Sepia Saturday challenges bloggers to share family
history through old photographs.
The photo of people posing with a cardboard automobile in
this week’s
Sepia Saturday prompt afforded an opportunity to share this photo:
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Mae and Clifton Holland in the backseat
Henry Holland in the front
photo courtesy Cliff Reeves |
What can we glean from this photo? The steering wheel
gives the illusion of a car, but there are no doors, no roof, no windows. The
draping behind the couples looks much like a tent at a circus or fair suggesting
this might have been a prop in a precursor to today’s photo booth. The baby in
the backseat probably was not real. The black beady eyes and unnatural pose of
the arms make it look more like a doll, maybe a prize for shooting plastic
ducks or knocking down all the milk bottles.
The photo was given to me by the grandson of the couple
in the backseat: Mae and Clifton Holland. Mae (formally known as Mary Agnes) was sister to my
paternal grandmother and sister to Helen Killeen Parker whose photos I have
shared on this blog too many times to count.
The couple in the front seat was Clifton’s younger
brother Henry Lee Holland and his unnamed wife, according to Mae’s grandson. She
is wearing a wedding ring, so I must believe he is correct. However, there are
some red flags that throw that conclusion into question.
A marriage record for Henry Holland dated 1942 claims he
was SINGLE. The bride-to-be was divorcee Annie Sophie Wagner Whitley. However, the
clothing in this photo seems to predate the styles of 1942, in particular the
men’s stiff collars AND the lady’s wide-brimmed hat. Men’s collars of the 40s had
become longer, more pointed. Ladies’ hats were much smaller.
Henry Holland and Annie divorced in 1946. He promptly
married a widow, Mary Miller Mears. For the same observations about the
clothing, it is doubtful the woman in the photo was wife #2 either.
I have no other photos of Henry, but thanks to my cousin,
I have a photo of Clifton and Mae Holland with their children for comparison.
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| photo courtesy Cliff Reeves |
Pictured are Clifton and Mae in the center, surrounded by
their children John, Mary Evelyn "Ebbie," and Jean. John was born in 1917, Ebbie in 1920, and
Jean in 1926. Without an exact date of the photo, I will guess that surely
little Jean was no older than 6, dating this photo to about 1932. Mae does not
look a bit older in the previous photo suggesting that picture was taken earlier
than 1942.
At least two trees on Ancestry put Henry Lee Holland with
a woman named Elizabeth Mae Bailey. Despite my hopes that there had been a wife
previous to Annie Whitley, there is no record online. There is, however, a
marriage record for Elizabeth Mae Bailey and one James Henry Holland. Eh –
probably another case of sloppy genealogy linking similar names without
verifying the facts first.
To be fair, there are not many facts available online for Henry Lee Holland. In
the 1920 census, Henry was just a teenager working as a messenger boy for the telegraph
company. After that, the only records are marriage, divorce, and death. Those
indicate he served in the Navy and was a torpedoman when he died in 1950.
So is this Henry and Annie in the front seat? I cannot
say for sure. But one thing is clear: those Holland men were good-looking.
Wendy
© 2020, Wendy Mathias. All rights reserved.
