This picture of my grandmother hangs on the wall of my small music/reading room (or what I assume was supposed to be a dining room). Including its frame, the picture measures 22.5” x 26.5” –impressively large for an individual photo.  The frame is made of wood and displays decorative scrollwork all around.  If you look at the back, you see mitered corner pieces and nails keeping everything in place. The back of the picture itself is some sort of canvas, which makes me think that it was treated as a painting.  In the early 1900s, photographs were often “enhanced” by adding painted details. The small decorative swirls on the dress certainly appear to be painted on.   

So, why do I have this wonderful artifact in my house? Obviously one reason is that she was my grandmother (more on that in a little bit). But my grandmother had five children and many grandchildren, all of whom might have wanted this picture. Why am I the lucky one to have it now, long after my grandmother is no longer with us?  Mostly because I asked for it when older family members were handing on various family heirlooms shortly after she died. I was twenty years old and a college student, but I know that that was one thing I wanted to have always with me if I could.

My grandmother, Marjorie Gertrude Beghtel (“Gertie”), was born in 1879 in Huntington County, Indiana—my home county as well.  She married my grandfather, C. Franklin Dolby, in 1904. I never knew my grandfather, as he died before I was born. My father, Charles Dolby, was one of the five children borne to my grandparents. My grandmother died in 1967, but when I was growing up, she lived right next door to my family, and I spent part of every day at her house. I was always intrigued by this large picture.  Why did she have this picture of herself as a young woman hanging in her house?

I learned somewhat later that this was basically her engagement/wedding picture—so a picture of her at around 25 years of age.  I suppose this might have been a tradition—having such a picture made when you married.  I am glad to have this reminder of my grandmother.  People tell me I looked like her in some ways when I was in my twenties.  But I’m mostly glad to have the picture because it brings with it memories of all those hours I spent at her house as I was growing up. She was happy to let me snoop through boxes of letters from my Aunt Mary saved over many years and to occasionally help her with household chores.  My favorite task was dusting her collection of glass objects and salt and pepper shakers stored in the wonderful cabinet with a curved glass front. She always gave me an old pair of pink underwear to do the dusting.  And as I dusted, she would sing the old Brethren hymn “As Pants the Hart . . .” One of my cherished memories.