Anticipation

Bessie (Richards) Shaffer

I've said before my family history research has peaks and lulls. Right now it's definitely at a high point. While I have several ongoing lines of inquiry going on, I'm also working on my never-ending effort to collect, digitize and identify family photos. Last week I blogged about a recent success. Now, I'm poised for another exciting adventure.

Saturday I'm traveling to Ely, Iowa, to visit my grandmother's first cousin and his wife. I wrote to them about a month ago in the hopes of finding photos related to the Shaffer and Richards side of my family tree. These photos have eluded me for years and I've spent considerable time contacting cousins (harassing some, really) and digging around for clues to where they could be. Finally, I tracked down Dan and his wife, wrote a letter, sent it off, and hoped for the best.

I was extremely pleased to get an email a few weeks later saying he'd be happy to help. He even said he'd contact his brother and they'd look through things and get back to me. I was excited about this prospect, and anxious about when we could get together. Then, on Thanksgiving morning, I received an email with this picture. To say this was the highlight of my year would probably be an understatement. Bessie (Richards) Shaffer, the woman in the above image, is my great-great grandmother and a woman with whom I have been fascinated for a long time. She was one of three sisters, the only one to have children, and lived independently until her death at age 97.

For a young girl growing up on a farm in late 19th Century Iowa she was well educated, completing high school and taking two years of classes at Upper Iowa University. She was a hobbyist painter in her young days, a past-time she unfortunately gave up after marrying Israel Shaffer in 1905.

Details about her life are numerous. My mother, Bessie's great-granddaughter, was a junior in college when Bessie passed away, so she had the unique opportunity of knowing her great-grandmother as an adult. Bessie's long life means much was said and written about her. On this blog I've included some of those things, including her first-person account of wedding preparations compiled for a local history when she was 96.

With all that was known about Bessie's long life, little of it was documented in photos - at least not photos I have seen! I knew in my very bones they had to be out there. In my years of traveling, interviewing, digging, prodding, scanning, and investigating I had never seen photos of Bessie younger than her late-30s. They were always photos with other people and her grown children. Most were by the time she was a grandparent. No childhood photos. No wedding photos. No photos of any kind. The same for her husband, Israel.

When I contacted Dan about the Shaffer and Richards photos I hoped he might have a few that would help fill in these gaps. When my email popped up Thanksgiving morning with this photo, labeled "graduation picture" my heart skipped a beat. After more than 15 years of searching I finally had a photo of Bessie as a young woman - probably 18 years old - looking quite elegant.

Needless to say the photo has already found its place on the wall in my study.

I know it's not good to set too high of an expectation. I know there are more photos and I know I'll get a chance to see and scan them Saturday. In my head I'm dreaming about how amazing they are and how they'll fill in all the gaps in my family history and all puzzles will be solved and the world will be wonderful. My goal now is to temper that excitement. I know no matter what the day brings, having this photo of Bessie is already more than I could have imagined.

Updates (and photos) this weekend...