Wisconsin Women (And One Man)

While most of the photographs included in this collection belonging to the family of Edna Tully McCaughey are from Chicago, there are some from distant family in other states. Because Edna’s grandmother, Mary Ann Sullivan, had lived in Wisconsin for a while after her family’s emigration from their native Ireland, her sister Julia married and remained there in the north. Edna’s own Aunt Nell (Ellen Swanton) had a son who also moved to Wisconsin.

I’m keeping both of these possibilities in mind when I ponder the identities of these two older women, both posing at studios in Wisconsin. And yet, I have no way to know who they really were, as there are no markings other than the studio’s business imprint. I can’t even guess about the time frames involved at this point.

The first portrait, a sitting done at the Armstrong studio in Milwaukee, looks similar to another picture of Julia Sullivan Dockery. But not quite. As I am not familiar with her appearance as she aged, though, I can’t be certain of this.

The second photograph, done at the studio of Charles F. Turner in Janesville, Wisconsin, features an elderly woman with what looks to me to be a lively personality. There is determination and spunk written all over her face, making me really wish I knew who that person was.

Since I am drawing to a close with this series featuring the unidentified relatives of this Tully family, I’m including this last of the collection's photographs that originated in Wisconsin. This time, the subject is a gentleman, stopping in on State Street at the corner of Third for his sitting at the establishment of Wilde in Milwaukee.

While this concludes the section of Tully family photographs from their Wisconsin relatives, there are still several more mystery pictures to round out the series. Tomorrow, I’ll continue with more gentlemen from several other locations.