We had our family reunion on Saturday and it was wonderful to see everyone and I did get a few answers from my Aunt and Great Aunt, with the results of the answers to come later. I also was entrusted with some more treasures to scan and catalog, which is always exciting. Until I get the huge box of stuff home and look at another stack of pictures, some labeled, some total mysteries, and... phew. This is going to take a while. I have some funny things that I've found that I thought you'd like too. One has to do with Uncle Dow again, but I need more time to get that all scanned. The one I have for you today is a picture with an inscription from my Grandpa G on the back. Here's the picture and the inscription, with transcription below:
Ed Boles was a cousin of my grandmother (your great-grandmother) G. He was a hobo who would come to our house occasionally to see Grandma G who lived with us. He was intelligent, well-travelled, well dressed, and adverse to hard work. He lived by his wits.
A cousin at the reunion told me that Grandpa told a story about how Ed would buy bars of soap, cut them up into smaller pieces, wrap the pieces in tin foil, then sell them as spot remover until he was run out of town. The story makes me think of Harold Hill, which makes me like cousin Ed. I don't know what happened to cousin Ed. Ancestry.com tells me he was born in 1872, but I don't have information about his death, and I don't know what the story with the sign is - is this a photo studio or a real train or what?? Any guesses?
