Front L - R: Martha Swenson Richards, Kjersti Nilson Swenson, Peter (Pehr) Truson Swenson, Hannah Swenson Rowan.Back L - R: Andrew Swenson, Mary Swenson Parker, Ellen Swenson Pearson (my great grandmother), Niels (Nils Per) Swenson, Annie (Anna) Swenson Jelta (Hjelte), Maggie Swenson Parker.
Photo taken by "Alseen - 69 E 2nd South - Salt Lake".
Many thanks for Lane Rasmussen's labeling of everyone in this photo - as well as for the photographer credits.
I will post the e-mail discussion of this picture as an 'anonymous' comment as it was not me that was discussing it. The discussion comments were by Lane Rasmussen, Mark Peterson, and Lon Pearson. In order to view the comments, either click on the title of this post and it will pull up just this post and its comments, or click on the 'comments' link below and a pop- up window will appear with all the comments from the first e-mail I received, which was discussing this photo. I find the pop-up window helpful because then I can move it to be right next to the picture so that I can read all the comments as I look over at the picture.
Posts
(Mark Peterson's comment is the first one and Lon Pearson's comment is follows these symbols: -->)
ReplyDeleteMy immediate technical question concerns what you've said, Lane, about these photos both being taken in 1905. Whereas that may be true, I question it. The only person who is in both photos is, of course, our common great grandmother, Ellen Swenson Pearson. She looks twenty years older in the Pearson photo than she does in the Swenson photo. In the Pearson photo, she is the mother of nine children. In the Swenson photo, she is a child, one of eight.
--> My feeling when I got one of the original picture in a brown pasteboard frame (I think I borrowed it, made laser copies, and returned it to Wanda--nothing was written on the back) that it was taken in 1904, because Dad (Milo) looks 11. Born in April 1893 he could have been 12, and I would say 1905 is a good guess for a date. We don't know at present where that original is, because we have moved Wanda out of the West Jordan house at 6787 So Redwood. The studio for the two pictures is the same, and Lane has identified it in a later email. I think that it was taken the same day. The lighting can make it look like she is older. Another possibility, is that since she is not wearing the same clothes, with the shock of Aunt Mary's death, they decided as a family to go in and get the Pearson kin shot. She might have just changed clothes for the shot. There is detective clue that makes me think that. Do you notice the chain around her neck. That is the matron's keys to the cupboard in the house and it is indicative of her social status. While her clothing in the Swenson picture is more like a daughter should wear, she does wear the chain, which she also has on in the Pearson picture, dressed more like a mother/matron. Notice in the Swenson picture, she is rivaling her mother for status with the chain. In the Pearson picture, does Aunt Stella have a chain, indicative that she is also married and a homemaker? Uncle Len (Lennart Edwin, b. 1873 in Alta, just after the silver mine there was swamped with water and closed) was married 22 JUN 1904 to one of the most beautiful woman in the world, Aunt Rosalind Glover, so soon as a chemist he would head to Idaho Falls to raise his family there. I was always told by family that when he worked in the Alta mine, Grandpa (Lorentz) was alone. Mark told me that Grandma (Ellen) came from Sweden, having been encouraged to after they met during one of Lorentz's missions in Sweden (he returned from WJ in the 1890s). This proves that Ellen came over about 1872 or 73 and they lived in Alta longer than I had been told. So Lorentz helped convert the Swensons. He also worked on his first and second mission with the Petersons (my other kin), who had been members since the 1850s.
Lon, what do you think? Your father looks to be 12 or 14. What date would that make the Pearson photo? -- wait.... I just looked it up. Milo was born in 1893, which would make him 12 in 1905. Bingo.
ReplyDelete--> Since he later was very tall, I think 1905 is the date. Kenneth, seated on the left was born 12 Nov 1889, which would make him about 16. Looks like it.
Grandfather Swenson would have been 84 and Grandmother Swenson would have been 76. Don't they look a little younger, too?
ReplyDelete--> That does make me wonder, because, as I'll explain in a note I wrote last night and will paste at the end, Grandma Swenson was eventually bald. But that picture could have been taken after she was 76.
