Grandma Hammell (Sarah Mellisa Hammell) holding Donna as a baby beside the Hammell’s brick garage.

I assume the tongue sticking out reflects concentration and not an insult to the photographer.

The wall of the garage behind them faces east, so this picture was taken in the morning–late enough to make the slanting shadows from the side, but not so late as to make a shadow on the right side of the faces. Before 9:00 AM, probably? Not that you care, I suppose.

Mom and Dad were living next door to the Hammells when Donna was born, so it would have been easy enough for them to bring Donna out for a morning photo session by the garage.

The garage in the photo still stands today, little changed, behind 130 NE Sherman St. in Albany. (The garage actually faces NE Water Ave.) Here it is in Google StreetView as it looked in 2012. (Click/tap the image to get a possibly more recent and definitely more responsive version.)

As you all probably remember, Sarah’s maiden name was Rine. (Art for sure knows that because he has John and Sarah’s framed marriage certificate.) When I was growing up (and probably when you were growing up, too) Dad always said the name Rine was “probably Irish.” And that was apparently a widely held belief in the family, because I’ve heard that from the Scotts as well.

Dad always told us that we were ¼ English (which is pretty accurate–even the maternal branches in our Wright tree are generally English), ¼ Dutch (unquestionably), ¼ Scots-Irish (pretty diluted by the time it got to us–lots of English and other genetic contribution in the McClain tree just since they came to America, to say nothing of before that), and ¼ Irish (meaning the Rines).

Well, it turns out the Rines weren’t Irish at all. They were German. (I’m sorry if that shakes the very foundations of your genealogical identity.) They had been in America for quite a few generations by the time Sarah Mellisa Rine was born, 20 May 1862 in Coshocton County, OH. They had been in Coshocton County at least three generations before Sarah was born. (Maybe more. I’m going from memory, which is dangerous.) The Rine family genealogy was extensively researched by a guy named Larry Rine Dean, who still lived in the Coshocton County area, I believe. If you’re interested enough in the Rine family tree to actually want to examine it, let me know and I’ll dump it out for you.

Coshocton County is kind of in the western foothills of the Appalachians. It’s about 50 miles from the West Virginia border. You may recall that Mom had a photo that purported to be Sarah Rine’s mother and grandmother sitting on a porch smoking their pipes. (When I come across that photo, it will definitely be the photo of the day!) Just to give a hint of the culture she apparently came out of.

But I give you all that for free. It doesn’t really have much to do with the photo. But isn’t Donna cute? ;–)