Charles Agustus Libby Photographer

The other day I was reading an article in the Inlander and they had a list of top 10 articles for 2013, while most were good one caught my eye. It was an article on Charles Libby a photographer here in Spokane that took thousands of pictures of the area and people, and he kept a list of where each picture was taken, why and date it was taken. The part of the Inlander article that caught my eye was that they did not know where he was from or much about his family. Charles and his son Charles Jr. operated the photography business till 1969.

This is a picture Charles Libby took of the baseball team my grandfather managed. On the back they said it was taken at Underhill Park in 1934 and the list of the players. You can see the Libby mark on the lower left of the picture, and I added the names of the players. My grandfather was the tall man in the back row. All of the players worked for the Great Northern Railroad in Hillyard, and win or loose after the game they went to my grandfathers for a homemade beer. Royal Arcanum was a fraternal group something like the masons.

So where did Charles Libby come from? I did a little online searching and found this:

Charles was born in Olympia, Washington to George A. Libby and Elizabeth Mauree born in Germany, George was the son of Aaron and Ruth Libby and born in Maine. George died in Olympia January 7, 1898 of consumption. George is listed in the 1879 Thurston county census as a lumberman and in the 1892 census as a miner. After death of George, Elizabeth moved the family to Spokane and Addice the older sister to Charles set up a photography and art studio. Charles joined Addie and soon after set up his own studio for commercial photography.
Charles married Gretchen Schlussler  in Spokane July 12, 1905 and they had a son Charles Agustus Libby, Jr. May 24, 1907. Gretchen was born in St. Paul, Minnesota  about 1885 to August Schlussler and Minnie Meyers.
Elizabeth was listed in the 1900 census in Spokane with her children George H. age 29, Addie C. age 26, Charles A. age 21, and Ruth H. age 10. Elizabeth died May 27, 1932 in Spokane and is buried in Thurston County with her husband George Libby. So why did Elizabeth move her family to Spokane after her husband George A. Libby died? Well there was a Dr. George W. Libby also born in Maine, living in Spokane then, so was he a cousin to Elizabeth's husband George A. Libby?, possibly. There were a lot of Libby families in Maine in the 1800s.
Gretchen Pauline Libby died April 6, 1957 and Charles Agustus Libby died July 1966 both here in Spokane.

Your New 2014 EWGS Board

Take your choice of photos.......... think of your new EWGS Board members and sorry I did not get a new photo! (Those are darn cute pix, don't you think? Which one is John Ellingson???)

We all enjoyed a great lunch at Timber Creek, and a fabulous program from Don McLaughlin about his work identifying the old Colville Road (between Walla Walla and Colville). Loved the snippets we learned:  This was the original spelling:  Wallah Wallah. A large portion of northcentral Washington was titled the Colville region after a dude who never set foot there. The ruts from that road are still visible in many places.

We also recognized our past presidents and our distinguished service members. We are blessed to have so many of these good folks with us but we did lose two past presidents in 2013.

Our new Board is eager and ready to serve:  Donna Phillips again as president, Pat Bayonne-Johnson as vice-president, Oweta Floyd as treasurer, Diganne Bongarts as recording secretary,  Evelyn Carpenter Small as corresponding secretary, Lola King McCreary as member-at-large, Bill Hire is still past president, and Dolly Webb and Kathy Bowan are our new trustees. Juanita McBride continues as Librarian. We are so lucky to have these good folks keeping EWGS not only alive but thriving!

Hope somebody will send to me or post themselves a pix of this great crew!

If you missed then you missed a great lunch, an informative and most interesting presentation and a chance to throw tomatoes at the new Board. See you in February for our Book Auction..... and if you have material to donate, Juanita requests it be brought down to the library, preferably on a Tuesday, by Jan 14....with a grace period to the 21st.

