Recognizing a Great Grandfather

A third picture of my great grandfather may have been identified!

Howard Lutter (1889-1959) was born and raised in Newark, New Jersey.  He relocated to California around 1950.  A talented pianist and musician, he created player piano rolls, from which I acquired my first picture of Howard.

The second discovered picture was from a digitized trade magazine for the player piano industry:  The Music Trade Review, 1923.

My aunt gave me a batch of family photographs to scan and organize.  My grandfather, Clifford Lutter, was a photographer in Newark.  A lot of photographs are not of our family, but rather people he photographed for various reasons.  Most are not labeled with the name of the subjects.  I created a separate page on this blog for people to view the photos and perhaps recognize someone.

One of the photographs struck me as a familiar face.  It was a man, dressed in a suit and tie, with glasses, sitting among various papers.  With no identification on the picture itself, I posted the picture with the rest on the page for Clifford Lutter's photographs.  I kept looking at the face, feeling that this man was not a random subject.  Then I showed the picture to my aunt and uncle and they agreed that this image could very well be Howard Lutter, maybe in the 1940s, when he was in his fifties.

This man is posed in the same direction as the known picture of Howard Lutter, so we can compare them side by side.

What do you think?  Is this the same man?

Photograph of Another Great Great Grandmother

This photo discovery is another great great grandmother- my paternal grandfather's maternal grandmother, Catherine Dunn.  The previous post was about photographs of his paternal grandmother, Clara Uhl.

Catherine Dunn was born around 1865 in Matawan, Monmouth County, New Jersey to Ezra A. Dunn (1820-1898) and Hermoine Dunlop (1827-1900).  In 1886 in Matawan, Catherine Dunn married William Walling Winterton, a son of John R Winterton and Sophia Walling.  I descend from William and Catherine's daughter, Laura Winterton, born in 1891 in Matawan.

The Winterton family was living in Holmdel, Monmouth County, New Jersey in the 1900 federal census.  William Winterton first appeared in the Newark, Essex County, New Jersey city directory in 1906.  In the 1910 federal census, the family lived in Newark.  Also in 1910, Laura Winterton married Howard Lutter of Newark.

The timeline of the family's residence from Monmouth County to Essex County is important for dating this picture because it was taken in Newark by H. J. Thein of 476 Broad Street.

On the back is written "Grandma Winterton."

An online check of Henry J Thein, photographer, provides us with the years he was operating in Newark at this address:  1881-1899, 1911.  Based on the availability of Catherine Dunn in Newark, I don't think this picture was taken before 1900.  If the picture was created in 1911 or even a few years earlier, Catherine would be about 40 to 45 years old.  I think the woman in the picture looks younger.  It is entirely possible that Catherine traveled to Newark to create this picture in the 1880s or 1890s.  The glitch is that I have a "Winterton Family Album" with photographs mostly by photographers in Matawan and Keyport.

A picture of Catherine later in her life was already discovered because it was labeled as such:  "Grandma Winterton (Catherine Dunn)" and with a stamped date:  May 16, 1937.  What luck.

I think that I have some more photographs of Catherine Dunn as an older woman.  They are not marked, but the resemblance is obvious to the labeled picture of the older Catherine.

Unlabeled picture.

Is this the final picture of Catherine Dunn, wife of William Winterton?  She died in 1944.

Photograph of Great Great Grandmother

I acquired some more family photos (thank you Aunt Marion!) and was overjoyed to find a labeled photograph of Clara Uhl, a great great grandmother.  "Grandma Lutter (Clara Uhl)" was written on the back, along with a signature in pencil, perhaps conveying that Clara confirmed that this was indeed her picture.  Clara was briefly married to Hermann Lutter.  You can read about their divorce here.

This is a cabinet card, made by Helmuth Schumacher of Newark, New Jersey.  It measures a little over six inches high by four inches wide and is fairly sturdy.  (Perhaps the clipped corners indicate that this photograph was kept in an album?  Where is the rest of the album?)

To date the image, I look at a few things.  Clara's age appears to be in her 20s, maybe 30s in the picture.  She was born in 1865 in Newark and died in 1955.  By her age guesstimate alone, this picture was made in the 1880s or 1890s.  Next I look to see when the photographer was in business.  Helmuth Schumacher used the West street address in Newark from 1892 onward.  By 1892, Clara had been married, separated, and had one child.

You can also date the photograph based on the style of dress and hair.  The little triangle that appears to be sticking out of the back of Clara's head is a hair comb to hold her hair in place.  The bodice of her dress is tightly cinched at her natural waste, producing an hourglass appearance.  The shoulders are pronounced, protruding above and beyond the natural shoulders.  I think that this dress dates from the 1890s.

In perusing the rest of the photographs, I came across a tintype measuring approximately 3 inches by 2 inches.

I'm thinking that this tintype could be Clara Uhl as a teenager, late 1870s or early 1880s.  The shoulders are natural and the sleeves sit above the wrists with ruffles.

By tilting the tintype, you can better see the resin coating reflecting in the light.

Is this the same person?

Next I compared Clara Uhl to a picture of her son, Howard Lutter.  I don't see much of a resemblance, especially with the eyes.  I do not have a picture of Howard's father to check for resemblance to him.  (Though I did find a picture of his second wife!)