one of these things is not like the others...

The above pictures are all of Rose Wilder Lane. Or are they?

One of the things I found in a box of George Cooley's photographs was an addressed but unstamped or cancelled photo postcard of a young woman in foreign costume. The face looked a bit familiar. There was nothing else even remotely similar in the collection. The postcard was addressed to Rev. George Cooley, Hope, N.J. It read: This is just the way I looked one Sunday. [signed] A Hindoo. Underneath was written: Guess who. Was it a photograph of Rose Wilder Lane?

George Cooley's first church out of Seminary was in Hope, New Jersey, where he served from late 1910 to June 1913. At that time, Rose would have been 23-26 years old, married, and living anywhere from Kansas City to New York City to San Francisco. I do know that she visited George in New York at another of his churches. I know they kept in touch until Rose's death.

After a lot of photoshopping around with every known picture of Rose I could find, I have come to the sad conclusion that the hindoo woman is probably not Rose. While there are similar features, and the handwriting on the card is suggestive of Rose's but not a perfect match, there's a major problem. When you cut/paste half of Rose's face from any known photo over the face of any other known photo, Rose's features remain lined up in the same horizontal relationship to each other. The hindoo woman's face can only be lined up as to mouth and nose, or nose and eyes of the Rose photos; it's just a weird match that I don't think can be totally the fault of camera angles. I also do realize that a person's handwriting can change over the years, and since this card said "Guess who," it's possible that the handwriting was purposefully disguised. I will mention that the ring on the woman's hand in my photo looks very much like a ring worn in a known photo of Rose. Rose rarely showed her teeth in photographs, but did so in one taken in Kansas City. In both that one and the hindoo woman one, there are gaps between the teeth that are similar. Lips? Eyes? Chin? Hmmm...

I'll leave it with you.
- posted by pioneergirl at 10:29 PM