52 Ancestors: Week 9: Conflicting Clues - The Sauer Women

I love this image. It holds considerable personal and genealogical significance, as it is said to depict three generations on my paternal grandmother’s maternal line. However, despite its sentimental value, upon closer scrutiny its labeling raises significant questions of identification. I especially question who the identity of the eldest woman on the far right.

My grandmother Clare labeled the back of this photo for me.

The three children standing in the front row are left to right: 

• William J. Sauer (February 5, 1901 - March 16, 1926)
• Joseph Sauer (May 6, 1902 - December 18, 1968)
• Anna Marie Sauer-Henry, my great grandmother, (July 19, 1899 - May 8, 1986)

The woman in the center of the photo is my great-great grandmother Agnes Frances Gray-Sauer.

The back row from left to right are as follows:

• Raymond Fitzpatrick (June 10, 1906 - October 15, 1977)
• Margaret M. Gray-Fitzpatrick (January 25, 1875 - June 20, 1968)
• Mary "Mamie" Gray (July 22, 1869 - May 24, 1929)
• Agnes Frances Gray-Sauer (October 27, 1871 - December 30, 1941)
• Elizabeth Gray (July 9, 1875 - June 9, 1970)
• Anna Hughes-Gray (November 1843 - April 17, 1904)
• Baby (unidentified)

I question the identification of the eldest woman on the far right because I know for certain that Anna Hughes-Gray died on April 17, 1904 and Raymond Fitzpatrick, the child being held on the far left was not born until June 10, 1906. If both dates are accurate, they could not have appeared in the same image. I am confident in the accuracy of these two dates, which suggests that the woman identified as Anna Hughes-Gray may be another relative.

One possibility is Catherine Hughes, a sister of Anna Hughes-Gray. However, I don't have much information about her beyond her existence. I don't know if she married, when she died, or where she lived. Perhaps further research into Catherine’s life may clarify if she could possibly be the eldest woman in the picture.

Additionally, I have problems with the dates I have recorded for the sisters Margaret Gray-Fitzpatrick (January 25, 1875) and Elizabeth Gray (July 9, 1875). A six-month interval between the birth of sisters is biologically impossible, meaning at least one of these birth dates is likely incorrect. 

Finally, I believe the unidentified infant may be Cecilia Sauer (July 14, 1906 – August 7, 1907), my great-grandmother’s younger sister who died at a year old. Given Cecilia’s short lifespan, her presence in the photograph would help establish a probable date range for when the image was taken and may help me resolving some of the questions of identification.

If Anna Hughes-Gray wasn't alive to see baby Cecilia, was there another Hughes, or Gray, or Sauer woman of that generation who was?

Nonetheless, I think the photograph is a valuable intergenerational artifact. My grandmother Clare certainly knew many of the individuals in the photo during her lifetime, but toward the end of her life her memory had begun to fade. She passed from Alzheimer's Disease in 2023. So I need to take a closer look now at the records I can find to sort out these inconsistencies and figure out who everyone really is in the photo.