Old-Timey Photos of WV (Wheeling, Grafton: house, live, moving)

[Bobilee]

I started this thread for anyone who wants to share any of their old-timey gems from the family album. I love old photos, particularly if there is a story to them. If you need a picture hosting service I use tinypic.com, which is free and easy. According to my grandmother this is the "infare" (In´fare` n.1. A house-warming; especially, a reception, party, or entertainment given by a newly married couple, or by the husband upon receiving the wife to his house.) of my great-great-aunt Nevada Muncy and her husband Lawrence Ferguson in Dec. 1910 in Wayne County. They are the young seated couple in the center. My great-grandmother Virgie Muncy Ross is standing behind Lawrence at the left holding my great-aunt Lola Ross. My great-great grandparents Celia Ann (Crabtree) and Thomas Muncy are seated at the far left. The preacher is standing behind the young couple, he's wearing something tied up in his hair. Anyone know what this might be?

[confusedTee]

thanks for sharing.......i love to look at all these old pictures..........i have seen many of the mine photos........................very proud people and have EVERY right to be..THEY EARNED IT...........god bless

[nicolepsy]

that's a great photo (i could look at old photos all day!). have you noticed how there isnt usually much smiling in the old photos are we're expected to do today? anyone know why? (besides the fact that life may have been harder). i love the old names too like celia ann crabtree!

[angelbug]

Shoot, I wish I had a scanner handy. I have a photo of my mom, 2 years old, standing in front of her father's car, which had a 1920 West Virginia license plate that simply said "127." How's that for light traffic? My mom's older sister told me they had one of the first autos in Wheeling.

nicolepsy: The reason people didn't smile in old photos was that the exposure times were very long compared to nowadays, because of the type of film used, and it was hard to maintain a smiling expression long enough without your mouth moving. So people just let their mouths relax. Or so my photographer dad told me.

[kathys]

Don't know if this photo came up or not. It is from mid 30s . My mother and aunt are in it. I am not sure what town it was. I think either Winfield, Buffalo, or Fraziers Bottom. The teacher was a relative of my moms also. She has almost all the names on the back. One of them is a Ferguson. Wonder if related to original poster. My moms and aunts names were berniece and Mary Glenn. My mom was bornin 1925 and aunt was in 1927.

[creemarie]

Here are some pictures of my family. The first is of my grandfather (Earl Hilderbrand) when he worked in the coal mines in Star City, WV. The picture is from the 1940's; he is in second row, 5th from the left.

The second photo is of my great-grandparents, Warren and Grace Martin. This picture is from about 1915-1920 also taken in Star City, WV. Warren was actually the first Mayor of Star City.

[Janipoo]

I hope this works, I had to steal the picture off my sister's site. This is the Run where my parents grew up in Mannington WV. My sister was also born in a house up this holler.

[Bobilee]

Great photos, everyone, thanks. I thought I would put up another, this time it's not my family, but a family from the Davis area, about 1900. I search Ebay often for old West Virginia photos and found this one, but it went for $60 and I didn't have the dough. There was no family name attached to the picture, just the photographer. The guys in the back row have guns pointed at each other. It reminded me of the famous picture of the Hatfields. I think holding your guns was a typical pose in many rural communities. The best West Virginia photo I saw on Ebay was a large tintype of the railroad yards at Grafton, ca. 1860. It went for $2000. Another nice WV photo was a daguerreotype of a group posed at the start of the war (Of Northern Aggression ), with two cannon and a little boy in a gray uniform. I think it went for around $600, which is actually pretty cheap for something like that.

[Mike from back east]

Here are some pix from Ruby Fisher's (my late mother) collection of old family pix. I'll tell you what I know about them. Ruby was born in Weston in early 1917, lived in the area of Burnsville, Glenville and environs until going to Baltimore in 1941 to work in a war plant. The pix are all from that area. Mom's family was split up about 1920 when her father walked away and was never seen again, no one ever knew what happened to him or where he went. Mom and her younger brother Robert John Fisher were raised by the Moore family, and I think her two older brothers, Cecil and Harold were raised by the White family (maternal side). Thus, prominent family members on my Mom's side were the Fisher, Moore, White and Barker families.

1. Ruby Fisher (on right) and Hally Weyant, about 1922 or so, as Ruby looks to be about 5 or 6. She had 2 cents in the hankey. Eighty years after the photo, she still remembered that she had 2 cents in that hankey.




2. Believed to be the Fisher family. The lad about 8 in the back row is thought to be George Stuart Fisher, father of Ruby. Pix is probably late 1890's or so.




3. Ruby's two older brothers, Cecil on left and Harold on right, with their Aunt Thelma Fisher, about 1915. Note the fashionable summer-weight footware.




4. Cecil and Harold Fisher again, probably in mid 1920's.




5. More of Ruby's relatives, circa 1919. Ruby seems to be the 2nd infant from the left, behind the hairless boy.



6. Hamrick's Place, probably in the area of Burnsville, WV. I'm guessing circa 1940. Ruby's mother, Rachel (White) Fisher, remarried after Ruby's father walked away from his family in the 1920 timeframe. Her second husband was a Hamrick.



7. Believed to be the Barker Family, circa 1925, at an area called Roger's Hill. I think Stanley Barker, who passed about 2003, is the lad at center in overalls, and two tall gals next to him are Leota and Lucille Barker.

[rgreco8818]

Hey Mike,
For whatever reason; this morning I decided to do a Google search on Rachel White/Weston,WV. I followed a search finding to the site of guy who had names I recognized and couldn't believe that wound up at your City-Data entries. Good stuff. I wondered who had all those pictures of Mom's family, didn't know it was you. By the way, have you looked at either getting them restored or copied? We had an picture of Frank's parents done and it turned out great. Anyway, great post.
Sis