It’s a sepia photo, taken by Rich & Corwin, Guthrie Center, IA. There’s an arrow pointing to the girl on the right. On the back, in Leora Goff Wilson’s handwriting, it says “Laura Jordan (Goff) at 19 or 20 years of age and friends,” so this was taken about 1887 or 1888.
I didn’t recognize any of the others so I posted it on the Historic Guthrie County Facebook page and asked whether anyone, especially those genealogists, just might know who they are.
One man said he thought it was the wedding photo of a Goff family, February 25, 1890. Hmm, that’s the date Laura Jordan married Milton Sheridan “Sherd” Goff. He thought the others were Goff siblings, Edward and Minnie, plus Laura’s sister Floy. I was stunned. Does that mean that the “groom” in the center is Sherd Goff?
We’ve met Sherd’s brother Edwin Carlton Goff, and his sister Minnie Belle Goff. It’s hard to tell from photos whether it’s “Uncle Ed” but the woman on the left wore her hair the same way in at least one other photo. She was also a friend of Laura Jordan, both teaching country school in Guthrie County. Minnie’s death a few years later was a tragic one.
I’m leaning toward believing that three Goff siblings are in the photo. This photo was probably made before Laura married, and she would have been friends with the Goffs a year or two earlier. The girl standing in the back looks nothing like Laura’s next sister, Floy Jordan, so maybe she was a friend, perhaps another country school teacher.
My biggest conundrum? Leora Goff Wilson was the oldest child of Sherd and Laura Goff. Why wouldn’t she have recognized her own father and noted it on the back of the photo?