1908-9 Photographs from Noah Elwood Weaver's Black Album -

Noah Elwood Weaver, often written as NE Weaver, as his father was simply Noah Weaver, was born in 1885 on the family farm above Miamisburg Ohio.   His legacy is his photography!

Since his death in 1973 in Dayton, I have continued to be curious about his life, and his times.   He did not write of his experience, other than in an occasional letter to relatives like his only child, Paul Henry Weaver, my dad, who was born in a home on Main Street  in December of 1910.   I will be giving this album to Wright State University.  In communication with Dawne Dewey of Wright State, she remarked, they house many archives of the Miami River area.  And that housing his photos there is a good fit for their mission.

Now,   I am identifying as much as I can, prior to visiting there in June.   My want it to meet with folks of the West Carrollton Historical Society and the Miamisburg Historical Society, as the Weavers and Gebharts, (my heritage) are big part of the early history of the area.  I am calling this the "1908 Black Album of NE Weaver", and will write about some of the highlights here.  I plan to continue the conversation in Ohio, with relatives and archivists, such as cousin, Jeannette Allen Weaver of Troy,  Cousin, Andy Snow of Dayton,  Terry Neuberg and Sarah Allison of the West Carrollton Historical Society as well as Dawne Dewey and other Archivists on staff at Wright State University.  My plan is to arrive Sunday June 1, and be in the area of meet.  My want is to have enough of the images cataloged, so as to have searchable on line, names to direct folks to WSU and the local historical societies, to encourage family history and story telling in a good way. 
 Please contact me by email, if you want to meet during my trip....and comment below.  thanks



Here is the first photo, page 1, of the 1908 album. An unidentified shoveler on Main Street, looking north I think. Perhaps at 137 Main.    My research has NE Weaver living in Miamisburg through 1907 while he commuted to Dayton to work at NCR as a clerk and stenographer.  In 1909 he married Edna H Eicher, with their marriage license, Aug 19, Montgomery Co of that year.   There are no labels on these photos, and the 1910 Census has Noah E and Edna living at 137 Main Street in West Carrollton.   I see the Methodist Church in the background here.  Andy Snow, features the church on page 68 of A Flood Of Memories 1913 Flood, the book published in 2013 by the Miami Conservancy District See http://www.miamiconservancy.org/about/news2013.asp
I look forward to visiting Main Street with some of the locals to verify this location.  

Here is page 2, with a neighbor girl with the snow being shoveled. Who might this be?  The Census Data from 1910 might give us a clue who this is, as Noah and Edna I think rented a corner home prior to the birth of my dad. See below...

Note 137 Main Street and the names of Noah E and Edna H Weaver. Who might the neighbors have been and the girl in the photo?  Two years later?  Any help with the search is greatly appreciated!

 
Same girl in the above photo.  On Page 3 of the 1908 Album by NE Weaver.  I see this having a sense of humor and likely something he created in the darkroom with double images.   Any comments are very welcome.  Thanks...

 Page 4 of 1908 Album.  Three young woman with Edna Helena Eicher on the right.  Notice the binoculars on one side of Edna and the basket on the other.  I recall this may be part of the of the old Erie and Ohio Canal System.Edna was a school teacher in the country schools in Montgomery County.

 Cover of Photographs Album, I am calling it the 1908 Black Album of Noah E Weaver Back Binding Label To Duplicate this book order No   305B ,Ideal Specialty Company, Chicago  New York     (554 W. Adams St., Chicago) 

 1908 Big Miami River Flood Plain West Carrollton OH.  Emma Esther Eicher,  Piles of hats, unknown man, Noah Elwood Weaver with bowler hat.  Two unknown women on the tree.  Likely taken by Edna Helena Eicher.  page 5, 


Spring 1908.  Flowering dogwood with perhaps Easter Hats in the Miami River Valley. L to R.
Edna Helena Eicher, woman in white, unknown, Emma Esther Eicher, man with coat and tie, dark dressed woman on the stump.  Photo by Noah Elwood Weaver, West Carrollton OH

1908 Spring Scene with Flowering Dogwood along what I think might be Holes Creek by Alexanderville, now northern part of West Carrollton.  Unknown women, in black and white, and man with suit and tie, Noah Elwood Weaver, my grandfather, and Emma Esther Eicher, older sister of Edna Helena Eicher, who Noah Elwood married in August of 1909.  In the background I see what might be a country school house.  Wondering if this might be in Section 16, taken from the RR Grade east of the Miami River.  Might be interesting to revisit the area to see what is there. Page 7

 West Carrollton and Alexandersville from 1885 Map of Montgomery County Ohio. The F Eicher, farm of 102 acres, in section 15 is Franz Eicher, the grandfather of both Edna and Esther Eicher, and father of Henry Eicher, my great grand father.





