Throwback Thursday

We recently posted a couple of archival pictures from Mike's side of the family, including one of his great-grandfather, George Stanislaus Boyd, slogging through the swamps of Honduras.

Here's another good one. It's George S. Boyd's mother (and Mike's great-great-grandmother), Mary Emily Dunham Boyd, with several of her grandchildren--and, to her enormous credit, a family dog who looks cozy and well-fed!

M recently got this photograph from one of Mary Emily's great-great-granddaughters (and therefore M's third cousin), a lady named Betsy Spencer, who identified the kids as (l-r):  Mary Bass; Mary's sister (and Betsy's Grandmother), Dorothy Howe Bass Spencer; and the girls' first cousin, whose nickname might have been "Minnie." That last identity isn't known for certain; Mike and Betsy are still trying to verify it. According to M's family history records, Mary Emily had a daughter named May Alice Boyd, who was called "Minnie." But they do not contain any details about May Alice's children, including whether she, herself, had a daughter by that name. Nor has M found another "Minnie" among the kids of May Alice's other siblings. (Minnie, schminnie! What I want to know is what's the dog's name?)

Betsy thinks the picture was taken around 1894 or 1895, when her grandmother was two or three years old. In all likelihood it was made in this house at 418 North 3rd Street in Palatka, where Mary Emily lived for many years and where she died in 1917 at the age of 87:

This Throwback Thursday thing is kinda fun! Maybe we'll try making it a tradition here at the ol' blogaroo. Stand by for some of the skeletons from Jeannie's closet!