Week 4: Favorite Photo
What a difficult topic; not for lack of good material, but for the exact opposite reason! My shelves are stocked with family photo albums, the majority being from my maternal line, but a healthy selection from the paternal side as well. And they are my absolute favorite thing about genealogy!
Having dubbed myself a novice photographer, laying claim to these priceless heirlooms thoroughly excites me. I love studying the fashion in the antique tintypes, the props and backgrounds in the old portrait studio shots, and the candids snapped in the more modern 20th century. Choosing a favorite out of my collection is hard, to say the least. I’m sure I have dozens of favorites, but there’s one photograph that always has me wanting more when I stare at it. It also gives me a chuckle!
The photo features a nuclear family unit on my mom’s side, the Dean household. The patriarch, John Alexander Dean, Jr., sits in a solid, wooden chair with a low back in front of his house in the woods of West Virginia. He’s holding his newborn child, thought to be Benjamin Newton Dean, with the staunch look of a proud parent. His wife, Mollie, stands behind him, likely relieved to have a break from tending to the baby. But the star of this photograph is none other than the young boy to the side of his father, my great grandfather, Chester Joseph Dean.
Photo of John Alexander Dean, Jr., Mary “Mollie” (Boyce) Dean, Chester Joseph Dean, and Benjamin Newton Dean, abt. Sep 1900, West Virginia, original in possession by descendant Kira D. Foltz
Chester can’t be older than 3 in the portrait, likely about 2, and yet, his smug face with a tilted nod of the head makes one question whether he’s not a disgruntled curmudgeon of a fellow far beyond his years. To top it off, he has placed his hand on his hip as if to say, “I don’t have time for this charade.” He knows he’s not the real reason behind this photo session. All eyes will be on the newest little one, as all attention probably has been over the past few months, so why waste the time posing. Yet, he submits. And because he does, this amazing photograph emerges in which all I can possibly see is his confidence protruding from his slightly puffed out chest. And I can imagine him quickly trotting away barefoot once the shutter of the camera closes, possibly to go rummaging through a stream for tadpoles or brushing down his dad’s horses.
I am also entranced with this photo because so many of its subjects lived shorter than average lives. Toddler Chester grew up to have a family of his own, but suffered a heart attack at age 51, mother Mollie passed away just a few short years after this image was taken at the age of 36 following a short illness thought to be related to cancer, and baby Benjamin died at the age of 20 during the influenza pandemic. The patriarch, John Alexander Dean, Jr., lived the longest span of time out of the four, having remarried after Mollie’s death, though, he too, succumbed relatively young at the age of 62 due to a perforated appendix.
Comments
Post a Comment