Oldest Known Osmond Family Photos!

Cousin Elaine has now joined the family history blogging bandwagon. She's posted some beauties, especially this photo of her parents and my Mom. Mom and Uncle Charles were the babies of the Osmond family, and from what I've heard, they got away with quite a bit. They liked to have fun, and it shows.

One of the things my dear cousins probably don't know about me is that I have a competitive streak that's a mile wide. I'm not going to compete on who's got the best photo, but I will suggest that with this post, I've got the oldest.

And the most shocking revelation. One of our great-grandmothers was a Dyke, and another was a Lush.


This is Sophie Ellen Dyke, later Osmond, later Knee. Sophie is our grandfather Wilfred's mother. And my mother, Ellen Sophie Osmond, was named for her.


This is Lucy Lush, who became Lucy Hounsell when she married the cheerful looking fellow in the studio portrait below.


This must be the oldest existing Osmond family photo - a tintype of our grandmother Flora's father Enoch. Lots of family names pass on from generation to generation, but we have no other Enochs or Lucies.

Enoch and Lucy settled in the Bonavista Bay community of Safe Harbour and had seven children: Emanuel, Robert, Flora, Charles, Daisy, Clara and Elizabeth. Manny left as a teenager and went to Nova Scotia. Robert is the Uncle Bob of "Uncle Bob and Auntie" fame. Flora is our grandmother. Charles is Uncle Charlie, who liked to drink gasoline and for whom my Uncle Charles, Elaine's Dad, was named. I knew about little Elizabeth, who fell off a cliff and drowned, but I had never known of Daisy's existence until I found her mentioned on the Friends of Safe Harbour website. I don't know what happened to her, but my Aunt Daisy, Deborah's mother, must have been named for her. (Aunt Daisy, of course, has my little tabby Daisy named for her! Names cross species lines, too.)

I knew about Clara. Nanny had this photograph of her, plus a small silver heartshaped pendant, in a small tin box. When Nanny died, the photo, pendant and the tintype of Enoch came to me.

This is such a sad photo. Nanny told me it was Clara's engagement picture. It was taken on a porch, the church off in the background, and a bucket of flowers to make it special. Clara soon fell ill (TB or diptheria), the fiance left, and Clara died. She was buried in her wedding dress.

Flora married Wilfred Osmond in 1919. Here is the only family picture that I know to exist. It was taken in 1930 -- I only know this because my mother was born in February 1931. She used to complain bitterly that she wasn't in the picture until her mother pointed out that she was pregnant with Mom at the time.

Left to right we have Pearce, Neta, Wilfred, Flora, Charles, and Daisy. When I was a child, I thought this picture foretold the future. Pearce appears to fade away and in fact he did die, of meningitis, a few years after this was taken. After Mom was born, there was another son, Wilfred, but he died in infancy. My grandfather, who worked schooners on the Labrador in the summer and lumber camps in the winter, was away and did not know of his sons' deaths until he came home several months later. What a life.