Saturday, March 13, 2021

Sepia Saturday: Like a Dog with a Bone

Sepia Saturday challenges bloggers to share family history through old photographs.

During the month of March, I will be shining the light on my Irish roots.


NOTE: This blog has been edited to remove the photo originally identified incorrectly as HERBERT PARKER. In its place is the REAL Herbert Parker.

Sepia Saturday’s theme of the week is 3.

I’ll give you three guesses as to what I’m blogging about today.

Nope, not that. Try again.

Yep - The same picture from last week.

Several of the HomoSepians who commented suggested that since the boys did not favor one another they might be cousins rather than brothers. That got me thinking.

Herbert Parker and his father
Ephraim parker


This photo that I KNOW is my grandaunt Helen Killeen Parker’s husband Herbert has some resemblance to the little boy on the left. Going on that assumption, I went looking for a cousin who might have been close in age.

 

Herbert’s father Ephraim C. Parker had a number of siblings as did his mother Margaret Williams Parker. One likely candidate is Andrew Sivertson, son of Ephraim’s sister Elvera Parker and her husband Thomas Sivertson. Andrew was born the same year as Herbert, but the boys in the photo do not appear to be the same age.

 




Courtesy Elvera Parker Rogers
Ancestry 


The other MORE likely candidate is son of Ephraim’s younger brother Jesse Loren Parker. Jesse and his wife Bettie had several children, but the oldest, Robert, gets my vote. On Ancestry, I found this photo of Robert as a young man. Does he look like an older version of the boy on the right?

 

Robert is listed in Herbert and Helen’s wedding gift book as having given them a “steak set” – knives, I suppose. He and Herbert must have remained close friends even as adults.

But I admit, the identification of the two boys is still just a guess. (I wonder if I can get a third post out of this picture.)

Why don’t you and a couple friends visit the other bloggers at Sepia Saturday to see what they made of the theme of THREE.

Wendy

© 2021, Wendy Mathias. All rights reserved.

11 comments:

  1. I think your idea is certainly as good as any others. Keep on working out your relatives!

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  2. Yes, Robert looks very much like the little boy on the right - you can see his right eyelid droops down, and his lips are very similar, with the thin, curvy upper lip. Good luck in this detective work! ("homosapiens" - ha!)

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  3. Look like good guesses. The last photo does favor the young boy on the right. Now the other boy - interesting with the hair! Did his mother bleach it? My husband's grandmother bleached my husband's dad's hair when he was little, so I guess it was sometimes a thing. I'll bet you CAN get three posts out of this photo! We are waiting in anticipation!

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  4. OMG folks, just look at those ears! Robert's ears and the ears on the little boy on the right in the first photo. Could nothing be plainer? :))

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  5. Yes, I think you may have solved that one. A definite likeness between the two boys - especially the shape of the face and those ears.

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  6. Both look like good guesses to me. As for hair colour (Kathy's comment) that can change naturally. (Mine did!)

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    1. Congratulations on your detective work in linking Robert and Herbert.. I must admit when I first saw the lovely photograph of Herbert, I was thinking it was a girl, though I knew small boys were often put in dresses.

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  7. Let's keep discussing so you can get another post out of that picture!

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  8. These look like good matches to me. Robert’s nose seems to match the boy on the right in the top photo. And Herbert as a toddler looks like the boy on the left. Nice sleuthing work, and once again the Sepians come through with some encouraging observations.

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  9. Their hair. Their bows. Their laces. The photo with the boys is so delightful. I do wonder why their belts were so big.

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  10. Excellent photo detective work, Wendy. They look like a very close match. Could there be some family occasion that might have inspired a photo of cousins as a gift? An anniversary of parents or grandparents? I have a cousin who shares my exact birthday. Because I was born in France, she and I did not meet until several years later. If I looked hard enough I probably could find the photos my dad took of the occasion. But I'm fairly sure we were not dressed alike.

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