What a beautiful family!

This photo is from my father's shoe box. The clothing styles place it in the late 1870s or early 1880s (the parallel-layered dresses worn by the girls and their mother are a signature style of the period). At the end of the summer of 1879, William and Charlotte Kelly of Baltimore had 5 children, Laura, Lilly, Eliza Jane aka Jenny, Alice and William Jr, with another one on the way. They lost Alice in October. In February of 1880 they had a baby daughter who they also named Alice, but she only lived until June. At the end of the summer of 1880 Laura was a few months past her 12th birthday, Lilly was almost 9, Jenny 6½ and William Jr 2½. Charlotte was 37, William Arthur Kelly was about to turn 45, and that's all the Kellys there were. The family in this photo has just the right make-up to be the Kellys of Baltimore around the end of the summer of 1880. Between that, the estimated date and the current ownership of this photo, there's no question in my mind that that's exactly who they are! The only possible quibble is the ages of the children. Let me recount the discussion my brother Peter and I had on the subject.

According to this growth chart, the average height for a modern girl Laura's age is just about exactly 5'. Lilly should be about 4' 4" and Jenny just under 4'. There's nothing in the photo that gives a clue about anyone's exact height, and people were generally a bit shorter back then, but we can say this - Lilly should come up to Laura's mouth and Jenny to her sternum just above the cross she's wearing. You can use the top edge of another window in front of the photo to see how things line up. Lilly appears to come up to Laura's eyebrows making her too tall which bothered me, and the top of Jenny's head is a bit below Laura's cross making her too short which bothered Peter! But Laura is leaning to her right to get herself low enough to confortably clasp her father's arm, taking an inch or 2 off of her apparent height. And if you line up Lilly's eyes against Laura they're even with the tip of her chin, 5½" or so below Laura's eyes (I suspect the camera was a bit higher than the top of Lilly's head, so we're looking a good distance along the top of her head which gives the illusion of added height). If you go by the levels of the eyes and allow 1½" for Laura's lean, you get exactly the right height difference between Lilly and Laura. Besides, as Peter pointed out, Laura has the face of a 12 year old and Lilly the face of a 9 year old.

As for Jenny, Laura might be leaning down a bit, but Jenny is positively sprawled on her father's lap. Her skirt is in front of his shins while her elbows are in the middle of his thighs, so she's leaning backwards at a pretty good angle. She's also closest to the camera. A point about perspective - an object that's below the camera will move lower in the frame as you move it closer to the camera. Jenny is well below the camera and a step in front of Laura and Lilly. Granted her head isn't as far forward as her legs, but between perspective and posture the seemingly excessive height difference between Jenny and Laura is easily accounted for.

Some parting observations: The backdrop is a curtain. The girls are wearing matching boots and dresses, and I don't know if there's a proper fashion term for the shorts they're wearing but they match too. Laura has her father's narrow nose, Lilly has his light-colored eyes, they all have his wide ears. Three of the children are being very well behaved, but Jenny is being a handful! Her father is restraining her, she has her chin pressed into her chest, her mouth is agape and her slip is showing.

Email me for a full-size copy. You can see the buttons on Lilly's boot!

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