Surprise! There ARE Two Dogs!

Looking at the group photograph displayed on one postcard from Wrightsville Beach, North Carolina, I begin to see familiar faces fall into place, after viewing several others from the collection left behind by Chicago resident Agnes Tully Stevens. In the Abananza Studio postcard shown below, a large group of adults assembles on the veranda of what may well be the same beach resort we’ve already observed.

I am presuming these adults are all from the same extended family. Or perhaps they all belong to one specific group, such as a church group or club.

At any rate, I thought I had seen two boys seated at the front of this picture with their legs dangling over the edge of the decking. I used Photoshop to enlarge the scanned photograph and reveal a bit more of the photo's details. Above the head of the more-hidden young man seated to the right, what should come more clearly into focus but the head of another dog?! Of course, Possum is draped across the lap of the slender young woman seated to the far right. But there as I zoom in on the grouping above that half-hidden boy’s head, I see seated alongside the man who was featured in yesterday’s photo the other dog that had puzzled me yesterday!

And, I presume, the lady-with-the-bonnet in the background of yesterday’s photo now stands behind our gentleman-with-his-dog. Looking closer again, I try to determine if her face resembles that of the young Agnes we were wondering about a few days ago.

I try again and again to figure out which family groupings this vignette might represent. I assume the time period is still July, 1911, based on some other photographs of this location labeled with that information. I know that predates Agnes’ wedding to William Stevens. However, looking through my family database, I cannot come up with any family constellation that would include such a large number of adult male relatives.

While this series of postcards and private photographs still leaves me stumped, at least with the postcard I’ll show tomorrow, some faces are becoming recognizable. While the group may play musical chairs from photo to photo, I’m beginning to construct some relationships between sub-groupings of these folks—whoever they are.