A Banfill Snapshot

We've met hers. We've been introduced to his. Now it's time to meet theirs: the children of George Banfill and Clara Alice Hoover Knapp Banfill. Today, we'll start with a snapshot of their son Harold and his wife.

After the October 10, 1912, marriage of widower George and widow Clara Alice in Major County, Oklahoma, they welcomed their firstborn in December of 1913. They named him Harold Lee Banfill. Born in the same Oklahoma county where his parents were married, Harold moved with them when they returned to Douglass, Kansas, and then, apparently, also to Modesto in California before the time of the 1940 census.

By the time of that 1940 census, Harold was already married—to Emma Margaret Prien, a native Californian. Living next door to his parents, Harold was head of a household which also included a two year old son.

What is interesting about this photograph I found of Harold Banfill and his wife Emma is that, though it was a more modern-looking snapshot, it still contained that unnamed someone's incessant scrawl across the face of the composition that we've found in some of the older Knapp family photographs.

In this case, it noted, "Half brother of Myrtle Knapp McNown, Harold Banfill + wife Emma." Myrtle Knapp, as you might remember, was the young girl in her family portrait who couldn't help but wiggle—just a little bit. She was the one who, though sharing a first name with her mother, always called herself by her middle name, Myrtle.

Myrtle had also moved out west with the family, though before leaving Oklahoma, she had met and married Arthur Floyd McNown in 1912. By the time of the 1930 census, she, Floyd and their two children were living in Stanislaus County, California, where Floyd was working as a chiropractor. (An adorable postcard from that time period, shared by an Ancestry subscriber, speaks to his practice in California.)

Myrtle and her husband eventually moved from the Modesto, California, area to live closer to the coast in Hollister, as did some of her relatives.

I doubt the photograph was retrieved from Myrtle's belongings. Rather, it must have belonged to someone who not only was related to the Knapps, but had a specific connection with this one particular Knapp descendant, rather than the whole Knapp family in general.

While I can't quite figure out who that linking person might have been, I do know there are a few Banfill family researchers who have posted their tree online. Now, it's just a matter of contacting one of those researchers and seeing if there is any interest in receiving these old photographs. It's now time to sit back, wait, and (hopefully) see. 

Above: Undated snapshot of Harold Banfill and his wife, Emma Margaret Prien Banfill, with a note that Harold was the half brother of Myrtle Knapp McNown. Photograph currently in possession of author until claimed by a direct descendant of this family.