No posts this past Wednesday or Friday. I’ve been enjoying some fun time with my family.

Whitney, Edward Tompkins, photographer. Benjamin Family Group Portrait, Posed Around a Column. [Between 1845 and 1858] Photograph. https://www.loc.gov/item/2004664334/. Click photo to open larger image in new window.

Today’s photo is, as you might suspect, not actually my family, nor known to be related to any Mequon family. It is possible that sometime in the late 1840s or 1850s Jonathan M. and Mary (Turck) Clark and their eldest children may have owned a set of posh clothes or worn fashionable hairstyles similar to these. But I suspect not. The Clarks were farmers on the rural frontier, whereas the group in the photograph were an apparently well-off family from the bustling city of Rochester, New York, much more likely to have the money and, er… “taste” to dress so fashionably.

I should be back to a more regular blogging schedule next week.

Enjoy your weekend!