Sorority Photo

 

I went outside to check the mailbox and was surprised to see a rather large box sitting on my front porch. I hadn't ordered anything that would have come in that large of box had I? I looked at the mailing label and saw that it was from Colorado Springs, where my great great grandaunt's photo album had been located in a vintage and antique shop. The box was large enough to hold 20 such albums so I just assumed as I carried it inside, that it had been well packed. It had but it contained not one thing but four different items. It had the photo album, an album of postcards from her travels, a sort of school annual and a large photo of the Gamma Delta Sorority from Carleton College in Minnesota.

The latter photo is 18 inches tall and 24 inches wide so way too big to fit in my flatbed scanner so I am only able to scan a portion of it. I scanned the portion that contains my great great grandaunt Clara who is in the front row, second from the left with the brooch pinned to her left shoulder area. I have attached a cropped picture of her below.

My initial impression is one of surprise as she is quite beautiful in my eyes. I would have thought she wouldn't be so fair judging by the knowledge of her late marriage at age 55. But that may just attest to her independent nature which shows up repeatedly by her travels overseas and all across the United States. She likely just didn't want or have time to settle down until she was older. Just the fact that she had the print enlarged and mounted on a piece of decorative hardboard is proof that she was proud of it and her education in general which was just getting started at this point. She would go on to study abroad at two different universities in Germany and then back home, attend two more learning institutions in Boston.

According to some very faint writing on the back of the hardboard on which the photo is mounted, this picture was taken during the spring semester of 1902 when Clara had just turned 19 years old. 

Having just skimmed through the other three books, I know there is a lot more that I want to look at more closely, likely starting with getting high resolution scans of everything first. Unfortunately, it appears that most of the labels she added to the photos are either nicknames or even just apprising the situation in the photograph without naming the people. It means it will take a bit of research probably to identify some of the people and many will likely never be known as they appear to be peers or classmates from the various universities she attended. However, there is at least a couple pictures of her mother and her maternal grandfather. I didn't see any of my 3rd great grandfather John or first wife Mary but I may have just missed it the first round. The pictures are all very small and my eyes not so sharp anymore so scanning and looking at zoomed versions of them on my monitor is what needs to happen.

It is a lot of work but I'm game.