The prompt for this week was “Favorite Photo.” The one I
chose isn’t my favorite, but it’s the one that has puzzled me for years. When
was the photo taken and where? I had posted it on the internet years ago in
hopes that someone would recognize the building and I’d spent hours trying to
decipher the lettering on the sign hidden by the tree limb. Eventually I gave
up and it has been sitting on a shelf where I could occasionally glance at it
and wonder. With interest renewed by this challenge, I determined to finally
solve the puzzle, but I’m embarrassed to report that I started out with the
same blinders on and no plan for the research. I assumed it was a school photo
and that the building must be the school. That I never considered other options
still has me shaking my head.
The ancestor shown in the photo is my grandmother, Laura
Emma Van Horn Clowes (1906 – 1994). She’s is the young woman kneeling in the
second row and wearing the checkered coat.
In the past, I had tried dating the photo by looking at the
clothing, but was overwhelmed by the variety. I suspect that many of the
youngsters were wearing hand-me-downs, while others were trying to dress in the
latest style. In my grandmother’s case, I know her mother made all of her
clothes and often deconstructed other garments to do so. I finally chose to
concentrate on what the little boys were wearing and decided the date was
likely between 1910 and 1920. Laura would have been 14 in 1920 so a range of
1918 to 1920 seemed like a good fit. They were living in Pueblo, Colorado at
that time, but the photo didn’t match any of Pueblo’s historic schools. Might
it have actually been taken somewhere else? The photographer’s name is on the
photo. Maybe that would help.
Searching Google for the photographer was problematic. Was
the name Floyd or Lloyd? Was he from Pueblo or Denver. It’s bad enough when you
don’t know exactly what you are looking for, even worse when Google starts out
by giving you results with half of your search terms removed. At first nothing
I tried produce results. Eventually, I got it right and among the results was a
pdf version of an article written about a photographer named John Wilbur
Clarence Floyd! It had to be my guy, he lived and had a photography studio in
Pueblo from 1906 to 1930 when he died. (I’ve chosen not to link to it here as
it was not posted by the person who wrote it or the publication he wrote it
for.)
Now, I had an approximate date and a probable location, but
I still didn’t know what the building actually was. I sent the photo to a
cousin and asked her to tell me what she saw. In the meantime, I wrote to the
Pueblo City-County Library to see if someone there could help identify the “school.”
My cousin wrote back saying that based on what she could make out of the
lettering on the sign, maybe it was a church. A church? That had never crossed
my mind. A couple of hours later, the library emailed that they had been able
to determine that the building was actually a church called El Bethel
Presbyterian Church, gave the street address and said it was still standing.
They also stated that they were unable to determine what school she would have
gone to. I was both excited and embarrassed. And still wearing blinders.
My great aunt Edna, Laura’s older sister from week 1, had
written a number of short articles about her mother, her life, and growing up
among other things. Maybe I could find the name of the elementary school there
as I knew she had mentioned where she went to high school. Yes, there it was.
Somerlid.
Now I knew what the building was and wasn’t, but I still had
those blinders on. Why was a school photo being taken at a church? I was pretty
sure they weren’t Presbyterian and besides there were no other family members
in the photo. I decided I better find out how close the photography studio was
to this church, maybe that was the clue. No, I found the studio listed in the
city directory, but it wasn’t all that close. And then, I thought to look up
schools in the city directory. Bingo! There was Somerlid less than three blocks
from the church. And, I still can’t figure out why the picture was taken in
front of that church!
Maybe I should research the school and see if I could find
evidence that classes were held elsewhere. I didn’t find anything like that,
but I did learn that in 1919, Somerlid had 386 students.[1]
What? All this time I had been thinking one room school house. This couldn’t
possibly be a school photo. The students would have been split out by grade and
there were all ages represented here.
Now what? Where DID they go to church? Back to those
articles my great aunt had written. In the one entitled “Sketch, Life of Della
(Schwarz) Van Horn”, written about her mother, I found a sentence that
has me red in the face. “We went to Sunday School at El Bethel, a mission
church of the First Presbyterian church, and enjoyed the celebrations of
Christmas, Easter [when we could shed our long underwear and often wear a new
dress] and a summer picnic.”[2]
Have I learned anything? I would like to think so, but in
the event that I revert to old habits, I will have this post to remind me to not
assume anything and to be much more open to other possibilities!
[1] “7,168
Children Enter Schools Here on First Day of Session,” Pueblo Chieftain, 3 September 1919, p. 12; digital image, GenealogyBank
(http://www.genealogybank.com : accessed 13 January 2018).
[2] Edna
M. Van Horn, “Sketch,
Life of Della (Schwarz) Van Horn” , 4 July 1986; unpublished manuscript in the
possession of this author.
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