Girl's Night Out: Part III

ANTIQUE PHOTO OF 4 YOUNG WOMEN HAVING TEA

FRED H. JENNINGS

MEHOOPANY ,PA.

Well, great-uncle Fred is coming through again with another photo of Mehoopany Women. My ancestors?  Don't know; there is no inscription on the back. I think you'll agree that the unfortunate woman seated second from left bears a resemblance to me.

Frederick Jennings operated a "portrait studio" as it was called, it North Mehoopany, Pennsylvania around the turn of the 20th century. Most likely, it burned in 1910.   

A Clearer View of "JENNINGS HOUSE"

Not sure how this one got away, but I found this clinging to an email as an attachment; the email was from a distant cousin who had the original scanned at the Wyoming County Historical Society and sent to me. I've had a similar photo in my collection for a long time, but this one has a much MUCH better resolution -- one can almost make out faces, and the woodwork on the balconies stand out so much more. What a treat. Maybe I should go back through my email and see what else I overlooked!

It's been a while -- I'm sure the ancestors forgive me, as long as I keep them in my thoughts. One of the best way to renew my spark in family history is to see what eBay has to offer. Subsequently, it has provided two auctions in the past couple weeks with great Jennings Family significance. One was a photo of Mehoopany that shows the little part of the town where the hotel and store was, and it looks something like -- actually, quite a bit like this:

Yeah, so this is a screen-grab of a photo that I didn't win. If you follow the bridge over the creek and follow the road, that little cluster of buildings contained the Jennings House (hotel) and C.E. Jennings's store, further up the hill. I'm not sure I feel too bad about using the screen-grab...hey, it's not like I'm re-selling it or anything; it's purely for family use, right? The other screen grab is this:

An envelope containing the printed address of my great-grandfather's store. Who knows, this may even be Charles' handwriting (and maybe even Jennings Spit on the back of the stamp?). In any event, it's so strange how I get little tiny pieces of the puzzle all the time...and that's what makes family history such an enduring and interesting hobby.