1908 Spring in the wood,  Long skirts 2 women on left, Esther Eicher, Noah Elwood Weaver, and with a hood, ?Edna H Eicher, likely a tripod camera,  Page 9

Path to the river, 3 white dressed women in front with Edna H Eicher in the back.  Noah Elwood Weaver 1908 Album page 11. Heading for a picnic?
Wading with long dresses, the four women in white, with Edna H Eicher on the right.  P 13 of the 1908 album. Noah Elwood Weaver Photo

Picnic on the stony shore of ?The Greater Miami River near West Carrollton.  Four women in white, Edna H Eicher, 3rd from the left.  Note watermelon on the right.  p 14


 
1908 Picnic on the rocky shore, Three women in white now eating water melon with Noah Elwood Weaver on the right.   Photo by Edna H Weaver p15

 

Amelia "Mary" Louisa Brandt Paul  1908-1909 p16.  Mary lived at the Paul Farm in Jefferson Twp, Montgomery Co.  She was born in 1824 in Germany and came to Ohio in 1847, married in 1848..

 1908-09 Page 17 of this early album.  Was not labeled until I did research over the years. L - R Noah Elwood Weaver,  girl in white, name?, Henry Eicher,  Edna Helena Eicher perhaps in later 1909 after she and Noah Elwood married in August.   Helena "Lane" Paul Eicher,  ? perhaps the mother of the girl.  I am imagining this is the house at 137 Main in West Carrollton, where Noah and Edna lived in 1910, and the home where Paul Henry Weaver was born in Dec 1910.

 P 18 of the album, Greater Miami River West Carrollton without people , ca 1908. NEW








 P 19 Five women in white with men with bowler hat. Greater Miami River, Edna H Eicher on far right, by NEW

 p 20 Five women in white with Noah Elwood Weaver on stones by West Carrollton dam, Greater Miami River 1908

 P 22 Girl in back, 4 women at Paul family farm, Jefferson Twp, large "Portrait Stump" , Edna Eicher second from right. 1908 NEW

 
P 23  Split rail fence - local farm,  Edna H Eicher, ______?, Emma Esther Eicher by NEW 1908


P24  1908-9 2 Couples Paul Farm Stump Straw Hat By NEW  (no labels)
 

 

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P26  1908-9 Paul Farm Stump Young Couple  by NEW  (no labels.)

 

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P27 1908-09  Josephine & Hans Hansen, Paul Farm Stump Jefferson, Twp By NEW  ( identification support from Jeannette Allen Weaver, written pencil names. 

 

--> P28  1908-9 Weaver Family, Louise, Alice, Olive & Erie, Paul Farm Stump by NEW  Written identification by Jeannette Allen Weaver, Troy Ohio, genealogist.

P 29  1908-9 Woodland scene, 3 women, Emma Esther Eicher on the ground left, ?woman in white,?woman in dark sitting?  Noah Elwood Weaver , photo likely by Edna Eicher.

1940 - 1941 Drives to Minnesota Noah Elwood and Edna Helena Eicher Weaver - Visit to Son Paul Henry and Daughter in law, Margaret Glessner Weaver, and new grandson

 In 1940, likely in the late summer,  Noah Elwood and Edna H Eicher Weaver drove to Minnesota to visit their only child and son, Paul Henry Weaver and his wife, in their new home town of Faribault MN.  Margaret Weaver in her Memoir, Rememberings p44-45 "Needing a home with more than one bedroom, we discovered that the Zuehlkes had a two-story, three bedroom house for rent at 318 Southwest Third Street, in the same section of town in which we were living. (See picture #1, p. 136.) We moved before Jim was born. Our furniture was quite adequate, except that we needed another bed when Pete's parents came for a visit. "
Some of the photos in their large format album appear to document their visit in 1940


On page 46 of the large format album, begun in 1929, is this photo of a Sioux Tepee, with Edna in a dress and hat among the 1940 photos. 
On the same page, is Noah Elwood Weaver with a bark covered structure, perhaps ash bark, as this may be in Wisconsin on their way here.  I know the Ho-Chunk Nation, Winnebago ,has had displays of American Indian lore for many years. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ho-Chunk

Post Card, ca 1940, Mayo Clinic at night.

