This is a pair of what I take to be “school pictures” again, or whatever the early 1900s equivalent was. There were two of Addie Hammel herself in her photo album.

Here she is at age 16. She suffered from crossed eyes. It is barely evident in this photo, and even less so (I think) in the second one. Later in life (at least as I remember her) it was much more pronounced.

This second photo of her may have been her high school graduation picture, She probably graduated in 1904, when she was 17, and would turn 18 the following September.

Her son Bernard (Uncle Barney) wrote in his autobiography that Addie’s graduation from high school was a significant accomplishment. I’m not sure whether he meant that she had some particular challenge in doing so (such as her crossed eyes), or just that high school graduation was not common at that time. The latter was certainly true, whether or not it was Uncle Barney’s meaning. I could not find statistics for the early 1900s, but even in 1940 only a quarter of people ages 25-35 in the US had graduated from high school.

Uncle Barney also wrote that his mother was an accomplished pianist (and may have taught piano for a while before marriage). Sadly she did not keep this up as the pressure of everyday activities from raising children and farm life consumed her time. She tried for a while to teach her two oldest to play, but even that succumbed to the obligations of everyday life.

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This concludes the tour of Addie’s photo album. There were other portraits in the album, most of which had no identification on them. Presumably they were Addie’s friends and possibly piano students. But beyond that they have no connection that I know of to our family history.

Tomorrow’s post will begin a series of photos from another photo album, one Mom (Florence) had during her growing-up years in Tallman.