The Camera - Our only Time Machine

Today's entry comes from over at LOST GALLERY. It was so interesting it seemed worth repeating here.

I found this Cabinet Card in a flea market in Kansas.

After scanning, it looked like this.

Then the yellow was drained away and the contrast bumped for a little enhancement. Now it looks like this.

The reverse looks like this.
It says:
Wm (Bill) and Amanda
Hostetter & Family

From this little bit of evidence, and some time on Ancestry.com, we find there is a story in the lives of these people... from almost 120 years ago.

It appears the picture had to be posed in 1898 between April and September.

Poor Susa May died that year in September at the young age of 8. The baby Russell Jackson was born in April of that same year.

Many things were discovered about the family and their descendants. Days could be spent linking into the many branches of the family. There were many large families.

William himself was one of nine siblings.

One census reveals that William was a “farmer” and that he could not read or write but Amanda could. According to the 1910 census, twelve years after this photograph, the entire family was living in the home of a younger brother Gilbert Douglas Hostetter (1861-1933), and William was listed as doing “odd jobs”.

The couple had three more children after this photo, two of them not lasting a year. Still, many of the children lived long lives, three of them into their eighties, and Bertha reached 93. Mother Amanda, herself, lived 79 years; William only 70.

In 1910 the life expectancy in the US was 48.4 years for men and 51.8 for women. By 1980 it had reached only 70 and 77.4.

And of course, here, digitally, they will live long and interesting lives.

William's younger brother Albert Picket Hostetter (1864-1962), was married apparently about four times, had about 22 children and moved to Kansas in 1900.

That is probably why I now have this photograph.