Nellie or Idah?

Who is holding infant Mary Floyd in 1926?

Is it her grandmother, Idah Bowman Browne? (left - ca 1900)? 

In 1926 Idah would have been 57.

Or is it the woman on the right (ca 1935), Nellie Floyd, 

sister of Harry Floyd, Mom's father? Nellie would have been 47 in 1926. 

I've had many interesting experiences as I go through family photos. I was labeling photos from Mom's childhood and came across the photo at the top of the post. Mom wrote "6 weeks with ?" under the photo in her scrapbook. Whenever Mom made that note, she didn't recognize this person. As I started to label the person as Idah Bowman Browne. I heard/felt "I'm Nellie." As far as I know we have only one other photo of Nellie Floyd, my grandfather's sister. That photo is buried somewhere in all the family bins and hasn't surfaced yet for processing. So I really didn't know what she looks like. 

The other night I was at the end of a long day and decided to do some internet surfing. Sometimes I just wander around in the internet to see what I might find. Earlier in the day I'd seen the photo of baby Mom and wondered again if this was really Nellie. That evening I searched for "Nellie Floyd image". Nothing. Then I added the word "Berea" to the search. She was a librarian at Berea College in Kentucky. BINGO! Look what came up!!!

labeled - "Miss Floyd at her reference desk"

Berea College (source)

Isn't that totally amazing!? There's no date on the photo. I'm guessing it's about 1935. Nellie was living in Saginaw, Michigan in the 1930 census. In the 1940 census she was living in Berea, Kentucky and working at the college library. The census enumerator indicated she lived in the same house (in Berea) in 1935. 

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So - who is holding baby Mary Floyd?

Is it Idah or Nellie?

or someone else?

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Read about a special experience with people in photos here.