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Monday, June 29, 2009 at 7:07PM 
Complete strangers would accost us on the street to exclaim over our big-eyed baby boy, and one of my photos of him won first place in a contest, but the baby in this cabinet photo from November, 1896, has to get a prize for "most beautiful baby" (in my humble opinion).
This photo of sister and brother has lived a hard life in spite of someone caring enough to write names and ages and date on the back. We have no way of knowing if John H. Buyers, 11 months, became a handsome man, but I think Anna P. Buyers, 5 years, was on her way to being a beauty. It was taken by Rippel in Sunbury, PA.
This photo is engaging – not only for the attractive subjects, but the composition and exposure are superb.
A note of interest from someone who has restored and edited many images from the 19th and early 20 centuries: regardless of gender, age or station in life, shoes appear to have been very utilitarian items of clothing; no matter how exquisite the rest of the attire, or the obvious care taken to present an attractive appearance, shoes are nearly always sturdy affairs, scuffed, worn, and hardly ever showing much evidence of polishing in preparation for the visit to the studio. I assume that the dirty condition of most streets and walks, and the general pollution from heating and manufacturing sources, made keeping up shoes a lost cause. One rarely sees slippers or shoes of a delicate or dressy design in the photos of the times.
Reader Comments (3)
What a great picture! Reading the comments, one can't help but wonder who these kids were, where they lived, how they grew up and what they were they like as adults. Wouldn't it be wonderful if their decendents could be reconnected with this long-lost photo of their great grandmother or grandfather? I decided to use my fledgling genealogy skills and Ancestry.com membership to do a little research. In a couple of hours, I was able to glean quite a bit of information from censuses, death certificates, military registration documents and the family trees of others. I'm pretty confident in the facts below but I'm sure there are a lot of gaps...
- John Howard Buyers was born 21 Dec 1895 to parents Howard and Sallie in Sunbury, Pennsylvania.
- A quick look back a few generations on his father's side indicates he was of Irish descent but this would take more time to confirm.
- At age 21, he registered for the draft for WW I. At that time, he was an apprentice Electrician for the Susquehanna Converting Works in Sunbury.
- At age 46, he registered for the draft for WW II. He was then employed by the Pennsylvania Dept of Highways. He was listed at 5'10-1/2", 175 lbs with hazel eyes and gray hair. He listed Dora A. Buyers as his wife on this registration card. (I found no other record of their marriage).
- It appears John lived in Sunbury as a child and moved just a few miles away, across the Susquehnna River, to Northumberland where it seems he lived his whole life.
- John died in 1979 at the ripe old age of 83.
- It does not appear that John and Dora ever had any kids; at least I could not find any record of children.
- Anna Painter Buyers was born June 1891.
- She was living with her widowed father at age 28. The census shows just the two of them in the residence; she is listed as single.
- She became a missionary, apparently with the United Methodist Church.
- As a missionary/R.N. she traveled back and forth to India and Pakistan for most of her life.
- Her name appears numerous times on various ship's passenger lists including the Queen Mary between 1934 and1958.
- She died in April 1966 at age 75 in
- I could find no spouse or children for Anna
It seems their branch of the family tree may have ended with the two of them. I suspect that may be why this photo wound up as a collector's item, apparently unclaimed by family.
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