I recently found this photograph in a group of photos. Because of a clue on one of the other pix, I narrowed the date to between 1928 and 1931.
I know who the man is because he has a very distinctive look. This is my great-grandfather, born Adriaan Zuijdweg and called Adrian Zuidweg in the United States. I’ve written about him many times, but the best posts would be My Great-Grandfather Reinvented Himself as a Business Owner in the U.S. and My Grandfather’s Story, Part V and Back to the Dutch-American Newspaper.
Adrian died in 1929, according to my grandfather–of kidney disease. But I have not been able to find a death certificate or a grave. Maybe it’s because his name was mangled, but keeping that in mind, I still haven’t found him yet. It is so frustrating. Also, the newspapers from that year are not on Genealogy Bank. Nevertheless, I would put this photo at 1928 or 1929. Because other photos show him more fit than in his photo, I think he might have been ill (or close to it) by the time this photograph was taken.
But who are the women in this photo?
Could the woman on the left be my Great-Grandmother Cora DeKorn Zuidweg? She looks a lot taller than he does, but maybe she was taller. I will post a known photo of her so you can compare.
Cora DeKorn at her father Richard DeKorn’s cottage on Long Lake
Similar hats, for sure! If that is Cora in the first photo, then she would have been about 53 years old. She herself passed away in 1932 from cancer.
Do you think that is Cora in the photo with Adrian?
Who is the shorter woman? Is this another photo of her?
The only child of Adrian and Cora was my grandfather. Cora’s only sister was Jennie–and this is not Jennie. However, she had two younger step-sisters, Marion and Marge Sootsman. They would have been in their 30s at this time. This woman does not look like one of them. She actually looks more like one of the Culver sisters, but we figured out that they moved to Seattle before this period.
The only thing is . . . there are a lot of photos of this woman. Was she a girlfriend of my grandfather?
Kinda looks like it. After a series of these photos, there is a series of him with my grandmother.
Do any family members know the answer to this mystery?
The Family Kalamazoo 
Definitely looks like his girlfriend and the same person in all three photos. I bet he took the first one. I also think it’s the same woman in photos 1 and 2—same shaped jaw and face, though I can’t really see her other features in the second photo.
Now…will you help me with mine? 🙂 I would love some feedback on my last two posts! Here’s today’s: https://brotmanblog.wordpress.com/2015/07/03/mystery-photo-one-more-try/
Thanks, Amy! It’s pretty frustrating not to know! Hah, I went over there and tried to figure it out. I will again. Onkel Adolf: intuitively, I feel they are the same man. I can’t account for the full face, though, because it seems as though it might get thinner as he becomes older–thin when young, then fuller at mid-life and then thinner again? But all the other features seem to line up so that my gut feels they are the same.
Thanks, Luanne! I do also—especially since I can’t find another Adolf who would fit. I guess I will never know for sure. Do you think the woman on the camel is the same as the woman in the group photo?
Any luck finding answers to your questions? I will go back and check your post.
Thanks!!
I think the picture is my dads cousin Therese Remine. The taller woman may be Aunt Mary Remine.
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Aunt Mary was born in 1859, so she would have had to be 69 here. And Therese was born in 1891 and the more I look at the photos of the young woman she is a young woman barely out of her teens. Also, Therese was fairly tall. This girl would need to be someone closer to Grandpa’s age, so closer to a birthdate around 1908. Maybe another (2nd) cousin? Or a friend of some kind.
A bit of detective work here. That’s the fun of genealogy.
It’s all detective work, isn’t it? Isn’t the more boring parts!
Hm; don’t feel I can offer any help with this one, so I’ll just wish you luck in your sleuthing. Cheers, Su.
Thanks for stopping by my blog. I popped over here to see what you are doing. The Squire and I are both tracing our family trees, although he had gotten much further along than I have.
Regarding the frustration of old photos. His aunt had an album she had kept from her early teens, through her marriage, and on into her older years, which she had always promised to my husband. Everything was carefully labeled – who, when and where. When she died, he reminded his cousin that he had been promised “your mother’s pictures”, which was the *wrong* thing to say. A few weeks later he received a lumpy package in the mail. Cousin had pulled every single picture from the album and stuffed them in an envelope. When he called her to ask about the album, hoping he could match the torn paper on the pictures with the spots in the book, she told him (deep Southern accent here) “Ah didn’t know you wahted all thet ole wratin’ an’ stuff. Ah burned thet in the far.” I thought he was going to put his head down and cry.
Oh man, this story made me cry. That is just so wrong. How can anyone be that ignorant? It’s such a shame!
Similar story here in Australia. When I was about 12 years old, my great grandmother was still alive, she was over 100. I was obsessed even then with history, and there was an old barn (they lived in the hills). I saw an old iron bed with a handmade patchwork quilt. And boxes and boxes of letters written in German. (They had emigrated from there in 1855). I am sure there was a lot of other memorabilia there as well. My aunty came in and told me off for “being nosy” and that it was no place for a young girl and to get out. I was always a bit scared of this aunty. Anyway, when my g grandmother (who still only spoke German and was a sweet little old lady) passed away in 1973, I was told the barn with everything in it had been burned. I was lucky that a beautiful old cupboard that had been hand carved (probably at home in Germany) and that was covered in layers of paint, was given to me, and my ex stripped it back to original. I was told by my father that my granny remembered her father carrying it about his head when they got off the ship at Port Adelaide and had to walk across the mud flats to get to dry land. But to this day, I wonder what treasures went up in smoke. I always think my aunty was a rather vindictive lady, sadly.
This story just breaks my heart. To imagine everything that was lost by her spitefulness is just amazing. It must be so difficult to even think about it!