Cemetery Serendipity!

CEMETERY SERENDIPITY! 

by 

Karen Utter Jennings 

My brother, Bill signed up to canvass the Rocky Comfort, Missouri cemetery that is located in the extreme SE corner of McDonald County at the Prosperity Baptist Church. The cemetery itself is actually in Newton County. When Bill told me of his huge endeavor, I volunteered to help him...for several reasons. 1. Time with my wonderful brother 2. Safety as he won't be alone 3. I enjoy cemetery headstone art & funerary symbols, so this was a good chance to find those headstones and symbols and photograph them to add to my collection 4. Many family members are buried there, so it is a chance to find their graves & photograph them.

On my first day with Bill, he told me about a headstone he found down in the southwest corner of the cemetery and said the stone had "colored" on it, so it must be an African-American buried there. Sure enough, the headstone read "to the sacred memory of Ike ~ colored" and his death date.

Bill and I talked about Ike and who he might have been, a slave possibly? We were happy that he was buried in the cemetery among other folks and not put away somewhere in a corner of the cemetery where no one would ever find his grave... I told Bill that I would try and find out about Ike and his life. Bill told me I should post some of my photographs of the headstones and symbols on the headstones on my Facebook page. 

When I got home, I immediately began research to find out about Ike. First, I put Ike's name and death date into a family tree on Ancestry.com. Then I posted to my Facebook page about my joining Bill to canvass the RC cemetery and posted several pictures. One was of Ike's headstone. 

I had several friends on Facebook comment on the photographs and in particular, Ike. One of my cousins asked if the word "COLORED" on the headstone might be "Coldred", Ike's last name and not "colored."  I hadn't thought of that, so while I searched on Ancestry.com, I also searched for that surname. A couple of my Facebook friends commented that they thought there was a Christian family in Rocky who at one time owned slaves. 

And so my research continued; my friends comments proved to be the hints that I needed. Within a couple of hours, I had solved the mystery! Ike's name was Isaac Haden, born in Arkansas and he was a negro who lived with the Nancy Christian family in Rocky Comfort, Missouri. I found Ike's obituary on the McDonald County Missouri site which gave information that he was a servant to the Christian family.

I was astounded because a couple of weeks before this, I had researched the Yonce sisters of McDonald County, Missouri, for a newsletter article. Lucy Jane Yonce had married W.C. Christian and they lived in Rocky Comfort. William Christian's mother was Nancy Christian! 

And so, my first day out on a cemetery excursion with my beloved brother, I found serendipity in that cemetery. Here's to your memory, Ike Haden!

The Rise of Black-and-White and Color Photography

By

Karen Utter Jennings

After the turn of the twentieth century, the art of photography grew steadily. George Eastman founded the new age of photography with black-and-white snapshots. Brownie box cameras were easy to use and cheap to buy. It was the beginning of a new way for people to try their hand at taking photographs. In 1900, a quarter of a million Kodak Brownie cameras sold for one dollar each.

With the simple cameras in the hands of more people, photography studios and

travelling photographers had competition. Autochrome photographs were taken from 1904 to the late 1930s and these are identified by their shades of gray and sepia tones. They may appear to be faded and hard to identify backgrounds and details. Use care when handling these old photos.

During the early years color photography remained a commercial undertaking for trained photographers only. Color paper prints were produced from 1941 to the present. The Kodak Company introduced Kodachrome 16mm movie film in 1935 and negative film became available from Kodak in 1941. Eventually, Polaroids were popular due to the ability to snap a photo and wait while it developed inside the camera.

From 1948 to about 1965, many early cameras were used with roll film. The different types of film produced different sizes of photos. Many of those types of film were discontinued in the last few years.

As the years passed and we entered the twenty-first century, photography continues to be a popular and special hobby as well as a profitable business. Digital photography is one of the most-loved ways to take family photographs.

Today’s cameras are high-tech devices offering multiple advanced features that guarantee amateurs a perfect photograph. Photographers can do it all: preview the shots as you go and discard the bad ones, shoot an endless number of pictures then save and store them on small SD cards, then upload to computers and print your prized possessions.  

The old black-and-white and color photographs are the basis of family photograph collections. Since these prints often fade in time, the best way to preserve them before they do fade is to scan all your photographs to media storage and then keep the originals in a cool, dark and low-humidity environment.

Storage of photos includes websites where you can upload all your photographs and retrieve copies of them whenever you need to do so. There are multiple online websites to help you create photo books, also.

Many times family researchers digitize their photographs and put them on media such as CDs and flash drives and camera cards to share with family members. This is the new era

In many family photograph collections, there are torn, faded, cracked and worn pictures. Besides taking your photos to a specialist who can restore them to their original likeness, there are scores of computer software you can purchase to help you do it yourself. Adobe Photoshop Elements is one of them. There are other programs you can purchase as downloads or buy the program and place it on your computer yourself. Do your research; talk with people who own such software before you make your decision. They can be pricey.

