Studying and Pontificating

 

Above is a photo in my "box of stuff" and on the back is written:

Feb 22, 1901

Room W, Gridley

Inmates - Wright and Kuck.

I'm not sure how to decipher what is written other than it likely has something to do with John Kuck. I have looked a bit and haven't found any Gridley that lived in Charles City, Iowa in 1901. Curiously though there is definitely a comma after the "W" and before the "Gridley" which makes me want to interpret as "Room W" and "Gridley". 

But three things capture my attention that make me think I know exactly where this room is despite what it written on the back. If you embiggen the photo, look at the pictures on the top of the drop leaf secretary desk and you will see one that is quite familiar. I will post it below for you so so you can see it in more detail.

Mine didn't come in a large cardboard frame but this is definitely the picture and is of my 3rd great grandfather John Kuck on the left, his wife Elizabeth on the right and left to right in the middle his three children Clara, Paul and Bertha that he had with wife Elizabeth. 

The oval picture directly in front of the one above looks like this picture below only cropped into an oval shape and put into a frame:

Clara Kuck in 1898

There are at least three more pictures upon that desk that would be sure nice if I could make them out but I can't. 

The third thing that captured my attention was the windows on the back wall and left wall in the top photo. Notice how they are shuttered in two distinct sections from top to bottom? Take a look at the photo below of John Kuck's home on Ferguson Street.

If you look at the left window on the upper story above the bay windows down below, you will notice that it is the only window in the house with the shutters closed and they bear a very close resemblance to the ones seen in the top photo. 

So at first, I combined all these details to assume I was looking into one of the rooms of John Kuck's home on Ferguson Street in Charles City.

Or...

I could go with AI's interpretation when I plugged in the pictures and asked what it thought. AI told me that it likely is the inside of a dorm room, Room W in Gridley Hall and the "inmates" are Clara Kuck and someone by the name of Write. 

A quick google search assured me there was indeed a Gridley Hall (someone else's photo of it) at Carleton College during the time frame that Clara Kuck attended and that it was a women's dorm. It also has arched windows with shutters in four sections much like in the top photo. So I think AI has beaten me again at coming up with the correct answer and in seconds compared to the hour or two that I spent staring and comparing photos. On hindsight, the humor is very typical to Clara's notations on dozens of other photos I have already scanned from her photo album so it perhaps should have been more obvious that it was. 

Knowing that it was a dorm room and not the inside of John's house, makes me wonder how much of that furniture was supplied by the college and how much by the "inmates" themselves? It looks pretty fancy for college dorm furniture, at least from my experience nearly 100 years after Clara. Someday, I've always thought I would build some sort of writing desk when the kids are both gone for good and I can turn one of their rooms into my writing room. I might come back to the picture at the top and see if I can recreate something similar.

After all that pontificating, I couldn't just leave you without actually showing a photo that I think it likely a room from John Kuck's house. On the back it says, "Taken July 29, 1900 By B. A. Kuck" Bertha didn't go to college and in July of 1900 was still living with her parents at their house on Ferguson Street in Charles City. AI did agree that it was likely an interior room of a Victorian style house of that era. I really wish it was more clear to tell what is above the upright piano. Family picture perhaps?