Details

meagain625 says:
I could be wrong (I know, I know...it has happened) but it looks like the house was recently built, down to the new paint on the porch columns. Is that house behind it the same size (a developer bought up land and built on the property?) or a smaller storage type building? And why do I expect someone to know all the details on a found photo? What is with that? :)

anyjazz65 says:
Hm. You posed some very good questions there. Another look at it brings some discoveries and some more questions. First, I thought that it was just one building but I am not sure now. There are three chimneys showing. If it was a very big house, it would perhaps require three. Two were more common, as one for the living area and one for the kitchen as they were still cooking at the hearth then. If an extension were build to accommodate more children then a third might be required. However, there could be two separate buildings too.

Did a developer acquire land to build tract houses? Probably not. Most houses were individually built back then with only meager planning. Actually these looked at first like a home (or two) that had been moved there from another location. See the makeshift foundations and the extra lumber stuffed beneath. But then I noticed the cellar door. (There is a classic cellar door and rain barrel here!) The likelihood of there being a cellar already dug there and moving a house over it is pretty thin. Look at the trees. They surround the lot. The house was probably built there, not moved into place.

But look at the “second” house. The screen door is standing open, there is no porch and there are no steps. The door does seem to be painted the same as the door on the closer house. It is too good for a farm utility building, barn, tool shed. It must be a second house. Families often did that back then. The son would marry and bring his wife home. They would build a house on the same property and continue farming the land as a bigger family. Some towns got started that way probably.

The windows of the two buildings are not identical. The closer one appears to be a double hung, two pane window. The other seems to be a “French” window with small panes. The third window, the one on the left is shuttered with an exterior mounted shutter.

The chimney design seems the same on all three.

The siding and roof appear to be the same on both buildings.

There are a lot of details that could point to it being one building and a lot in favor of it being two separate buildings.

I still don’t know.

This is a long shot, obviously intended to be a picture of the homes more than a portrait. If it was intended to be a portrait of the extended family and their respective homes, where are they?

The shadows indicate the sun is low over my right shoulder. I think it is late in the day and we are facing east. The front door would thus be protected from the prairie north wind.


meagain625 says:
Of course! I missed the cellar door. I did notice the trees were already established , but my mind didn't really dwelve into that area much, knowing that some build around them. I had noticed the door on the other house, and how it was not set up like the door/porch on the first house, that's what made me think of it as separate. It appears to be more like a back door, maybe the houses are back to back to allow the new wife to have her own garden and lawn area.I love the puzzles these bring out. It stretches my mind to be able to sit and speculate, something not normally done if you are looking at the photograph unless it is there in front of you for a while and reminding you: Look at me, think of me... (does that even make sense?)

anyjazz65 says:
Absolutely. If a photograph can take you into it and give your mind an exercise then it has well done its job.Yes, back to back houses seems a logical set up to me also. The only thing that still bothers me is: why did they need two houses for just the three of them? Normally it would be too expensive to build a house for just one son. And look: the guy on the right has muck boots with the pants tucked in and a utility farm hat as if he just came from the corral...the guy in the center has shirt, tie, vest slacks and a billed hat that looks something like a railroad engineer's cap.Not that this was probably NOT a professional photographer...No self-respecting photog would allow a photo to have a slanting horizon. Perhaps it was an amateur with the camera either hand held or resting on a wagon wheel to steady it. The professional card mounting might have been done by the photo processor. At least I think so. Perhaps it was a delayed shutter and that's the photographer standing in the middle...

meagain625 says:
I had noticed the look of the worker in him, perhaps he was widowed, or the other was? She appears to be older than the men, it could be "Mom's house"... One of the things that we won't know, and that *is* what makes it so interesting :)

anyjazz65 says:
Yes. Also there is also the underlying remote hope that somehow,someone might recognize the photograph.And yes, she does seem older than the men. Could be they are not related in any way too. I don't know. It is certainly very enjoyable to sit and speculate about it with the given clues.