After my maternal great aunt, Frances (Dean) Wise, passed away in 2019, her daughter saw it fit to ship me two of the enlarged, framed photographs that had adorned her walls in Tulsa, Oklahoma. They had hung above the ancestral bed that had once belonged to her great grandmother, Elizabeth (Pitcock) Rockwell, who happened to be my 3rd great grandmother.
I was already well acquainted with the two pictures, seeing as I was already in possession of much smaller versions in the photo albums I had inherited from my grandmother (Frances' sister). But I was stoked to add the framed stills to my personal collection, all the same.
The frames themselves are pretty unique as they are made with sturdy wood and convex bubble glass over the picture. My best guess is that the frame may date back to the 1930s or '40s. The other thing that makes the photographs interesting is the fact they were hand-painted to bring color to minute details within the image, such as rosy cheeks. The smaller versions I already owned were solely black and white and dated to the '20s.
This is one of those two photographs. The elder woman seated in the rear is my 3rd great grandmother, Elizabeth (Pitcock) Rockwell (1827-1928), and the woman seated on the stairs is her spinster daughter, Mariah Rockwell (1858-1928). Note, they oddly died within the same year, despite the age difference.
While not every photo in the albums I inherited were labeled, plenty of them were. This easily allowed me to identify Elizabeth and Mariah as the two subjects in this photograph.
However, I found it odd when I received the framed, enlarged version in the mail with a note attached to it that was clearly misguided. Several years prior to Frances' passing, she and her sisters had begun labeling items in her house with their provenance and importance, in anticipation of the day she'd be parting with her belongings. I know this because when I visited her home in 2009, some items already had little handwritten notes sitting under or beside them. It was all very organized! But I also recall the framed photographs that were hanging on the wall had nothing of the sort labeling them. I actually pointed out to my great aunt who each woman was. But when I received the below over a decade later, the note affixed to it did not line up with what I had explained to her.
Aside from having the previous knowledge of who these women were known to be from other pictures, there was also certain details in the images that were overlooked upon examination that could have assisted the family in better identifying them.
Firstly, the note speaks of a woman sitting in a chair. There are only 2 women in this photo and one is very clearly sitting on the steps up to the house and the other behind her is seated in the doorway, so that must be "the woman in the chair." The authors of the note identify this woman as Emma Rockwell (Elizabeth's sister).
Secondly, the note speaks of a woman "standing behind her." There very clearly is no person standing whatsoever. The only person "behind" someone else, therefore, could only be "the woman in the chair." So already there is a puzzle to solve as to which of the 2 women they are even speaking of at any given moment.
Finally, the note admits there is more than one person attempting to identify the subjects of this photo, and at least one of them is Frances' offspring, as they write, "we think it is moms great grandmother Rockwell" when again describing the woman in the rear.
I believe some of the context needed here to detangle this web of mystery is the fact that Elizabeth (Pitcock) Rockwell had several children; the daughters were named Mary, Mariah, Elizabeth, and Emma (in birth order). So when the authors mentioned "Emma Rockwell (Elizabeth's sister)," they were actually describing Frances' grandmother Elizabeth (Rockwell) Dixon and her sister, Emma Jane Rockwell. This also explains why they refer to the elder Elizabeth as solely "great grandmother Rockwell."
We can now surmise that the authors of the note wholly intended the woman in the foreground to be Emma and the woman in the background to likely be Elizabeth (Pitcock) Rockwell, Emma's mother. Now that we've got that sorted, I can confirm from other photo evidence that the woman in the rear was most certainly Elizabeth (Pitcock) Rockwell. And I also know that if the authors had penned the note about a decade before they did, Frances would still have had the capacity to firmly identify her as her great grandmother at that time (I even have home video evidence of her saying so).
But even those 10 years prior, Frances could not identify the woman seated on the steps. She only remembered her as "Em." She assumed that must have meant it was her great aunt Emma seated there. But I pointed out to her that it was actually her great aunt, Mariah. Again, I knew this from other photos of Mariah. Perhaps she was only remembering Mariah's first initial "M" and mis-translated that audibly to "Em"? Who knows. By the time the authors penned the note, Frances must still have only recalled "Em" or "Emma" as the seated woman.
With a little detective work, there's an easy way to confirm it's truly Mariah and not Emma (or any of the other siblings). Emma died incredibly young, around 10 years old, actually in 1876. And eldest sister Mary died in 1920. The photo was taken circa 1927, so that tosses out the possibility of it being either of them. That only leaves Mariah and Elizabeth. Elizabeth was Frances' grandmother so there's really no way she could have questioned whether it was her or not, as she grew up with the woman. But also, Elizabeth lived in a completely different county than her mother. So we are left with Mariah, who also makes the most sense, being that she was unmarried and known to have grown old with her mother, passing away just 5 months after the old lady did.
We can also throw out the idea that "Emma Rockwell (Elizabeth's sister)" was referring to the elder Elizabeth (Pitcock) Rockwell's sister, as she had no sibling named Emma.
I don't blame the authors for getting the label wrong. They knew they were sending it to the resident genealogist in the family anyhow, so of course I'd set the record straight upon receipt! I am just pointing out how little details can go overlooked initially that may answer so many questions, if they're just examined more thoroughly.
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