The old black-and-white and color photographs are the bulk of my own family photograph collection. They are dear to my heart. In many of them I can identify everyone in the photograph, and date the time and place it was taken.

I caution you about using the date stamped at the bottom or the side of the photograph. It does not always mean that is when the photograph was taken; it only dates when the film was developed. Many people waited, sometimes for years, before they took their film rolls in to be developed.

Go through your own photograph collection and begin sorting, labeling, and organizing them. You will be happy you did!

The History of Real Photo Postcards

The History of Real Photo Postcards

By

Karen Utter Jennings

Postcards have been around since 1861 and there are several different types. Vintage postcards are highly collected by fans. Those who study and collect postcards, known as deltiologists, are serious about their collections. Libraries, historical and genealogical societies, and other organizations as well as private individuals collect them. Postcards can be purchased from online dealers as well as flea markets and antique stores and from private collections.

                        

For our purposes, we will talk about real photograph postcards or RPs. Around 1900, photography had grown into a popular hobby for many people and the latest craze was sending a postcard with a photograph printed on the back. These are called real photograph postcards; the word “real” was used to explain that the postcard started as a photographic negative. They were reproduced by developing them onto photographic paper the size and weight of postcards with a postcard backing. 

In the beginning, postal service regulations required there be no writing on the address side of the postcards. In 1907, the regulations changed so that the postcards had a dividing line where the address could be written on the right side and a message wrote on the left side. This is called the divided back era.

From about 1915 to 1930, to save ink, most postcards were printed with a white border, also called “White Border Postcards.” After 1930, the new printing processes used colored ink and a high rag substance that gave a linen-like finish to the photographs. This process, called the Linen Era lasted until about 1944.

After 1944, known as the Photochrome Era, real photographic postcards declined and gave way to the postcards that we know today as the tourist-type cards we send while on vacation.

If you own real photo postcards with no way to date them, here is a brief guide to follow. This information does not include everything there is to know about identifying and dating them.  

First, check the price of the stamp in the stamp box on the card. Postal rates steadily rose over the years. The stamp price for mailing cards between 1898 and 1917 was one cent. It rose to two cents from 1917 to 1958. From 1958 to 1962, it cost three cents and from 1963 to 1967 postage rose to four cents. During 1968 to May 1971, the cost rose to a nickel.

If your photo postcard has no stamp attached, check the border around the stamp box on the postcard. If the postcards were produced on Kodak paper, known as “AZO,” they had special borders during special years. From 1904 to 1918, some borders had four triangles pointing up. From 1907 to 1909, the stamp box border had diamonds in the corners. During 1918 to 1930, some borders had two triangles pointing up and two pointing down. During 1922 through 1926, borders might have empty corners. Finally, in 1926 through the 1940s, the stamp box borders had squares in the corners.

Please note that there were other papers used to produce real photo postcards, but I reporting about using the most popular, AZO.

Ancestry.com has a large photograph collection on their website. They offer real photograph postcards of people, hometowns, cities, homes, historical places, and businesses. There are over 200,000 in the collection as of this writing.

If you are interested in learning more about real photograph postcards, there is tons of information on the internet about societies and associations dealing with postcards of all subjects. Dealers are constantly on the hunt for collectibles.

To write this column, I used several interesting internet websites as well as the book,

“Uncovering Your Ancestry Through Family Photographs,” by Maureen A. Taylor. (Cincinnati, OH: F&W Publications, 2005).

                         

Book Basket Review: Stealing the Preacher

Stealing the Preacher by Karen Witemeyer has a unique plot and characters that will "steal" readers' hearts from the first few pages....

When a preacher is kidnapped from a train that is taking him to his new congregation, he soon realizes that God's plans are not his plans. Neither was falling in love with the outlaw's daughter.  But there's trouble brewing and the past catches up to many of the characters. Can the parson help or hinder his new congregation and the friends he has made? Does the parson want to give his heart to beautiful Joanna, but more importantly, will she accept his love since her father is the kidnapper and an outlaw? 

Writing with her well-known wit and humor, Karen Witemeyer has another smash hit with this historical inspirational romance. ~Karen Utter Jennings 

Book Basket Review: Widow of Gettysburg by Jocelyn Green

Fans of Civil War stories or women in historical settings will want to grab this engaging book by author Jocelyn Green. Ms. Green takes readers into Gettysburg and shows them the horror of 1863 when thousands of wounded men are brought into a makeshift field hospital. Liberty Holloway is thrust into opening her fledgling Liberty Inn to the bloody, war-torn, men fighting for their lives. Quickly she is recruited to help the one and only doctor on his mission to try to save as many lives as possible. 