But look at Ellen. In the Swenson picture she looks a lot younger. I think the Swenson photo is older than 1905. And the Swenson were a generation ahead -- all born in Sweden -- Everod or Vittskovle. Ellen was the oldest, born in 1853 (in the blouse with the white spotted design on the back row -- Martha, front row on the left, was the youngest, b. 1874. In 1905, they would have been 52 and 31. Possible, but they look younger?
ReplyDelete--> I think that 1905, since it was written on the picture and seems to be correct (see the studio background), is really close to the date. It could have been a year or two earlier, but I doubt it.
And while I'm being skeptical, Mary doesn't look any more pregnant than any of the other women in the picture.
ReplyDelete--> That is very true, so it could have been a miscarriage. Although it is hard to see, for sure.
Could it be that the note on the back of the Swenson photo is meant to say it has to be older than 1905 because that is the first death in the group, ergo, that is the "most recent possible date." But there are no obvious clues to set an "earliest possible" date. We've only got the Mary's-death-as-the-latest-possible date. "It had to have been before 1905." But we don't know how much before.
ReplyDelete--> I still think that they were taken either the same day or within a few weeks of each other.
Lane, I'm a little suspicious of the story about Mary's death. According to the ancestral file, she had only one child previous to this purported pregnancy and death in 1905. That earlier child was born in 1888 when Mary was 23. And thus, no other pregnancies until the one that took her life in 1905? Possible, but .... is there more to the story? Forgive my skepticism, but Ellen just doesn't look the same age in the two photos....
ReplyDelete--> Mary could have died from a miscarriage. I'll paste below what I copied last night.
Also it's interesting that after Mary died, her husband, William Edward Parker, married her sister Maggie, who had been widowed for 16 years when her husband, Samuel Henry Parker died. And yes, the two Parkers were brothers. William Edward fathered only one child with Mary. But Maggie bore four to Samuel Henry, and then four more to William Edward, even though she was 36 when he rescued her from widowhood by her brother-in-law. (This is a common practice, bytheway. It's called the "levirate" and is found in many societies and is referenced in the Bible, too.)
ReplyDelete--> See below. I just called Wanda, and she remembered Aunt Mary as having a house just north of Aunt Maggies, which is about 6461 South Redwood. There is a recycling place there now. I think that the Woods lived there later (and maybe they were a relative). The Rowans lived in Idaho (the Idaho relatives sometimes had Cadillacs) and her brother, I forget now which one, was a bachelor and got a lot of land in the Ririe area and encouraged Uncles Roy, Clarence, and Ken to come up and homestead. I have some of their letters, and will have to digitize them.
Here are my added comments: by Lon Pearson (June 5, 2008):
ReplyDeleteKjersti (pronounced Chersti), my great-grandmother unfortunately lost her hair at some point (but obviously not at the time of her picture. I saw pictures that my parents had of her bald. This Nilson/Swenson gene was passed on to my sister, Wanda Pearson Sims, who lost her hair in her 50s, but gained it back in her 60s, to just lose it again in her 70s-80s. I have in my home two rare Beehive cane chairs and one rose-pink Dinwoodie dresser that they bought sometime in the early 1870s and were passed on to my father and then me. These are some of the very few items I have from any of my ancestors.
Maggie Swenson Parker back right, lived a half a mile from our house, but over the hill in Bennion Ward. She married Samuel Henry PARKER in 1890, but he died in 1897. They had four children. Then she married, his brother William E. Parker, who was 8 years older; and seems to have been the husband of Mary Swenson Parker (who died after this picture as Lane mentioned above). Maggie had four more children, including a daughter Maggie, who was born on 8 Mar 1911 in Bennion and died on 24 May 1981. Wand says that they lived just north of Maggie
I used to work as a teenager in the beets and tomatoes for Ross Parker in Bennion, and I am just realizing that he might have been a relative. (I didn’t really like the way that he exploited us, but we weren’t very diligent workers either.)
We found in Milo Pearson's copy in Aug. 2008 that the date was 1905 for both Swenson and Pearson pictures taken in the same studio. --Lon
ReplyDelete