Sepia Saturday 338

For this week’s Sepia Saturday, our prompt image featured a man walking down a street.  My photo here is instead of a man standing, but wearing about the same clothes and holding the same sort of hat as the man in our photo!  This is clearly taken in the winter and likely near his childhood home – there are no leaves on the trees and it looks like there’s snow or ice on the ground.  If I had to guess on a date for the photo, I’d say probably mid to late 1920s.  The man in the photo is Waldo Orvis Powis, born 5 April 1906 in Beccaria, Clearfield County, Pennsylvania and died on 3 Jul 1981 in Flushing, Queens, New York.  My great grandmother was this man’s sister and wrote on the back of the photo with the handwriting indicative of her later years, “Waldo, Jack the Duke.”  I’ve seen Waldo referred to as Jack a number of times, and while I’m not sure how he came across that nickname, I can only imagine he preferred it to Waldo!

Waldo married Irma Catherine McGarvey on 10 April 1926.  He later divorced her on 1 October 1934 and married not even a year later on 3 August 1935 to Anna Josephine Capko.  He spent two years in the Navy from 1942 to 1944.  At some point before 1950, but after his Navy service, he moved to Queens and lived  there with Anna till his death in 1981.  He had two children with Irma, Shirley and Kenneth, though it looks like the kids went with their mother to Minnesota.

It’s not necessarily a super special photo this week, but a nice one nonetheless, probably taken by his sister, Olga.  I’m glad Olga went back and pencilled on a label, though I’m fairly sure I could’ve identified this as Waldo without the label at this point.  Looking forward to next week!