This very old family photo was purchased at an auction at Fox, Arkansas. The auctioneer said it came from an estate sale in Fairfield Bay. The framed photo has no caption on the back. Other photos in the collection seemed to be from Wisconsin. Photos of the elderly couple in the collection had a caption on the back telling the names of the great-grandchildren of the couple. By searching in the family tree at FamilySearch.org I was able to find the names of the children listed in the caption. They are the children of Henry M. Clark and Julia Ann Judkins Clark. After studying the FamilySearch.org entry showing the birth order of the eight Clark children…two daughters, then four sons, then two daughters…it became apparent that the family photo shown here is this family. Vera is the youngest girl in the photo and appears to be about three years old. Her FamilySearch profile says she was born in 1892, so I estimate that the family photo was taken about 1895.
The photos of the elderly couple are very intriguing because they seem to be very early photographs. If great granddaughter Calista Clark captioned it correctly, they are the grandparents of Henry M. Clark. FamilySearch.org shows Henry M. Clark’s father to be Henry F. Clark but it has no information for the parents of Henry F. Clark. So I don’t know the names of the couple but perhaps someone in the Clark family will. The latest they could have been born would be in the late 1790’s since Henry F. Clark was born in 1816. It appears that their pictures were taken when photography was in its infancy…possibly 1860ish???
I’m sending messages to some of the contributors to the FamilySearch profile to see if they are direct descendants of any of the children. I hope to return these photos to a Clark family member soon.
UPDATE: I received a message on this post from a G-G Granddaughter of the Clark family. She lives in Rochester, Minnesota. Dawn was so excited at the prospect of having these pictures of her family that it made all the effort and long wait worthwhile. And when I shared the good news with Janice Smith, who had also purchased some of the photos at the auction, she wanted to give hers back to the family as well. Here are Janice’s pictures.
Here is the happy recipient of the old framed pictures. Dawn Salley plans to share the photos with other family members.
Another happy return from ReturnThePhotos.com!