thing to pick out is my grandfather George, who is standing 2nd to left. Standing farthest to the left is his father-in-law, Rude Fisher. The family called him “Grandpa Fisher”. Seated in front of Rude is his second wife Maude Bell Fisher, who was the sister of his first wife Marinda Bell Fisher. Marinda died during the later stages of the worldwide flu epidemic after the First World War. Seated next to Maude is my grandmother Della with two of her children. Two? Wilma Jean is seated on her lap and is almost 2 and 1/2 years old. You can’t see my dad, but he wouldn’t miss a picnic! My grandma is about 3 months pregnant at the time of the picture. My dad Jerry was born January 3, 1929.

The other really neat thing is that there is someone in the picture called “Grandpa Fisher”. That’s not Rude, it’s his dad, John Fredrick Fisher. The obvious guess is that he is that old guy in the very white beard standing toward the right side. The reason there are so many Fishers in the photo is that John Fredrick and his first wife had 5 sons, and 4 survived to adulthood. There was a half sister, Katie, whose mother was John’s second wife. Katie married Clarence Green. Ina Shilling is also on the right side of the picture. She is the little girl seated farthest to the right. Not a lot older than her niece Wilma! She is Rude’s daughter by Maude Bell. There were multiple Shilling families in Edwards County in the late 1800’s and some still today. Ina had a daughter before she died, and I have not been able to track her to see if there are offspring in the area today.