Friday 17 November 2017

Flowers for the ladies






This week's Sepia Saturday prompt photograph shows a young lady posing alluringly in a photographer's studio with a basket of flowers. In 2011 after my Aunty Pat Morrison passed away we discovered an old album of Cartes de Visite photographs stored amongst her belongings. They are lovely to look at but sadly we have not been able to identify very many of the almost two hundred photographs contained in the album. 
The first photograph below is not from the album, but was shared with me by a distant cousin in New Zealand, which is where most of my family lived, and she tells me that this lady is Mrs Ann Forbes, nee Anderson, widow of William Forbes, who was the eldest brother of my great grandfather Charles Forbes. In other words, she was Charles' sister-in-law. Ann was born in Clatt, Aberdeenshire in 1845 and she emigrated to Canterbury New Zealand in 1851, together with her parents and nine of her twelve siblings. She married William Forbes in 1863 in a double wedding ceremony, in which her sister Sophia married Thomas Ross. At the date of their marriage Ross and Forbes were partners in The Weka Pass Hotel and they also operated a cartage business in the Weka Pass area. William and Ann had five sons and a daughter, but their daughter Ann and youngest son James died as infants, and then William died of Tuberculosis in 1877 aged 38.  Ann might not have had too much to smile about in those times of loss, but never the less she survived long after her husband. She died in 1936 aged 89 and is buried in Balcairn Cemetery in Amberley New Zealand, together with William, Ann, James and her parents John and Margaret Anderson. 



The following photograph is from the old album I inherited, and shows a younger woman posing side on for the same Christchurch firm of photographers, Grand and Dunlop, beside the same vase and a very similar if not identical vase of flowers. There are other photographs by the same photographic studio to be found online showing other ladies posing beside the same vase, so the flowers may not even be real, but the fact that this second photograph is in the album suggests that whoever this lady is, she must be related to the Forbes or Anderson family in some way. Ann had two daughters-in-law but they did not marry her sons until the late 1890s, which seems too late for this photograph, because the photography business was sold by Grand and Dunlop in 1887. It could perhaps be her youngest sister Elizabeth Anderson, who was born in New Zealand in 1852. The lady here could perhaps be pregnant, but that impression might just be the angle of the photograph. Ladies were pretty good at disguising their condition back then, by breathing in, tightening their stays and buttoning up! 
I generally don't include the siblings of in-laws on my tree, so I haven't researched Ann's family in any great detail and consequently can't come to any more definite conclusions about this lady's identity.



It looks to me as if those flowers could be hydrangeas, so in tribute to both ladies, known and unknown, here's a hydrangea in bloom in our garden today, grown from a cutting and flourishing well.


Finally here is my mother-in-law Mary, totally unrelated to the ladies above, doing well and living on her own at 92 years young. We sent her these flowers on the occasion of her 90th birthday. 





Click here for more posts about young ladies with baskets or vases of flowers. 

9 comments:

Helen Killeen Bauch McHargue said...

Lovely photos. I wonder if the photographer decided on the poses or if the ladies chose to be photographed in profile or full face?

tony said...

Mary is Lovely!
Your two studio photographs are great...although i wonder why she would be asked to stand in profile?
Thanks For The Share.
T.

La Nightingail said...

Posing in profile is a bit different, but perhaps she had a scar on the right side of her face or some other disfigurement she didn't want exposed? Either that, or she simply preferred a side view as opposed to one straight on. Her dress and hat are certainly elaborate.

diane b said...

Well done to your MIL looking after herself and home in her nineties. She is an inspiration.

Jofeath said...

Yes, she still lives in the 2 storey duplex that the family moved into in 1959, and she regularly catches the bus around town and from Canberra down to the South Coast to check up on/clean the beach house my FIL built in the early 60s.

Mike Brubaker said...

I wonder if the profile photo was to show off her hat. And Mary's photo with her flowers is a nice touch to add to the theme.

Crissouli said...

Beautiful photos, your mother in law is an inspiration...I think we all hope to emulate her and stay in our own home as long as possible.

Molly's Canopy said...

Wonderful photos to have in your collection. I wonder if there are any records left from the photographic firm that might help with identifying the people in them. Kudos to your MIL on continuing the be out and about -- an inspiration to us all!

Crissouli said...

I have included your blog in INTERESTING BLOGS in FRIDAY FOSSICKING at
https://thatmomentintime-crissouli.blogspot.com/2017/11/friday-fossicking-24th-nov-2017.html

Thank you, Chris