COLLECTION NUMBER:
C126.
COLLECTION TITLE:
Walker Family Collection.
CREATOR(S):
Walker family.
DATES OF MATERIAL:
ca. 1875-1955.
EXTENT:
185 photographic prints: various media, 2 hand-colored; 28 x 23 cm. + 11 postcards.
LOCAL CONTROL NUMBERS:
Photographic prints: OP17117/1-174.
REPOSITORY:
San Diego History Center
Booth Historical Photograph Archives
P.O. Box 81825
San Diego, CA 92138
1-619-232-6203
ACQUISITION INFORMATION:
Loan from Gerry Barrow, in care of Livia Szekely, 1978.
RESTRICTIONS:
Open for research.
COPYRIGHT:
For permission to reproduce or publish, contact the curator of the Booth Historical Photograph Archives of the San Diego Historical Society. Reproduction or publication of any part of this collection must include the following information next to the image(s) or in a special section of credits: Walker Family Collection, San Diego History Center, Booth Historical Photograph Archives.
GENERAL NOTES:
Arrangement: by subject and local control number. Photographers include Richard Bennette, Fred Hartsook, Walter G. Hemenway, Charles Klindt, M. Otto Schellenberg, Arthur J. Stephens, and Jean Emanuel Stromberg. Contains tintypes, cyanotypes, albumen prints, and card photographs. Forms part of: San Diego History Center Original Print Collection.
BIOGRAPHICAL OR HISTORICAL NOTE:
Mae W. Walker was born in Iowa in 1882. Her family moved to National City in 1887 and she lived there until her death in 1975. Her name at birth was Myrtle Mae Waller. In the early 1900s, she resided with her mother at Olivewood, the home of Warren C. and Flora M. Kimball. She had a sister Mabelle Rae and a daughter Nell. From about 1931 to 1946 she was married to John W. Walker.
SCOPE AND CONTENT NOTE:
The Walker Family Collection documents the family of Mae W. Walker from National City, California. It contains chiefly studio portraits and snapshots of family members, gatherings, and events. It portrays Walker in her youth and as an adult, her husband, daughter, sister, mother, and friends. It also depicts automobiles and clothing from the early 1900s to1930s, and women dressed in men’s clothing circa 1920. Of special note, are portraits of pioneer feminist and suffragist Flora M. Kimball and her husband Warren C. Kimball, a founder of National City.
SUBJECTS INDEXED:
Walker, Mae W. (Myrtle Mae Waller).
Kimball, Flora M. (Flora Morrill).
Kimball, Warren C.
Families — California — San Diego.
Women — California — San Diego.
Leisure.
Clothing & dress.
Automobiles.
National City (Calif.) — Photographs.
CONTENTS LIST:
| Box 1 | |
| Folder 1 | OP17117/1-6 Cartes de visite, cabinet cards, and tintypes. Studio portraits. Includes Myrtle Mae Waller [i.e. Mae W. Walker], age 2 months. |
| Folder 2 | OP17117/7-16 Portraits of Myrtle Mae Waller [i.e. Mae W. Walker], probably her sister Mabelle Rae, and other children not identified. Most on cardboard mounts. Includes cyanotype, albumen, and other processes. |
| Folder 3 | OP17117/17-31 Portraits of women. Most in textured-paper folders or on cardboard mounts. Includes one hand-colored print. Of special note, portraits of early San Diego area feminist and suffragist Flora M. Kimball, wife of National City co-founder Warren C. Kimball. |
| Folder 4 | OP17117/32-46 Chiefly portraits of Mae W. Walker’s sister Mabelle LeGrand [also identified as Mabelle Rae McVeigh]. She was apparently associated with the Woman’s American Baptist Foreign Mission Society (WABFMS). |
| Folder 5 | OP17117/47-57 Studio portraits of men. Most in textured-paper folders or on cardboard mounts. Of special note, portraits of National City co-founder Warren C. Kimball, husband of Flora M. Kimball. |
| Folder 6 | OP17117/58-60 Portraits of couples. Includes portrait of a dog “Don” by early San Diego photographer Jean Emanuel Stromberg. |
| Folder 7 | OP17117/61-79 Pre-World War I snapshots of women and couples engaged in leisure activities. |
| Folder 8 | OP17117/80-135 Snapshots from the 1920s to the 1950s of women, children, and couples. Includes Mae W. Walker, her husband John W. Walker, her daughter Nell, her sister Mabelle Rae, her mother, and her mother’s friend Vesta A. Whicker. Mae’s mother [who might also have been named Mae] and Vesta Whicker evidently resided and worked at Olivewood, Warren and Flora Kimball’s home in National City. Also, a photograph of an older woman with cockatoos perched on her arm and shoulder. |
| Folder 9 | OP17117/135A-E Snapshots of women dressed in men’s clothing circa 1920. |
| Folder 10 | OP17117/136-144 Snapshots showing early automobiles. |
| Folder 11 | OP17117/145-164 Snapshots of houses, cemeteries, a lighthouse, and ship; a railroad yard, railroad workers, and National City and Otay Railroad locomotive; and the U.S.-Mexico boundary marker. |
| Folder 12 | OP17117/165-169 Prints on cardboard mounts showing employees of Ripley shirt makers in New Orleans, Louisiana, in 1931. Mae W. Waller’s daughter Nell lived in Louisiana and may have worked at Ripley. |
| Folder 13 | OP17117/170-174 Portraits of women, including actresses, with inscriptions to “Myrtle” and “Mrs. Waller.” |
| Folder 14 | Postcards Arranged chronologically and variously addressed to Myrtle Waller, Mrs. Waller, Vesta Whicker, and Mae Walker. |
