52 Ancestors in 52 Weeks - Week 2 - Favorite Photo

 

My Favorite Photo

Original photo (from my collection)

Mary Jane Sumner Wilkins Chamberlain (center)

Sarah Ann Wilkins (left)

Alice Wilkins (on mom's lap)

Enhanced photo through MyHeritage

I've chosen this photograph of Mary Jane Sumner and her two daughters to be my favorite photograph in my collection of family photos. This picture was taken in about 1860, when Mary Jane lived in Poweshiek County, Iowa. 

I'll tell you a little bit more about Mary Jane later but first I want to talk about the photograph. It seems to show a beautiful young mother with a Mona Lisa smile and her two daughters, all in their best clothes, having a very special portrait taken - but look a little closer.

The little girl on the left, Sarah Wilkins, is blurry because she’s squirming, possibly on the verge of a full-blown tantrum. The little girl on Mom's lap, Alice Wilkins, is looking down. I think she's also squirming - look closely, you can see her mother is clenching those little hands on her lap.  I think Mary Jane wants to throttle those girls. Those details make this photograph so charming to me, seeing the evidence that those toddlers were wiggling impatiently, just the same as little girls now.

This photograph is also important to me because it’s one of the oldest in my collection, and one that started my family history journey. The scrapbooks containing these photos (and many others) were assembled by my great-great-grandmother, Sarah Otis Wickham Curry, who was the daughter of one of those little girls in the photo above. 

Mother in the photograph is Mary Jane Sumner Wilkins Chamberlain. She was born in 1839 in Marshall County, Illinois. Mary Jane is the daughter of James L. Sumner who was born in 1813 in Kentucky and Sarah Strain who was born about 1821 in Ohio.

In 1856 Mary Jane married Ezekiel Wilkins in Iowa. Mary Jane and Ezekiel had two daughters, seen in the photograph - Alice Wilkins was born in May of 1857 in Poweshiek County, Iowa, and her sister Sarah Ann Wilkins was born in December of 1858 in Iowa.

Sometime before 1862 Ezekiel died. I can't find any information about his death. In March of 1862, widowed Mary Jane married Robert Chamberlain in Iowa. Robert and Mary Jane had eight children, and remained married until his death in 1909.

Mary Jane Sumner Wilikins Chamberlain died in 1915, in Wynot, Cedar County, Nebraska.

Mary Jane Sumner Chamberlain, in about 1910

For more information on the "52 Ancestors in 52 Weeks" challenge, visit: https://www.amyjohnsoncrow.com/52ancestors52weeks/