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Archiver > BRETHREN > 1998-02 > 0886870466


From: "Arthur H. Laube" <>
Subject: Re: Ohio Bowsers and Brethren Friends 1800
Date: Sat, 07 Feb 1998 11:54:26 -0500


Rebecca Rector wrote:

<Pretty interesting! ...........

<My Mother can remember her grandparents(?) with their stern faces and large
hats. Wish I had a photo or tintype! ........>>>>

Rebecca - thanks for our coments --- I am going to post this comment and take
this opportunity to ask a question which has been in the back of my mind for
some time. About early Brethren Photographs.

My wife and I are writting a story on the lives of each our eight grandparents,
and some of their ancestors. - sort of tributes or memorials - all of the
eight have roots in Ohio. All of them have ancestors who were in Ohio before
1865. Most of them have roots in Ohio before 1820.

We have one Roman Catholic line and the rest were a variety of Protestant
denominations and sects. In most families we have photographs, albuminized paper
or tintypes - or even one set on glass plates. From about 1900 on there are a
few in most families - but from 1855 to 1900 or so we have nothing in the
Baptist, Quaker, Brethren families. At the same time one Methodist family
carefully preserved some glass plate reproductions that were made in Donegal,
Ireland about 1860. And in the Brethren family - not a single print of my
wife's great-grandparents - although they lived until 1926 and 1927! Did the
Brethren avoid having their picutres taken?

Except for this Brethren example, there is no clear pattern of religion being a
major factor in whethor or not they took pictures. They were all rural folk -
but the Methodist went ten-miles into town to have a tintype made - soon after
the process was invented (1854).

Any comments? Hal

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