Well I'll be durned, it pays to keep checking:
At the age of 21, when most young women were
considering more traditional roles, Ada wanted to
learn how to operate a camera. Her younger sister,
Lora, was interested in becoming a teacher.
The McColl family had moved to Medicine Lodge in
1876 from Iowa. By 1884 the family became unhappy with
their prairie farm and decided to move to Florida. After a
short time, William and Polly McColl moved their family
back to Kansas and homesteaded near Lakin City in Kearny
County. Here, Ada helped her father with the chores of
raising cattle and farming.
In answer to their daughters’ career choices, the
McColls sent Lora to school and Ada to a photographer in
Garden City, where she served as an apprentice.
H. L. Wolf, who operated a photography company
in Garden City, served as Ada’s mentor. Wolf also recommended
the camera – an 1890 model made by the
Rochester Optical Company, which Ada received from her
parents in 1892. Wolf advised Ada that she should be able
to purchase a good camera “for not less than $15 to do
good work.”
“I think the reason she got interested in photography was
because they did not see their relatives in Iowa sometimes
for years,” recalled Ada’s daughter, Erma Pryor, in a letter to
the Historical Society. “They would have pictures taken and
send them.”
Pryor inherited Ada’s camera and gained an appreciation
for the technology. “It sat on a tripod and had to be level,”
Pryor said. “She had to put the plates into the camera
where no light could touch them. You just didn’t touch a
button and there was your picture. You had to hold a pose
for 6 to 8 minutes so that is why no one ever smiled in a
picture.”
In 1893, when it came time to create the famous
photograph, Ada’s mother Polly operated the camera so
that Ada could pose. Three-year-old Burt sat nearby on the
wooden camera box. In later years he would often be
mistaken for a girl. A lesser-known image, with Polly as
the subject, was created at the same time.
“I asked my mother why she had her mouth open in
that picture of her and the wheelbarrow full of cow chips,”
Pryor recalled, “and she said she was telling her mother
how to take the picture.”
With her camera, Ada created family portraits and
documented the Kansas prairie. Her images depict life on
nearby Kearny County farms. In her account book, Ada Brows e | Kansas Memory
kept careful records of photography expenses and numbered
or named all of her photographs. Since Wolf processed the
photographs, he may have received credit for some of
Ada’s work.
During 1893, Ada took a trip to visit relatives in Iowa.
There she met her future husband, Henry J. Thiles. The
couple was married in Iowa in 1895, where they raised
their family.
In a letter dated March 30, 1895, Wolf told Ada that he
would continue to store her photograph collection. “I have
your negatives and they are not in my way. Should you
want them any time will send them to you,” Wolf wrote.
Apparently, Ada never claimed this collection.
“I distinctly heard Mr. Wolf tell my mother that when he
sold out in Garden City and moved he had left her plates in
the studio,” Pryor said, “and the man that bought him out
got them.”
In the 1890s numerous copies of the cow chip
image were printed and H. L. Wolf was identified as the
photographer. As the mystery grew, attempts were made
to identify those involved.
In 1980 the Finney County Historical Society published
the image in its newsletter, The Sequoyan, and asked for
help in identifying the subjects. Finally in 1984, Ada’s
granddaughter, Rochelle Danner, contacted the Kansas
Historical Society and provided the missing details.
Goes to show you can't always trust lables, hard to tell a cow chip from a buffalo chip in a photo. And desite seeing it listed as a pregnant woman she was just pot bellied.
News & Blogs
Home
Posts
Recent Posts
Help
Business Directory
Calendar
Advertising Rates
Contact Us
Login
Register
