Antique Photos of Beautiful Women, and...beautiful bathing suits?

In the photos our (extended) family has inherited, I've run across a few of incredibly beautiful women: beautiful in any century. I would like you to see these.

And I have to show the photo of what was the "latest" in bathing suits.  I can't call them beautiful, or elegant, but maybe...useful?

Thanks for visiting my blog!  Chris

Two Fascinating Photos of the Past

There are a few of the hundreds of antique photos we inherited which just fascinate me. I will be featuring them in some of the coming posts. They are of an extremely mixed bag, but all are without exception good, i.e. eminently viewable, photos; and something about each one pricks my imagination. I find myself going back time after time to look and wonder about the subject/s. 

Today, I'm presenting a photo of some laborers, probably miners:

The second person from the right piques my curiosity the most, but there are so many aspects of this photo that I find interesting; I'll let you decide for yourselves.

The next is Rosa, a friend of Lena.  This is the full photo of the lady featured in the "hats" blog:

I welcome your comments on these photos and I hope you enjoy them as much as I have!  Chris

Happy Kids; You paid WHAT?; Auto Elegance

The photos today are a varied lot. First, A couple of really smiling kids. The photographer must have been very entertaining. It usually took a circus and a clown to get my kid to smile for a photograph!

 Next; Lena married Charles in 1904 (see the first few posts in this blog), but first, in 1900,  he bought homestead of 100 acres,  in what is now Napa Valley for $16.00.  The  area must be worth millions now, but I'll bet he had to scrape do get that money together!

 Last but not least, one of Lena's best friends, in her new auto:

Mustache Contest; and a most Elegant Lady

I thought I'd post two interesting photos I ran across in the scads of photos I'm going through.  The first is actually parents and sons, don't know who as there is not identifying information (it was in with Lena's photos).  But I'll swear it looks as everyone (except mom) was trying to outdo the other with their handlebar mustaches.

The other two are  Rose, a friend of Lena's (or a half sister, I'm not sure).

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What kind of work did Lena do? Can you help?

After Charles died, Lena first worked at  The Geysers, a hotel-resort  in Sonoma County which advertised "the baths and mineral water water are a positive cure for stomach troubles and rheumatism.  And they had ELECTRICITY!  Here is a page from their booklet:

I believe Lena may have worked as a cook in The Geysers; at least when she left there in 1906 she applied as a cook for another place nearby and was told (via postcard from a friend) that the positing had already been taken.
So Lena took another job--I can't figure what it was. I am pretty sure it was at the Napa State Hospital for the Insane because many later postcard were addressed to her there, or referred to her work there.


Napa was known in the early 1900's for its winemaking industry, farming, the huge Napa State hospital, and brothels:"In the late 1800's and early 1900's Napa was known for having the largest red-light district for a California city of its size. In 1905, Napa had over twenty brothels^[5 primarily concentrated on and around Clinton Street. "

<sup>Here is a picture of that HUGE old hospital from around that time, from a postcard.


So here are some photos of Lena at work, with her coworkers, many of whom became her friends for life. I think that some of the photos, none of which have dates, may be from the Geysers and some from Napa)</sup>

Another Baby Picture of Colon and Lena

I came across another baby picture; he looks to be about 9 months to a year. Lena looks elegant as usual. I think this must be in California, possibly on the homesteading property Charles bought.

Lena as a young lady with hope; then as a widow

It looks like I've gone through most or all of the trunks and separated out pictures and letters to and about (and, rarely) from Lena. I do have to go back through the "unknown" photos, of which there are a jillion, and start to identify some.  Today when I was finishing up the last lot I found a couple of great photos of Lena.  I haven't found any more pictures that I think are from before she became a widow.  But here are a couple that I think must have been soon after.   In addition,  I  have included some of Lena's   diary entries from  1900. These were in one of those "liver tonic" booklets, which had plenty of blank lined pages to write in, and plenty more medical advice on why the liver tonic would cure all your ailments. Lena wrote (rather awful) romantic poetry (at least I think it's hers) and about some experiences which touched her heart .


 

( in this family it was rare to put any notations on photos--I guess everyone assumed whoever was looking at the photo would "just know!")

 
Coming next: pictures of baby Colon, only 6 months old when his daddy died.  Chris

New Picture of Lena before her marriage.

Here is a new picture of Lena, as usual with no dates but it looks more like that than the picture I put in the first blog, which now I think must have been after Charles died.
And here again is a picture I put  in the earlier blog. Maybe it is knowing what was ahead for her but in these pictures Lena looks (to me) relatively happy and peaceful. 

TO COME:  next blog, I will post a little diary entry I found (of only a few, in one tiny book) which refers to a new romance, but not with Charles, before their marriage!  And what  came of that in the long run. Chris

Lena had the unfortunate tendency to not label her photos except with the name "Lena". We inherited loads of photos  from her through her sister Leta, who was my husband's grandmother, but almost none have dates or list names if there are other people in the photos. As you follow along on this blog, you will note we are trying to figure out time frames, and match pictures to general periods of Lena's interesting life.  This is frequently difficult due to the lack of information.We also have a lot of letters and postcards (with some neat photos--you'll see!) to and from Lena but frequently the postmark isn't visible or the letter is without an envelope and is not dated. Oh well, if any of you reading this blog can offer a better interpretation or more information, it would be very welcome.

As far as I can tell, this picture is from before her marriage; she was married when she was 21 and usually wore black in pictures from then on until she was around her 40's. I realize that the picture from the previous post shows her in black, but to us she looks quite a bit younger in that photo.

We do know that Lena left home before she was married; her parents split up and her mother moved to California.  Lena went out to visit her mother before her marriage, but continued to live and work in Missouri. I don't know what type of work, but she and the other women wore white dresses, as you can see in the photos. At one point Lena was out sick and a coworker wrote that she was concerned that their wages would be cut.

A Teenage Lena

We don't have a date for this photo, but Lena looks somewhere around 13 to 14. She still probably lived with her parents, Susan Perkins and John Ryder, who was a poor farmer. Susan must have had some money or was very anxious to help Lena get married, because these photos were expensive to have made, and Lena was already a snazzy dresser. She was first married 1900.