Liberty's journey through the span of five months brings her hopes and dreams to a halt as she encounters horrific death, a mystery man whom she swears she's met before and as she is forced to face her past, there are twists and surprises at the end. The story is laced with truth from the historical events that changed the lives of those who endured the painful aftermath of the emotional battle between North and South.

Widow of Gettysburg is inspired from the research that Jocelyn Green did at the Adams County Historical Society archives in Gettysburg, Pennsylvania. From the letters, diaries, and the first-person accounts of those people who lived through this historical period in American history, Ms. Green writes of the women behind the Gettysburg event. 

Available now at your favorite book source, Widow of Gettysburg is Book 2 in the Heroines Behind the Lines series that is published by River North Fiction, an imprint of Moody Publishers. And while you're at it, pick up Jocelyn's Wedded to War, Book 1 in the series. ~ Karen Utter Jennings 

MCDONALD COUNTY, MISSOURI'S HISTORIC COURTHOUSE GRAND OPENING 

You won't want to miss this Memorial Day weekend, 2013 event in the Southwest Missouri Ozarks!  The 1897 courthouse on the Pineville square has been renovated & now will house the museum. Words cannot do justice to what the old courthouse now looks like! Beautiful doesn't even come close.....

Get ready to come for fun, food, family gatherings, friendship & money prizes! See you on the Pineville square on Memorial Day weekend, 2013

CARTE de VISTE & CABINET CARD PHOTOGRAPHS

By Karen Utter Jennings

 These two types of photographs come from the Victorian era or from about mid 19^th century to early 20^th century and are easily recognizable.

The carte de viste (CdV) photographs are the size of calling cards, which measure 2 1/2 x 4 inches. Because of their size, a series of photographs could be produced on paper and then cut into eight individual cards. The size may vary, however, because commercial suppliers began mass-producing cards and the images had to be trimmed to fit the card size. Many were careless in their trimming, so you may run across some CdVs that are angled or otherwise varied.

People who went calling on their relatives or neighbors used the carte de vistes. Before leaving, they would leave their CdV.  They became popular in the 1860s and royalty, politicians, actors, and other famous individuals had their image made into these photographs and signed them. The Victorians prized carte de viste photographs and collected them.

These photographs were popular during the Civil War. President Lincoln and Ulysses S. Grant had their photos taken this way. To accommodate people’s collections, albums were made to hold the prized cards. It would be fortunate indeed, for someone to have an album full of these beautiful Victorian treasures among their family photograph collection!  

To identify a carte de viste, first measure the size of the photograph. The paper print will be mounted on a commercially produced card. Look closely at the subject in the picture and notice their hairstyle and clothing. Carte de vistes were produced into the very early 1900s. These small prints may appear very faded and grainy.   

Cabinet cards replaced the carte de vistes. They can measure from small, 5 inches x 7 inches to larger ones, 5 inches x 10 inches. A customary cabinet card is a photo mounted onto thicker card stock. There is extra space around the photo and you will find the photographer’s studio imprint (if there is one) at the bottom. These are albumen images and will have a yellow-brown or purple-blue tone. But sometimes they may appear black and white. That is due to the process in which they were developed. The last cabinet cards were produced around 1925.

These photographs were named due to the Victorians displaying them in their parlors, especially in cabinets. The cabinet card was an admired type of photograph that displayed family groups. By this time, photographers began to use props or complex scenes in studios using ironwork chairs, gates and fences, fake trees and grass, or ornately constructed window and doorway sets.

To identify cabinet cards, note their measurements and observe the color of the paper image. Note if they have gilt and embossed decorative borders and an imprint giving the photographer’s name & the location of the studio. If the card stock is separating layers on the edges, they were probably made after 1870.

The Victorians treasured all things, especially their clothing and jewelry. Cabinet cards document their love of the elaborate. Children’s pictures may show them poised with their dolls and toys or bicycles and wagons. Look for women in fanciful hats and gorgeous gowns and men with pocket watches, mustaches and their dapper dressing. Such as Robert Calvin Utter "Dock" & his wife, Matilda Roll Utter, shown below: 

Notice there is no studio imprint at the bottom of this photo.

 In the photo above, the studio imprint is on hte side of this old photograph. Taken in Monett, Missouri, before the turn of the century. 

When Kodak introduced the Brownie Box Camera around 1900, cabinet card photographs declined in popularity.

While researching these two types of photographs, I found a lot of conflicting information. Writers, photographers, and collectors all disagree on definite dates the carte de viste and the cabinet card photographs were introduced and about how they were produced.

I love these types of photographs and in my collection, there are cabinet card photos of babies, children posed with their pets, men sitting beside their faithful dog, women in huge hats and family groups in various settings. But, not all of them have the photography studio imprint.