Labeling Family Photos

I love old family photos. I don't even care who's family they depict; something about capturing a moment of familial love sort of warms my heart. Look at those people gathered attempting to document and share what is important to them; love them.. 

The one thing I would really appreciate, though, is that you label your photos. If these people and events mean so much to you, please take the time to leave some written clues on the back of the photo. I say this know fully well that I possess many photographs that are not labeled. In all honesty, my labeled photos far, far outweigh my unlabeled ones; that's the librarian in me!

My great-grandmother, Ethel Mae Losee-Earle, left a wealth of photographs among her possessions when she passed. Over the course of the next few days I plan to share some of my favorites on this blog.

Sadly, most of her photo have no identifying information. She had a small address book sized album that contained about 20 small  2x3" photos. Although she did not identify the people in the pictures, her son and daughter-in-law (my paternal grandparents) were able to help me label some of the images. When doing so it is important to indicate when you're labeling the photo. It is obvious the photos were taken in the 1920s; I made sure to write "labeled by April Earle, 2000" on the back of each photo. In 100 years should some other ancestor have the photo they'll hopefully understand how credible the information on the back of the photo is; I could have easily misidentified people given it was 80 years after the photo was taken. I am only reasonably certain who those people are.

The funny thing is that the only photo great-grandma Ethel labeled was one of her brother, Luman D. Losee, milking a cow and her eldest son, Allen Preston Earle, then about 3 years-old, was holding the milk pail. She didn't tell you her brother's name, no, not at all; she doesn't tell you what year the photo was taken, nope; she only identified the cow as Martha.

Reads: This is a pretty good picture only Martha isn't as thin as this look. Lu.

Allen Preston Earle, Luman D. Losee, Martha "The Cow" Losee.

Photo taken circa 1920. Labeled by April Earle, 2000.