Favourite Photo

I am finally getting around to my second #52Ancestors post!  This week I would like to write about a favourite photo.  Actually, I find that photos are like my children, I can't have one favourite!  They all tell their own story, and they all evoke strong emotion for me, knowing that I carry a part of each person in the photo within me, even if I never had the chance to meet them.
I have been lucky enough to have been given several old photos from different sources.
I found this one very intriguing:

I was given a copy of this photo over 30 years ago by my Aunt Margaret McKenzie, my mom's sister.  She in turn had received a copy of the photo from her uncle Charles McKenzie.  She didn't know who the women were, but I found the photo so interesting.  The room where the ladies are posing looks very Victorian; cluttered with ornaments, flowers, pictures, plants and draperies.  All of the women appear to be dressed in their best.  The ladies in the front are holding items that indicate they are educated and perhaps have some time for leisure.  One is holding what appears to be a stereoscope photo viewer, one is holding sheet music and one a book titled Portraits and Principles.  The full title is actually Portraits and Principles of the World's Great Men and Women with Practical Lessons on Successful Life by Over Fifty Leading Thinkers, published in 1894.  Very posh!  I used to pull out the photo and wonder who these women were.  Was I related to any of them, or all of them?  I always imagined that the woman in the centre front and to the right in the back were sisters, they look so similar.

Fast forward 30 years, and one day last year, I was searching for local histories of some of the small towns that my ancestors had settled in.  I found one from La Rivière, Manitoba called Turning Leaves: A History of La Riviere and District, published in 1979 and available in it's entirety online.  I searched the book for all occurances of the name Mitchell, and lo and behold, on page 149, this photo appeared!  Not only am I related to one of the women in the picture, I am related to three of them and they ARE sisters!  The caption in the book states "Taken at the home of Mrs. W. Fargey. (l-r) Mrs. Ritchie, Mrs. Fargey, Mrs. McKenzie, Mrs. Mitchell, Miss Playfair."  As soon as I had their names, I knew exactly who they were!

The woman on the far left was born Elizabeth Somerville Mitchell on 7 Oct 1866 in Middleville Ontario.  The Mitchell family moved to Manitoba in 1879.  With 8 children ranging in age from 1 to 22 years old they travelled across the prairie in a covered wagon.  Elizabeth married William Ritchie in Manitoba in 1892.  The Ritchie family had travelled from Middleville to Manitoba with the Mitchells.  Elizabeth is my 2X great-aunt.

The woman in the middle was born Janet Lawson Mitchell in Middleville on 7 Oct 1857.  She married Alexander McKenzie in Silver Springs, Manitoba in 1882.  Alex had arrived from Scotland as a small child and his family settled in the Owen Sound, Ontario area.  The McKenzies moved to Manitoba sometime between 1871 and 1881.  Janet is my 2X great-grandmother.

The woman in the back on the right is Sarah Jane Mitchell.  She was born in Middleville on 9 Nov 1864.  She married John Mitchell, also known as Jack, in 1897.  She is also my 2X great-aunt.

This photo was taken sometime after Sarah's marriage in 1897, but before Janet and her family moved to Vancouver, in about 1906.

Finding this photo in the book brought home to me the value of local histories.  I salute the people and organizations who gather this vital information that otherwise might be lost.