Farm Family Portrait

My grandmother, Adelia Gertrude Lancaster Hinton (center), and sister Josie (top right) pose with family for a traveling photographer.

I love this old portrait of my grandmother’s family taken by a traveling photographer around 1910. Grandma’s parents were evidently caught in the middle of their farming workday, as can be seen by their clothing.

I treasure this photograph not only as a record of my grandmother’s family but also as a realistic portrait of a farm family in eastern North Carolina in the early part of the 20th century.

My grandmother, Adelia Gertrude Lancaster Hinton, is the blonde, teenaged girl in the middle of the photograph with her hand resting on the back of her mother’s chair. I remember Grandma told me that she and her sister, Josie, the other older girl in the picture, slipped in the house to put big bows in their hair before the picture was taken! A younger sister and an older married one with her new baby complete the portrait. Behind the group is the family’s farmhouse.

No one looks particularly happy, but I think smiling for a picture is somewhat of a modern trend. I treasure this photograph not only as a record of my grandmother’s family but also as a realistic portrait of a farm family in eastern North Carolina in the early part of the 20th century.

Patsy Pridgen, Rocky Mount, a member of Carteret-Craven Electric Cooperative