Cabinet Card Clues

Unidentified child shown with who we believe is Willie Stallings. Unknown photographer.

Willie Stallings. The name was scrawled on the back of a photograph of two children, found among my mother-in-law's possessions after she died.

The name is rewritten in ink over a lighter pencil inscription.

In the photo, the seated male child looks positively bored. But it's the beautiful little girl who captures your attention, with her white ruffled dress, fair ringlets, and her pale eyes.

Stallings is one of my husband Jim's ancestral lines; he is descended from William Dixie Stallings and Arah Matilda Huffman, his great, great grandparents. 

At first, I assumed that Willie was the little boy's name. However, finding the family in the 1900 United States Census, I discovered that Willie was actually the beauty in the picture, the daughter of William and Arah Stallings. The census notes her birth date as October 1897, and the family as living in Ward County, Texas.

The provenance of this photograph keeps with this identification - it appears to have been passed down through Stallings descendants to my husband's mother, Dessie Evans Casey Cleberg. She likely inherited it from her mother Mary Ollie Stephen Evans Payne. In turn, Mary must have received it from her mother, Dessie Stallings Stephen, Willie's older sister. Documents and other photos from all three generations were found together in my mother-in-law's belongings after she died in 2016.

Dating the photo is not as difficult as it might have been, since sadly, Willie Stallings died just after her seventh birthday. That narrowed the date range of the photo to between 1896 and 1903; since she is obviously neither an infant nor toddler, that helped even more.

Willie M. Stallings grave, Tamarisk Cemetery, Ward County, Texas. (Photo: LaDonna Greer Collett) 

I also was able to find a memorial to her, on the Find A Grave website, in Grandfalls, Texas's Tamarisk Cemetery. The elaborate and beautiful stone commemorates a life cut short. I'm still searching for her death record and any obituary which may have been published. As of now, I don't know how she died.

It was exciting to have it this photo identified as a cabinet card yesterday, at a genealogy session I attended at the Denton Public Library, by presenter Ann McKee.

Cabinet cards were produced by photographers for a relatively short span of time - between 1860 and the early 1900's.

The giveaways to identifying our cabinet card are the characteristic size of about 4" x 6-1/2", as well as the scalloped edging, which further places it in the date range of the 1890s, and within our Willie's lifespan.

More clues to the dating of the photo to the early 1900s is the wicker chair on which the boy is seated. The interior composition of the photo, including the chair, suggest a parlor, a common portrait setting in the 1890s and early 1900s. The girl’s dress, with its empire waistline and yoke, were fashionable in the early 1900s.

Taken together, these clues suggest that the girl in the photo may very well be Willie Stallings. I’m guessing it was taken about 1901-1902, when she would have been about 5-6 years old. What a treasure to have this beautiful reminder of this sweet child.

While I still searching for the boy's identity and more info on her short life, it's gratifying to know that this lovely little girl may now have a name.