This week was a tough one. The prompt image for this week’s Sepia Saturday is nothing at all like what I have in my collection of family photos, and I’ve really been trying to both stay on theme and use only family photos. It’s helped me a lot to further explore the collection of photos and bring me to some new discoveries, identifications, and even a few connections I might have otherwise missed in terms of genealogy and family history. While this set isn’t of a family member, and it’s a bit of a stretch on the theme, the young boy in the photos was clearly close to my great grandmother, Olga (Powis) Kitko and great grandmother, Jessie (Battin) Powis. Hey, he’s a little guy in a uniform, I’m going to make it work!
Luther Boyd Wagner was born 8 Jan 1916 in Coalport, Clearfield County, Pennsylvania, the second child of Boyd Robinson Wagner and Mary Elizabeth Harris who you may remember from a previous Sepia Saturday post. I was going back through photos to find an image for this prompt, when I realized that the boy in the sailor suit (right, about 1921) matched a young boy in another photo that had names listed on the back (left, Luther & Merle Wagner, about 1917)! I did some quick hunting to find out if Luther Wagner was still around and unfortunately found that he had passed away 27 Nov 1999 in Hollidaysburg, Blair County, PA. Still, his family clearly had a strong connection to mine and it’s interesting to see how long they kept in contact, as children were born, grew up, etc. It’s easy to forget, when doing genealogical research, that the folks who shaped the lives of our ancestors weren’t always blood related, and sometimes ties to friends and neighbors were stronger than the connection to family an ocean away.