Here is a photo of the Mayo Clinic in 1940, in downtown Rochester, where they stopped along the way. P 47  In the letters from Noah Elwood to his doctor son, they had considered a second opinion with a Mayo Clinic Doctor.  Wonder if that was part of the stop here. I have found nothing written in that regard.

 520 Tatepaha Blvd SW Faribault.  Likely in the winter of 1939-40. Posted on p 47 of the Noah Elwood album, 10 x12 format of 1929-1941-
From Rememberings, p 41 by Margaret Weaver, "The first of July 1939, we moved into a small house at 520 Tatepaha Boulevard (See pictures #5 & 6, . 135.), a bungalow with a porch across the front, a very small living room, a large dining room with a wonderful view of sunsets across a golf course, a kitchen, one bedroom, and a small room next to the living room where we placed the second-hand piano which we had bought in Columbus. The Columbus icebox had been replaced by an automatic refrigerator, but we needed a stove, purchasing a Tappan gas range "on time" from Donaldsons Department Store in Minneapolis, paying two and a half dollars a month. We were excited when the moving van arrived from Columbus with our belongings. Our
furniture fit in, though the dimensions of the linen curtains had to be adjusted.
Being very friendly to us newcomers, our neighbor, Claude Hunt, publisher of the Faribault Daily News, gave us a handsome big walleye that he had caught. Knowing absolutely nothing about cleaning and preparing fish, we invited the Fosters for dinner, preceded by John's fish cleaning and Bern's assistance in cooking."

In the 1930's and 40's, my parents and the elder Weaver kept up a regular correspondence by US Mail.  My father sent this from the winter of 1939-40 photo of there rental home at 520 Tetepaha Blvd in Faribault, and it ended up in the Ohio Weaver photo album.

Edna E Weaver, by Cannon Lake, late summer 1940 (note license plate).  Putting in a pillow.  She was recovering from breast cancer surgery she had in Ohio in May 1940. I see in the photos of my grandfather, the care he had for his wife and companion, whom I never met. She lived with the cancer until April 2, 1942, and her remains were buried in the Hillside Cemetery in Miamisburg. 

 A letter from N Elwood Weaver to Paul H Weaver describing Edna's recovery from surgery in May 1960 for breast cancer.

Stationary from the Miamisburg Paper Company where Noah Elwood worked as an accountant, clerk, mailed to his only child June 1, 1940 who lived in Faribault MN in a rental home, starting his rural medical practice, with his first son, to be born in Sept of 1940.

Ohio car and MN car at the second rental home, occupied in the summer of 1940, three bedroom house at 318 Southwest Third Street, Faribault.

View from the southwest of rental home, 318 SW 3rd St, Faribault, by Noah Elwood Weaver 1940

 
By 1941, the three Weavers, Paul H "Pete", Margaret "Peg" and their new son, Jim, Jimmy, James Cowles Weaver, had moved into this stone home at 201 4th Ave S, on the same block as the last home.  

 
Here is Peg on the right with toddler Jim AKA James C Weaver, with unnamed neighbors on the front of the home at 201 4th Ave S, Faribault.  

 
Grandma, Edna H E Weaver with her only grandchild, Jim, AKA James C Weaver in the lawn, Faribault. 

 
Grandson, Jim Weaver with granddad Noah "Elwood" Weaver in Faribault 1941.

 

Edna Eicher, summer of 1941 resting on her trip from Ohio to Minnesota with Noah "Elwood" Weaver.   She died of breast cancer in April of 1942, two years after her diagnosis and surgery. 

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Faribault School for the Deaf early 1940's post card.