Wednesday, May 20, 2015

The Chester Farm, From the South

I may never get a better scan of this photo, so I may as well post what I've got. [Update: I despaired too soon. Here is a nice enlarged scan of the photo.]

Chester homestead enlarged
(Click on image to enlarge)
Image courtesy of John Fleck.


[7/7/2015 update — information from a comment to this post] In the one horse carriage are Charles E. Chester & Lovisa Chester Nelson. Standing (L to R) Luella Chester Olson, Carrie Chester Raschka, & John J. Chester. On the milk wagon are James & Jerome Chester. In the wagon on the right are Henry Wm Chester and Daisy Chester Fleck. Picture was taken around 1905.

This undated photo shows the Henry Chester farm as viewed from well south of Ainsworth Road. I would not have recognized it, had not it come from a Chester descendant who identified it as such. But once you know enough to look, you can recognize, in the right-hand background, the Chester house as it looked before Charles Chester someone remodeled it.

They may or may not be the traces of these buildings that you can still find on the south side of Ainsworth Road, across from the house. I don't know what demolitions and rebuildings went on between this photo and the final knock-down.

Nobody in the photo is identified.

6 comments:

Unknown said...

Wow, from the looks of this photo this has to be during the mid 1800's. Love this photo, wow.

Suzi E. said...

I wonder what the park service plans to do with the house...it's really in bad, bad shape...so sad to see it forgotten and decaying.

Unknown said...

You mean that house is still there, if it is I'd love to see it.

Chuck said...

Those in the picture are as follows:
In the one horse carriage are Charles E. Chester & Lovisa Chester Nelson. Standing (L to R)Luella Chester Olson, Carrie Chester Raschka, & John J. Chester. On the milk wagon are James & Jerome Chester. In the wagon on the right are Henry Wm Chester and Daisy Chester Fleck. Charles E. Chester is my wife's (Evelyn Marie Chester) grandfather.
Picture was taken around 1905.

Ainsworthiana said...

Thank you very much for the IDs!

Suzi E. said...

Ever since the first pic was posted I have looked at it so many times thinking it would be fabulous to know the ID's of those in it...good things come to those who wait! My great aunt Constance McClain Booty married Charles E Chester c. 1897, second marriage for both. My aunt who is 95 remembers that at one time Chesters lived on a farm at the SE corner of 61st and Colorado across the road from my grandfather's farm. She thought Charles was a judge for a time...I haven't been able to prove or disprove that. By the time Aunt Consie died the family lived in the house in the photo...my aunt remembers going to the funeral there. Thanks so much for the update!