#circa 1875

Wedding dress, possibly Italian, c.1875

White silk taffeta.

Artilharia da Fortaleza de São João Batista do Brum, Zona Portuária - Bairro do Recife Em 1875.

One photograph tells more of the story of the Packards than anything else. The photograph is courtesy of Find a Grave user Jack Vander-Schrier.

The photograph shows what the “Barnabas Packard family,” as Vander-Schrier puts it, around 1875, living in Cameron, Missouri. It has been numbered as to help future genealogists determine who the individuals are in this picture. Based on the photograph of Charles Edwin on page 70, it is clear that number 8 is him. He was a cashier at the Farmers Bank in Cameron, Missouri, and later a banker, reportedly. The rest of those in the photograph are unknowns. However, numbers 1 and 2, 3 and 4, 5 and 6, seem like couples based on the way they are standing. One of these couples is Roswell Clifford and Ellanora (1842-1895), while another is Patty and Charles Ford (1822-1914) (also a banker), and the last is Ossmus and Sophia H. Dean. Possibly Araminta Aminta Utter is number 16, although this cannot be confirmed. Somewhere in numbers 9-14, 17-21 are Araminta and Charles’s child Clark, but not Eva since she was born in 1876, unlike Clark who was born in 1873.

The same goes for Ossmus and Sophia’s child, Herbert Melvin (1867-1935). All of these children have the last name of Packard. Basing it on the photo, earlier in this chapter, number 7 is Ruth Snow. Number 16 may be the wife of the person occupying that house. Other women, such as Herbert’s wife, Mary Francis, are likely in the photograph as well. The same is undoubtedly the case for Roswell and Ellanora’s children: Emma E (b. 1870), George C (b. 1873), Leonard C (b. 1875), Etta B (b. 1877), E Edwin (b. 1880), and Jennie S (b. 1882), the first three of which were likely in the photo. It is also the case for Patty and Charles’s children named Pearl, Arthur, Sarah Jane (1844-1898), Henry Edsel (1847-1902), and Cora Ann (1855-1918) who married George Thomas Howser (1855-1936). If you add up all of the people noted in this paragraph, it adds up to 21. Solving the mystery of who is who in this old photograph would require identifying all these individuals rather than using educated guesses. Still, it adds more to the Packard family story.