Sunday, July 11, 2010

Family History Photo Monday: The Hyrum & Alice Ohlson Family 1916

I'm still in denial that I've lost more than half the photos on my hard drive.  And every other document on my hard drive.  All of these family photos are still on my camera's memory card, but it means going through and editing all of them again.  And I was going to accompany this picture with a photo of the home this family lived in, but that photo is gone.  (Which means I have to go back to a scary neighborhood in Ogden and take a picture of it again.)

Enough crying!  Today's photo is the Hyrum and Alice Ohlson family.  They are my great great grandparents, Winnifred Ohlson Furniss's parents.  Hyrum (a very handsome man) was a railroad engineer for the Southern Pacific lines and he was also a watchman (?) for Ogden City.  He was only 60 years old when he died of an "extended illness," as the newspaper said.  He and Alice Maria Biddle Ohlson had nine children; Vera, Lavern, Winnifred, Orvil, Charles, Elwin, Ruth, Frank, and maybe Lester.  (This was on the 1910 census and that last name was somewhat illegible.) Winnifred is approximately 20 years old in this picture, so it was taken around 1916.


Alice looks pretty weary.  I came across a juicy newspaper article about Ruth (sweet little Ruth with the giant hair bow) getting married in secret (gasp!) and telling her family about it several weeks later.  That was in the newspaper.  If I still had that photo of their home on Liberty Avenue in Ogden, you'd see that it was pretty small to accommodate all those people.  They didn't have money, but I like that they all look very stylish and clean in this family photo.

7 comments:

Katy said...

Crazy that Hyrum actually looks like Grandpa! I'm so so so sorry about your lost family history. A great tragedy.

Jill said...

Don't you just love the names people picked back then? I love that picture. Sorry about your pictures though. I would cry too.

RCH said...

I totally love the old-fashioned names! Winnifred was on our list for #4 (but I nixed it because it's a family name on DH's side, and I felt my side was under-represented) and I would have used Jemima (from a previous post of yours) last time if it weren't for that stupid syrup! Such a bouncy, lovely name, Jemima. :-)

I would have a nervous breakdown if I lost my hard drive. I tried to sign up for an online backup service once, but I'm not technologically adept enough to figure out how to bypass the firewall (or whatever it is). And DH is a total Luddite, lol, so he's no help. So sorry you lost so much!

allyn said...

juicy stories in the newspaper. that is funny that a scandalous family story would be in print. maybe the person who wrote it had a vendetta against little ruth.

awesome finds, again.

Angie said...

Oh, I am sorry about your hard drive. These pictures are great, and it's remarkable that your family has them all! I don't have anything like this for mine...not that I know of.

melissa said...

Still weeping for your hard drive. Waaaahhh! I'm not sure who everyone is in this photo. Should I know that already?

Anonymous said...

Orvil Ohlson is my Grandpa! He married a woman named Cecile Pinkham and moved to Oakland, California in 1930 to work on the Bay bridge as a welder. His son Ronald Ohlson is my father.

I would love to share some of our pictures with you and help restore your collection. My cousin Carolyn has a bunch of old family photos, many from the Ogden Utah days!

If you are interested please email me : glenohlson@gmail.com