More images from the collection of Emma Beauvais Thomas Grumley.
This is the eleventh post in this series.
For those of you who are just coming on board, all of these images are part of a collection that once belonged to young Emma Thomas, daughter of William Lyman and Catherine (Kate) Sutton Thomas. I assume all were friends, acquaintances or family of Emma’s. She wrote her name on the back of many of them to identify her as the owner but many have no information to identify the subjects.
Vintage images such as these found in a tag sale or antique store would have only a small amount of value. These are important because they all belonged to Emma and are a good record of the many people in her life. She was born on land that once belonged to her grandfather, James C. Sutton. It is land that would one day become Maplewood. Emma lived here her entire life.
From these images of Emma’s people we can all have a good look at the populous of our neighborhoods many years before any of us came along.
As you may recall I have been going through Emma’s collection in alphabetical order according to the studios that produced the images. On the last post in this series we had made it up to R.
This small ad from 1887 is the earliest mention of the Scholten Studio that I found on Newspapers.com.I thought Genelli’s had the best equipped studio? Must depend on who you are talking to.Opposite Exposition must refer to St. Louis’ Exposition Hall about which I know nothing at this point.This one and the next may be the same fellow?Perhaps even taken on the same day.Both had the same back. Don’t you love the artwork on the backs of these cabinet cards?This guy has a certain look about him. Could be Tom Waits’ great-great grandfather perhaps? Just kidding.More fabulous illustration on the back of the previous image.Just looking at this distinguished gentlemen and with no concern for historical accuracy, I’d have to say that his style of beard and mustache may have been inspired by Charles Dickens.Well, we’ll never know the name of the previous gentleman, much less whether or not he had ever met or even seen a likeness of Charles Dickens but the back of his image does yield another important bit of information…a date! May 14, 1896. I suspect the date may have been written by Emma. I’m not certain. I suppose I could compare the handwriting with others that are dated but that seems a bit much. We are fortunate to have yet another example of artwork from that highly decorated era.
It was just a short time after that last photo when this article appeared.I suppose the scammers have always been around.Or could he have been an agent? We’ll never know.
My next folder contains a few images that had serrated edges to explain why these follow Scholten.
An interesting lady with serrated edges.The back of the previous lady’s image has a strong burned-in one from the image that had been stored under it.This sailor could have gone in the Goldsmith file which I displayed a few posts back, but didn’t. Nothing written on the back of him.This one is interesting for a couple of reasons. First, it resembles a variation of that early porthole look that was produced by the first Kodak cameras about 1890. Second, it is signed on the back by Katherine Thomas.My guess is this is the signature of Emma’s sister, nicknamed Kitty. Her mother’s name was Catherine (with a C) but she preferred to be called Kate.
That does it for this post and we haven’t even made it out of the S,s. There are still quite a few of Emma’s images that I haven’t posted yet. Thanks again to Chrissie Hayes McConnell for sharing her family treasures with us. I should mention again that she and her family have very generously donated all of these artifacts to the State Historical Society of Missouri (SHSMO) in the Thomas Jefferson Library building, adjacent to the Mercantile Library, on the campus of UMSL.
The weather has finally turned nice but the news is focused on the war in Ukraine as it should be. I am not a religious person but still I can’t think of anything better to say than pray for a quick end to this war.
