Historic Hood River
Cabinet Card
6-25-2015
Notes
This O.M. Pope cabinet card has seen some rough treatment, but it still tells a story. The women are Ida Billings, Leona Hinrichs, Laura Lage, and Mandy Rorden. We’ve actually seen Laura Lage before, though some 60 years later.
I don’t think Pope had a permanent studio in Hood River, but we have several old views of his. The Glacier notes a visit by him in 1891, and I know he took several pictures of Samuel Blythe and Twin Oaks at that time. I have seen cards of his indicating a studio in Ilwaco, Wa., and Hillsboro, Or.
Note the straw on the floor and what looks like a puddle. I wonder if he visited their farm and set up his background in their barn?
Longshot
Certainly not the normal location to take a picture of the ladies. I am going to suggest it may have been taken inside of a house that had dirt floors. Could the background just be a drawing on plastered walls instead of a photographers backdrop?
kmb
Lenora Hinrichs was my great-grandmother, and I can positively identify her as is the woman third from left in the picture above, based on other pictures I have of her. She was born in 1873 in Kansas, a year before the family came west and ended up in the Hood River area. If this was taken in 1891, she would have been about 18.