Two weeks ago we considered a photograph provided by Mark Dillon, great-grandson of HP Buller, who was a son of Peter D Buller and thus brother of Grandpa Chris’s father, Peter P (here). Mark has since located another copy, so to speak, of the photo, this one in the family history book assembled by Elsie H. (Regier) Friesen: In the Days of Our Youth: The Mennonite Heritage and Descendants of Johann and Cornelius Siebert.
Comparison with the earlier photograph leaves no doubt: the two are identical. An intriguing question immediately comes to mind: Did Elsie Friesen have access to another copy of the photograph, or did she borrow the one currently held by the HP Buller family to use in her book? I suspect that Elsie had her own copy, which raises further questions: Who took the photograph: a professional or a member of the family? If a professional, how common was it for photographers to provide multiple copies of a single photograph? If a family member, how did an amateur photographer have a photo developed and reproduced in the early twentieth century?
Those questions are of minor importance in comparison to the identities of the people in the photo. Our identification of all the parties was correct: in the center are Sarah Siebert Buller and Johann Siebert, surrounded by six of Sarah’s children (three daughters on the left of the photo and three sons on the right) and their families. As the caption correctly notes, this is a four-generation picture; we might add that the birth years of those pictured nearly spanned a century, from Johann in 1822 to the baby just over his left shoulder, born in 1903.
With the additional confirmation from In the Days of Our Youth, we can identify the individuals in the photo as follows (year of birth in parentheses).
1. Peter Dick (1869), husband of Sarah Buller Dick
2. Sarah Buller Dick (1877), daughter of Peter D and Sarah Siebert Buller
3. Peter S. Dick (1898), son of Peter and Sarah Buller Dick
4. Abraham S. Dick (1901), son of Peter and Sarah Buller Dick
5. Katharina Buller Epp (1871), daughter of Peter D and Sarah Siebert Buller
6. Heinrich (Henry) G. Epp (1863), husband of Katharina Buller Epp
7. Sarah Epp (1893), daughter of Henry and Katharina Buller Epp
8. Katharina H. Epp (1895), daughter of Henry and Katharina Buller Epp
9. Margaretha G. Epp (1897), daughter of Henry and Katharina Buller Epp
10. David H. Epp (1899), son of Henry and Katharina Buller Epp
11. Dietrich G. Epp (1901), son of Henry and Katharina Buller Epp
12. Isaac H. Epp (1902), son of Henry and Katharina Buller Epp (the outfit is presumably a boy’s frock, not a dress)
13. Anna Epp (1903), daughter of Henry and Katharina Buller Epp
14. Maria M. Buller (1890), daughter of Peter D and Sarah Siebert Buller
15. Sarah Siebert Buller (1847), wife of Peter D Buller
16. Johann Siebert (1822), father of Sarah Siebert Buller
17. Margaretha Epp Buller (1878), wife of David S Buller
18. David S Buller (1874), son of Peter D and Sarah Siebert Buller
19. Katharina E. Buller (1900), daughter of David and Margaretha Epp Buller
20. Sarah E. Buller (1901), daughter of David and Margaretha Epp Buller
21. Maria E. Buller (1903), daughter of David and Margaretha Epp Buller
22. Jacob P Buller (1879), son of Peter D and Sarah Siebert Buller
23. Abraham P Buller (1884), son of Peter D and Sarah Siebert Buller
We are nearly finished with this photograph, but a few background items warrant a closer look, which we will take in a subsequent post.
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