What You Missed January 2014 Annual Luncheon

This nice and sunny morning started out cold, but soon arrived at the Timber Creek Buffet where EWGS was holding the 2014 luncheon to introduce the new officers and honor past presidents and the DSMs (Distinguished Service Members). At 10 am was the start of the board meeting and so we discussed our upcoming meetings. February is a book sale, March is the visit to the Digital Archives, April is going to be Leslie Lawson from Portland, Oregon. Also talked a little about Steve Morrison the October workshop speaker.

Here are the 2014 EWGS Officers

The Speaker was Donald McLaughlin 

Project Director for the Stevens County

Historical Society.

He talked about the Fort Walla Wall to

Fort Colville Road.

The food was good and the conversations between the

members is even better.

EWGS Member's Premature Obituary!!

While doing a search on Ancestry, imagine Ardis Zacker Storms' reaction to finding her own obituary!!

Ardis is a longtime member of EWGS and one day while idly doing a birth-marriage-death search on Ancestry found an obituary for Ardis Zacker, born 5 January 1943 in Washington. "That's me!" she said.

She pretty quickly realized that the obit was for her baby brother, Dwaine, who had passed away in June 2013 and somehow the indexing of that information had a huge hiccup.

"Darn," said Ardis, "I didn't even get to see what they said about me!"

Please come to the next EWGS meeting on Saturday, January 4th, 11:45, at the Timber Creek Buffet on Argonne in the Spokane Valley. And be sure to hug and tell Ardis that you're REALLY glad to see her alive and kicking!

A Puzzle for New Year's Day ?

I've decided to be come a SCRIBE! This only means that I'm helping to index Washington state birth records from the Washington Archives site  ( https://scribe.digitalarchives.wa.gov/Home/Index ) which is VERY fun and VERY easy. I recommend it to all of you!

Doing some entries for Spokane County births, I came upon a female child, unnamed but born alive, to Henrietta Day, age 34, and was her 6th child, and father John McNeal. The little girl was born on 3 Sep 1893. What caught my eye was that under "location" it stated that she was born "on bluff street near river bank." Hummmmm..... thanks to some images from our Spokesman Review found in Google images, I wondered:  is this where the family was living???

So here is your puzzle for New Year's Day if you do not care to watch football all day! In all fairness, I did check the 1900 and 1910 censuses for Washington and did not find the McNeal family. Nor did I find any listings in our Washington Digital Archives.

If you would care to weigh in on this puzzle, please do! And please let me know what you find.............. did this baby girl grow up and have a life??

Donna

Christmas Greetings from Donna

Hello and Merry Christmas to each and every one of you EWGS members. It has been a pleasure serving with you and working with you this past year and I look forward to a very Happy New Year growing and learning with all my EWGS friends.

To all of you who have also served EWGS this past year, please accept my sincerest thanks and hugs! EWGS would not be the organization it is without YOU.

I was in Salt Lake City and so missed the December meeting. I wish I could have walked about on Temple Square, in a sea of zillions of Christmas lights, with you. And yes, there was snow!

   

I can share something really Christmasy-funny with you. On my Delta flight home, the napkin that came with my tomato juice said, "Watch our NEW Coca-Cola Polar Bear family at www.PolarBearsMovie.com.  I stuffed that napkin in my bag and yesterday I clicked and watched this short little movie......... and it was delightful. I recommend it to you for a big happy holiday smile and to warm your heart. 

Looking forward to our January 4th meeting and luncheon. We'll have to share some new Christmas memories!

Donna

What you Missed December 7, 2013 EWGS Meeting

This months program was a celebration of families, vice president Mary Holcomb asked some of us to bring something from our families, and so looking at what others brought was a lot of fun. We had probably the longest gab session during the break. Also many of the people brought cookies, and so we got to sample great cookies. There were also some family stories..

Mary Holcolmb's Quilt

 

Pat Bayonne Johnson's Scrapbooks

Shirley Penna-Oakes cookbook and jello molds and cookie cutters

Jeanne Coe's family photos, and Dolly Webb's books

The father of Charles Hansen postcard collection and 

Marge Mero's fathers whittling and her mothers first

knitting.