Lewis Dowe’s Portrait Photograph of Elizabeth “Betsy” Bailey Williams and Clara McNear (Leppo)
THE PHOTOGRAPHER/ PHOTOGRAPHIC STUDIO:
Photographer: Lewis Dowe (b. 1838, New Hampshire)
Active in Petaluma: 1877-1881
Biographical Note: Dowe worked in Petaluma as both a “view” and portrait photographer. After leaving Petaluma he worked in San Francisco, operated as a traveling photographer and by 1904, was working to repair musical instruments.
Bibliography: Mautz, pg. 95.
THE SITTER(s):
Name(s): Elizabeth “Betsy” Bailey Williams & Clara McNear (Leppo)
Description: The elderly Williams, dressed in black and seated on the viewer’s left, holds baby Clara who is dressed in a white lace gown. Williams’s left hand supports Clara’s back and the enlarged middle or index finger of her right hand is clasped by the fingers of the baby’s right hand. Williams wears glasses and gazes directly at the viewer while the square-faced baby looks off to the viewer’s right. Williams’s cuff and drop waist is edged in dark satin. A stiff, white, ruffled collar surrounds her neck, and a white, lace jabot falls almost to her waist. This great-great-grandmother appears to have very dark hair which is parted in the middle. Her ruffled bonnet is decorated with white flowers and is fastened at the neck with a lighter colored ribbon.
Biographical Note: Elizabeth Bailey Williams was born in Woolwich, Maine in 1792 and was buried in 1882 in Petaluma’s Cypress Hill Memorial Park. She was the mother of Petaluma pioneer, George Bailey Williams (1809-1899). Clara McNear was born in 1881 to Petaluma pioneers, George Plummer McNear (1857-1947) and Jennie Otis McNear (1857-1883). She married David Harrison Leppo (1876-1928) in 1902, and was buried in Petaluma’s Cypress Hill Memorial Park in 1979.
Portraits of Sitters’ Family Members in This Archive: Williams Family, McNear Family
Bibliography: Elizabeth Bailey Williams & Clara McNear Leppo PDF
THE PHOTOGRAPH:
Format: cabinet card, approximately 10.75 x 16.5 cm
Medium: albumen photographic print mounted on cardstock
Description, front: The double portrait is framed within an arched, ecru, mat which is edged in light blue. The photographer’s imprint runs along the bottom blue strip; on the right is the photographer’s signature presented in cursive letters, “L Dowe”, and on the right in block print is “PETALUMA, CAL”. Hand written in blue ink cursive along the bottom ecru strip is written, “Mrs Betsy Williams 90 years, Clara McNear 5 mos. Great great grd”.
Description, back: Hand written in black ink cursive along on the top: “Mrs Betsy Williams 90 years. Clara McNear 5 months. Great-Great-Grand Mother”. Written in black ink cursive along the bottom: “for Mrs. Maria Wright from Mrs. Eliza Garrett”. (Eliza Jane Williams Garrett (1813-1884) was the daughter of Elizabeth Bailey Williams.)
Date: 1881
Condition: slight foxing throughout
Owner: Petaluma Historical Library & Museum, 2006-1-78
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