The next photo in Mom’s album is a group photo of the students of Tallman School in 1919. I imagine this is the entire student body, grades 1 through 8.

Mom (Florence McClain) is seated fourth from left (the only one who is leaning forward with her hands on her knees). Uncle Barney (Bernard McClain) is seated on the ground, on the right. I don’t have identifications for the others at this time. (Some may be identified indirectly as we proceed through the photos in the album.)

Although the sun was shining brightly at the time the photo was taken, the ground appears to be muddy and there is mud on the shoes and pants legs of many of the students. So despite the sunshine, it evidently was not dry weather.

If the photo was taken in fall 1919, Florence was nine years old and in fourth grade and Bernard was seven years old and in second grade. If it was taken in spring 1919, Florence was eight, finishing third grade while Bernard was six, finishing first grade.

Mom was quite near-sighted. I don’t know when she first got glasses, but the first photo so far where she is wearing glasses was taken about the time she graduated from high school. So she may have gone through most of her schooling without glasses. I wonder whether her leaning forward with hands on knees was a reaction to her poor distance vision. But it also could be just a reflection of her personality.

I presume Mom put this photo and the others in the album while she was in her teens. When she put this photo in, she wrote below it “Some Bunch”—intended (at least partially, I think) as self-deprecation. As an adult she apparently went through the album and added explanatory captions (recognizable because they are written in her “adult” handwriting). It is from one of these that we learn this is Tallman School and the year is 1919. She didn’t provide dates for many photos, so I’m glad for this one.

Note: In case you wonder about the “missing” bottom right corner of the photo, that diagonal is the actual edge of the original print. It was significantly off level. When I rotated the image counter-clockwise to correct that, it left a diagonal edge on the lower right. There was plenty of room to crop the rest of the photo, but I didn’t want to remove the amount at the bottom that would have been required to give a square corner on lower right. Interestingly Mom, whether instinctively or intentionally, mounted the photo at a similar angle on the album page to level it.