Identified Photo in the Hooper-Squires Photo Archives

This is one of the photographs that was in the Hooper-Squires musty box which I wrote about yesterday in Rescued - the Hooper & Squires Photograph Archive

We know that Edgar J. Hooper is the young man on the right and my husband thought he remembered his Aunt Florence telling him that the other two boys were Edgar's brothers.

The only clue, other than clothing and hairstyles, to help date the photo  is the photographer's logo which isn't visible in this image on the left.

It is in the bottom left corner and reads "Webster & Co. St. Mary's"

The first thing I needed to do was find out when Edgar was born. So I turned to Ancestry.com. I knew Edgar's father was John Hooper and figured Edgar was born circa early 1880s since his son Wilbert (Aunt Florence's husband) was born circa 1913.

The first document I found was the 1901 census for Blanshard Township, Perth County Ontario. There was 16 year old Edgar with his parents John and Kezia Hooper. Edgar's siblings were listed as Luther age 14, Edith 11, Milton 11, Eva 6 and Ella 3.

Next I looked for information on when Webster & Co. was in business in St. Mary's. That was a bit challenging as I don't have a book on early Ontario photographers but it seems they were in business starting circa 1907. 

We do not know for sure but it seems quite possible that this photograph is Edgar, Luther and Milton Hooper probably taken circa 1907-1910. If this is Milton I also found that in 1915 he was in Huron County Ontario where he married Josie Bell Elsley.

I did check the 1891 census to see if Edgar had an older brother but he is found as a 6 year old and the oldest in the family with siblings Luther and Edith.

If anyone knows for sure who the two young men are with Edgar or has a better timeframe for  Webster & Co. photographers please do let me know in the Comments section of this blog post.

Rescued - the Hooper & Squires Photograph Archive

Pile of photos from Musty Box

When my husband's Aunt Florence died, no one wanted a dilapidated cardboard box full of photos. The box was stored in a damp basement and was musty and dirty. Many of the photos inside were damaged and water stained.

But my husband rescued the photos and brought them home. He threw the box out and went through the photos, noting on the back who the people were that his Aunt had identified when he was younger.

Then he tucked the photos away and there they lay for a few years. Until last weekend. He pulled them out of storage and we went through them again.

There are some lovely photos and I can't bear to see them just sit in storage in our home so I'm going to share them here on my blog and then scan them to publish on my Lost Faces website. I hope descendants will find them!

There are 50 assorted photos, postcards and letters. One letter is from a WW1 soldier and is dated 1916 and written on birch bark.

15 items from the Hooper-Squires Photo Archives

We know that all the photographs have some connection to the Hooper and Squires families of St. Mary's Ontario Canada. That's a small town in southwestern Ontario where most of my husband's ancestors (maternal and paternal) settled in the early 1800s. In fact he's related to most of the townspeople!

Aunt Florence was an Elgie and she married Wilbert George aka Wib Hooper. Wib was born in Granton, just outside of St. Mary's in 1913 to Edgar John Hooper and Ettie Squires.

Wib's birth wasn't registered at the time, but in July 1947 his mother filed affidavits to testify that was his birthdate and that she was his mother. The nice thing about a late birth registration is that more detail than normal is given. For example Wib's late birth registration found on Ancestry.com gave me the information that his mother was born in Tuckersmith, Huron Co. Ontario and his father in Blanshard Twp, Perth Co. Ontario.

Second pile of 15 items from Hooper-Squires Archives

The Hooper family is/was well known in St. Mary's. They ran a dairy (Hooper's Dairy) for many years. So my husband knew quite a bit about the family history already.

We noted several photos of Edgar J. Hooper ranging from him as a young man to a much older man. There are family photos of Edgar with his mother and father and siblings so we know we can search census and birth records to find out names of everyone in those photos.

Hubs knew that Edgar's father was John Hooper and that Edgar and Ettie had two boys - Wilbert (Wib) and Earl.  He can't recall John Hooper's wife's name but we know that marriage records will provide that detail.

3rd pile of items from Hooper-Squires Photo Archive

There are also a few photos of Edgar's wife Ettie Squires. There are also photos of Ettie with other young women who appear to be her sisters. There's quite a family resemblance and most of the girls wear glasses.

So my days of fun are about to begin as I research the Hooper-Squires family in St. Mary's and Granton Ontario using Ancestry.com.

I'll start by putting up the photos that we can positively identify and also any research I do on the people in them. It's going to be a lot of fun (and work!) because we also plan to run some facial recognition software to help us match uncertain photos with known.

Once we have all the photos organized, inventoried, scanned and published online, we will probably donate them to the St. Mary's Museum. We will also consider requests from any interested descendants.