I found some information today that I’ve been trying to get for a long time: the military service records for Grandpa (John Edwin Wright). Twice, some years apart, I submitted a request to the National Archives for a copy of his records. They couldn’t find anything.

My how things have changed! Now anybody can find his enlistment record online. There are probably more records somewhere, but his enlistment record gave me the information I’ve always wanted to see:

• He enlisted in the Army in Chicago, 10 June 1898, at age 24. He gave his occupation at the time as “painter.”
• He was in the Cavalry.
• He was discharged eight months after enlisting, 22 February 1899, at Camp MacKenzie, near Augusta, Georgia. Evidently Camp MacKenzie was being disbanded at that time.

From the time he was discharged, he had two years and nine months to get back home from Georgia, find a job that would take him to South Dakota, meet Minnie Hulshof, quit his job to hang around her, and finally marry her on 5 December 1901. I would dearly love to know that timeline in more detail, but I don’t know whether I’ll ever get it. But I’m getting sidetracked…

Today’s photo is a portrait of Grandpa, John Edwin Wright, taken in Chicago at Wells’ Studio at the corner of Twelfth Street and Western Avenue. Or so says the frame of the photo, anyway. I don’t know for sure that this photo was taken when he enlisted in the Army, but it seems a fair bet. If not exactly then, then it was certainly taken within a couple of years of that.

Was this the only time in his life that Grandpa sported facial hair?