Major Edwin Foster Ong
Major Edwin Foster Ong Steve Reed over at Shadows and Light solved the case for me. In my last post he linked a photograph of the same man above that was attributed to Burlington, Iowa which is only 30 miles from Wapello, Iowa. But that wasn't the clue that solved it. The clue that Steve gave me was saying that the back of the picture possibly said Major and not Mayor. That letter made all the difference and on my third try to enter the right combination of words to find more information, I hit the jackpot. Edwin was born on 18 May 1857 in Wapello, Iowa to Finley M. and Eliza Jane Christie Ong along with a younger sister Lillie and a younger brother George. That dates my photograph above to sometime in 1901 or early 1902. Despite the Asian looking left eye, he is listed as "white" in all census records along with both of his parents. His father Finley was a tailor before the Civil War but gave that up to "fight" for Company K of the 8th Iowa Calvary. Most of