Aldrich & Son Strike A Pose

Hats off to any one who knows the occasion for this formal gathering in front of what is obviously a very large statue that includes a horse (and some military hero atop, no doubt). I'm clueless about the organizing principle, or the names of most of these people. Fortunately, Aunt Ethel's handwriting on the rear of the photo provides a few details:

Father is in second row=third from right (6th from left)
Fred is second row=fifth from right (fourth from left)

"Father," of course, is Frank Aldrich and Fred, the young lad who's easy to spot in this group, is his son. (For an earlier photo of Frank and all his sons, see this post here.)

I have no idea why this was taken or what it represents, but it's fun to speculate. A Sunday afternoon in Worcester for the reunion of Civil War vets and some of their wives and family? Or perhaps a civic meeting of one sort or another with a break when someone with a camera stumbled by and the crowd decided to record the assembly for posterity?

Meantime, I'd love to know where this was taken. If the statue remains, it should be easy to identify. A park, no doubt. Worcestor is an obvious guess. Can any one confirm or offer the true locale?

Also, what year could this be? The answer's straightforward once you know Fred's birthdate. I don't have that information handy, but my guesstimate, based on simply studying the photo, is sometime around or just after World War I, give or take, i.e., 1920.

In any case, it's a grand setting and a worthy addition to the Waite/Aldrich photo archive.

The Waite Family at the Homestead, Hubbardston, Mass.

This is one of my favorite photos from the Waite archive because it shows members of the extended family at home. I'm imagining that this is a Sunday afternoon in the spring, perhaps just after a big Sunday dinner. It certainly captures a time and place in the old New England, perhaps sometime around 1915 or so?

In any case, I've uploaded a high-resolution image so that if you click on the photo you'll see a larger size with a fair amount of detail.

Cany any one identify the location of this photo in Hubbardston? I'm told, however, that the house is long gone.

By the way, the young man sitting directly behind the dog looks a lot like your trusty author. The fact that he's sitting next to Carrie (to his right), my grandmother (who looks a lot like my mom), well, that just makes the whole scene a bit more interesting in a visual sense for me.

Meantime, here's the information that's written on the reverse side of the photo:

The Waite Homestead, Hubbardston, MA
Carrie [Aldrich] and Sidney Waite sitting in front of their dog
Luella Waite (later Wead) to the left of them
In the back are:
Half sisters, Anna Waite (born 1847, married John Rice, 1870) and
Mary Persis (born 1850, married John Holden 1868); their mother: Persis (not in the picture)
Persis Waite of Barre, married Arron Waite 1842. She died 1874
Half brother, Edward, born 1851 (in the back row)
Young boy, son of either Anna or Mary
Aaron Waite is the man with the beard, father of Sidney Waite

Edith Waite

A somewhat elusive but oddly memorable figure in Waite family history for me is one Edith Waite. I recall a trip with my mother, when I was 10 or so, to pay a visit to Edith. It was the summer, of course, and mom was on one of her many treks "back home" to visit family and friends in Mass--mostly in the Worcester area. I can't quite recall where Edith was living on our visit, but I remember a house in the summer, replete with wildflowers in the yard. Being 10 years old, I quickly become bored with the adult chattering in the house and escaped to the yard to explore flora and any fauna.

Alas, details about Edith and her exact connection to the Waite lineage elude me. Hopefully, someone can fill in the blanks, including: Who were her parents and how does she fit in to the family tree in context with Sidney and Carrie, my maternal grandparents?

Oh, yes, one other bit of history that I do recall with Edith. She was living in Salem, Mass in her final years. Could I have visited her there? How long did she live there?

I've also heard that there was a bit of intrigue surrounding her demise. Can anyone adds some color to the story?

Meantime, here are two photos that turned up in my mom's collection. The first is dated Sep. 17, 1949 and listed as taken in Beverly, Mass. The people are named, from left to right: Edith, Ethel and George, Alice and Gordon. That's Alice Waite Jensen and her son Gordon, and Edith W. on the left. Who's Ethel and George? Somewhere in the ether of memory those two names ring familiar.

In the second photo (same date as above), the handwriting on the back lists: Edith, Karl, Ethel and George, and Alice. I recognize Karl Jensen (Alice's husband), along with Edith W. But there's Ethel and George again. Can any one offer some clarity?

Margaret Streeter @ 5 Tracy Place

Let's go back a bit further into the family tree this time and visit with Margaret Streeter. The photo below is from Aunt Ethel's collection, or so I'm assuming based on the handwriting on the back of the picture.

In addition to identifying the locale as 5 Tracy Place, the handwriting also notes that Roland and Frank Streeter are in the window behind Margaret.

Thanks to Larry B.'s industrious work on researching the family tree I know that my maternal grandmother, Carrie Aldrich, descends from the Streeter line. To be precise, Carrie's mother, Mary Ida, was a Streeter. With that in mind, here's the question du jour: Where does Margaret fit in? Was she Mary Ida's sister, perhaps? And for extra credit, where's 5 Tracy Place? Barrie?

In any case, don't you just love Margaret's hat? She certainly looks dressed to the nines. Or is this simply casual dress wear circa 1900? Either way, the photo above serves as a reminder of how far our sartorial standards have fallen in the 21st century.