Shoemaker Family Photo Album
A Special Thank You to my Uncle Claude for sending me these photographs from an old family album, so I may share them with all who are connected to the Shoemaker family.
Photo #1 - Shoemaker Family Photo - abt.c.1942
Front Row -- Lady with the dark hair is Callie Dona Brooks Harper (m/o Earnest James Harper, my grandfather).
The elderly lady and gentleman are Mary Delila (Della) Akers Shoemaker and William Grant Shoemaker (parents of Etta Marie Shoemaker, my grandmother).
My uncle, Claude Samuel Harper, is the blonde-haired boy in the front row between the two ladies. My mother, Mary Donia Harper, is the young girl in the white blouse on William's left shoulder.
Also in the picture are my aunts Irene, Doris, Betty, Roy and Ruth Harper. The others are Bernice Harper and George Bellamy and children, Opha Shoemaker and Larry Booth and children. (Bernice is Earnest's sister and Opha is Etta's sister).
Photo contribution: Claude S. HARPER
Photo contribution: Gerry KOCH... many thanks cousin!
Tobias E. (Sparks) Smyth m. Delilah Shoemaker
Tobias Edward Smyth (b.5/26/1874, Estill Co, KY; d.10/16/1940, Combs Cemetary, Perry Co, Combs, KY) m. 1/30/1891, Sarah Belle RISON b.1877 d.1932)
- Clarence Smith (b.12/12/1896, KY; d.1/18/1901)
- Loyd Smith b.9/28/1898, Estill Co, KY; d.10/12/1898)
- Oscar Warren Smith (b.11/5/1899, KY; d.10/4/1974, Mansfield, OH) m. Oatha CRAWFORD
- Rachel Delilah Smith (b.2/10/1901, KY; d.1991) m. Willis MAY
- William Earl Smith (b.9/22/1903, Patsy, KY; d.10/10/19?) m. Edna NAPIER
"One of my elderly cousins, Pauline (Shoemaker) McWhorter, who still lives in Casey County found this picture of my g g grandfather Elisha in her "memory collection box" and allowed me to scan it into my database.
It had obviously come down through several generations and little is known about it by the current family. But it is an unusual photo. The actual photograph was the center portion that had been glued onto an elaborately decorated card. It evidently was taken by traveling photographer, T. F. Wilson (my mother's maiden name, although I can't yet place T. F. as one of us!). Grandpa Elisha is all dressed up in a suit and vest and is wearing a ribbon with the letters "S and "T". The letters are reversed suggesting that
it was some kind of direct positive process. The encyclopedia Britannica indicates that the process of putting photos on paper was invented around c.1840-1850. And we don't know when it migrated to Kentucky. Looking at the fact that Elisha still has a good head of hair and remembering the rugged life that the Kentucky farmers must have lived in the 1800s, I am estimating that this photo may have been taken around 1870. The family and I have been trying to guess what the S and T might have represented. Some family members think Elisha was very active in the temperance movements of the time. But I can't find
an organization with those initials. He could have been at a County Fair that was being worked by photographer T. F. Wilson with a new fangled direct positive photo process. The S and T might have been a category in which he won a ribbon. We are all still looking for some documented explanations,
but it is fun to speculate!! Thanks for sharing the photos and take care. Cousin Harold Shoemaker"