Snapshots of Dee at 132 Rutledge Avenue; envelope endorsed 'My 1st letter from Pickens'
Book 2, Page 79 ·1916–1919
Transcription
Top row — two snapshots:
- Left: a small child in a long white dress standing at the foot of a wooden porch staircase, holding the newel.
- Right: the same small girl in white seated on the grass in a garden, with a woman in a long skirt seated behind her.
Captions beneath, in blue ink:
Dee — 132 Rutledge Ave.
Dee + Mother
Middle row — three smaller snapshots:
- Left: a Black woman in a white headscarf or hat seated in a yard, holding a fair-haired baby in a bonnet; an older toddler in a white shirt crouches in the foreground.
- Center: two fair-haired children posed together — an older boy standing behind a smaller girl seated in a long white dress.
- Right: an infant standing in a wooden slatted crib indoors.
Captions beneath, in blue ink:
Pickens + Dee 132 Rutledge.
Pickens —
At the bottom of the page, mounted across the full width — a worn cream envelope bearing a child’s looping pencil scrawl of letter-like shapes across its face. Inscription beneath in blue ink:
My 1st letter from Pickens.
AI Notes
Album page with five sepia snapshots in two rows and a worn cream envelope mounted at the bottom. Top row: a toddler in white on porch steps at left; the same toddler in white seated on the grass at right with a woman in a long skirt seated behind her. Middle row: three smaller snapshots — a Black caretaker holding a bonneted baby with the older toddler Pickens crouching in the foreground; the two children posed together; an infant standing in a slatted wooden crib. Captions in blue ink in the compiler Amy’s hand. The envelope at bottom is addressed in a child’s looping pencil scrawl; the inscription beneath reads ‘My 1st letter from Pickens’. The ‘Mother’ in ‘Dee + Mother’ is likely Amy’s own mother Minnie Perry FitzSimons (d. Jan 1934). ‘Dee’ is the compiler’s distinctive nickname for the daughter who is otherwise listed as Emma Dee Walker in formal family records (b. 18 Oct 1915) — the dating of these snapshots (~1916–1917 when Pickens Jr. would have been ~4–5) is consistent with Dee.
The compiler Amy used “Dee” as a personal nickname (or pet form) for the child whose formal name in family records is Emma Dee Walker, b. 18 Oct 1915. The Pickens in the snapshots is James Pickens Walker Jr. (“Bo”), b. 5 Jan 1912.