Week 8: "Family Photo" #52Ancestors — Making Sense of it All

I am a sucker for old family photographs. I can lose myself staring at a picture: imagining what the people are feeling and how they got to that moment in time. Whenever I am in an antique shop and see abandoned pictures and photo albums it makes me so sad. No one wanted that picture of that adorable baby? Or that wedding photo of the grim-faced couple (have you ever noticed back in the day no one smiled for portrait sessions)?

These days, camera-phones are everywhere. The best part of this phenomenon is that it is hard to get away with being a jerk anymore (e.g. “BBQ Becky” and “Permit Patty”). For me, I’ve taken so many photos that they are cluttering-up my hard-drive something fierce. One day I’ll get them all organized. Some day. Tomorrow? Okay, probably never.

Back to the topic at hand: anyone who’s been to my house knows I have show-cased some of my favorite family photos along my front stairwell. I spent months and months collecting antique frames and restoring photos of our family. They make a beautiful display (if I do say so myself) and make me smile every day to see them looking back at me (despite the generally grim faces).

My favorite of this collection for its historical and family significance is one taken in May of 1895 in Otoe, then Indian Territory of Oklahoma.[1] The photo depicts a group of about 19 white people on a large porch and includes my husband’s grandparents and his grand-father (about three-years-old). The most fascinating and remarkable thing about this photo are the three Native American girls just to the right of the house. I spent many hours working on restoring this photo; getting rid of water marks; scratches; and dings. I tried to be careful in order to preserve the faces of these people, especially these little girls. It’s hard to tell how old they were – I would guess under ten. They appear to be wearing similar polka-dotted dresses. I doubt they knew they would be in this picture, but I am sure glad they were.

From about 1895 to 1898, William Jordan Mills (the great-grandfather from last week’s love story), was working for the U.S. Department of the Interior as the “Clerk in charge” of the Indian Agency located in Otoe, Oklahoma.[2] The Otoe Agency ran a boarding school at that time and that probably explains why the three girls are in what appear to be uniforms. To benefit the school and support the agency, William oversaw the cultivation of wheat, oats, millet, peaches, and vegetables on 35 acres and the raising of livestock including hogs and milk cows. As clerk in charge, William was paid an annual salary of $1,200 in 1897.[3]

Sadly, the girls in the picture were likely taken from their families and sent to this school to be “civilized.” The Otoe-Missouria Tribe reports that the stigma that was attached to speaking their traditional language resulted in much of the language being lost. Today, there are approximately 3,000 members of the tribe still living in Oklahoma. The website for the Otoe-Missouria Tribe has a wealth of information on their history and culture. Please check it out at http://www.omtribe.org.

[1]Otoe Agency, Oklahoma, photograph, c. May 1895, privately held.

[2]“Employees in Indian Agency Service,” Official Register of the United States 1895, vol. 1(Washington, D.C.: Government Printing Office, 1895), 752; digital image, U.S. Government Publishing Office (https://www.govinfo.gov: accessed 24 February 2019). “Employees in Indian Agency Service,” Official Register of the United States 1897, vol. 1.(Washington, D.C.: Government Printing Office, 1897), 525; digital image, Hathi Trust (https://hdl.handle.net/2027/loc.ark:/13960/t7qn6wr0p: accessed 24 February 2019).

[3]“Reports of Agents in Oklahoma: Report of Clerk in Charge of Otoe School,” Annual Reports of the Department of the Interior 1897(Washington, D.C.: Government Printing Office, 1897), 246; digital images, Google Books (http://books.Google.com: accessed 24 February 2019).