1.5.14

Louise

This week, after a patient wait of 35 years, I received the family photograph album. Although it did not contain the expected Bentley family pictures, it did contain pictures from my father's mother's side, the Orrs, Daniels, and Hales, in a spectacular collection of Daguerrotypes and other mostly formal portraits. This week I present my great-grandmother Louise.

Louise Daniels, born in 1867 or 1868 in Michigan, was the second child, the first girl, of Capt. Henry H. Daniels, of English descent, and Martha Louise Hale, who was reputedly from the line of the famed Nathan hale. Louise was my great-grandmother on my father's side -- his mother's mother.



A second girl, Alice, called Allie, was born in 1870.



In 1887, when she was just 20, Louise, now living in Colorado with her recent husband, prospector Gaylord A. Orr, gave birth to the first of two children, Jessie Louise Orr.

On the left you see Louise and Jessie. On the right you see Jessie in 1910 with her own firstborn, Dorothy Bentley, my father's elder sister.





Here's Louise with, I believe, her father Henry.


Here's the only photo of Louise I had ever seen prior to this week, with a grandson, shortly before her death in 1956, when I was two years old. We never met.


Be sure to visit Sepia Saturday for more antiquity!

17 comments:

  1. The photographer had an interesting frame for his photos!
    I really like the side by side photos of Louise & Jessie and Jessie & Dorothy - shows a great family resemblance.

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  2. That album was certainly worth waiting for.

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  3. First, congratulations on finally getting the family album. So you have relatives from Michigan, (my own home state where I was born) that is very interesting. Although they may not have stayed there? I like the embossing in gold around the photos very nice display!

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    1. Yes, the Bentley side had been in Michigan since the 1830s. There are still a mess of cousins there but my line dispersed to the east and west coasts.

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  4. How rewarding to now have all those wonderful pictures. But my favorite is the formal portrait of mother & child by Harrison's Studio in Chicago. Absolutely beautiful.

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  5. How wonderful to see Louise from childhood to old age. I love the two mother and child portraits.

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  6. Alice and Louise look almost like twins. I'm sure you're enjoying the album and learning a lot!

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  7. These are wonderful. I know you're thrilled to have them.

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  8. `Definitely worth waiting for. A wonderful collection and some most interesting presentations of the photos. Some of those frames are quite unique. I've never seen them before.

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  9. It's a wonderful era for an annotated photograph album like this. It's interesting that though the album has a box for the caption, the names are overwritten on the decorative frame. I hope there are not many mystery family faces.

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  10. Oh how excited you must be. What wonderful photos. Such a treasure. I am quite pea green with envy.

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  11. We went to Durango in 2012 and thoroughly enjoyed exploring the train museum but didn't have time to go on the train trip up the mountain.
    I'm so envious of your album of photos to explore. If they're all like those you've shown us here you have a real treasure.

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  12. I especially like the branch like framings and the photos of Louise with Jessie and Jessie with Dorothy.

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  13. Yes, the gold embossed twig design is unique and interesting. What looks like a space for a caption is actually a slot to insert the photo (handy for checking the back of the photo for clues as to the photographer's location!). Most of the photos are either identified or identifiable, but there are a few faces that at best I have to take a stab at by their location, and one or two where there's no clue at all.

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  14. What a great album it was worth the wait.

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  15. A Feast! In a way,it helps to see so many together for the first time...giving the context of a Life Well Lived.Thanks For Sharing Them Here.

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  16. The album may not have contained all you hoped for but a stunning selection you have shown us today.

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