BARRY COUNTY, MO

The Blankenship Family

She conveyed that he said that the picture was taken at a reunion in Pierce City in the summer before his dad, Eppy Higgs and Georgia Brattin Higgs were married. They married in August of 1900. She said that she also showed it to her Aunt Pearl Higgs Antle in the 1970's and that she and her father had different ideas about the identity of some of the girls.

Betty's father said:

Seated - in front: ---?--- Blankenship,---?---  Blankenship, (daughters of Dow Blankenship) Cora Garrison later Brattin, Mrs. Ira Garrison.

Second row - seated: Walter Brattin, Maurice Bayless, Otis Brattin and Ira Garrison.

Back row - standing: Chart Garrison, Nora Garrison, Eppy Higgs and Georgia Brattin later Higgs.

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Betty said it gets confusing because many of these people are brothers and sisters and brothers and sisters in law, the Garrisons are brothers and sisters, the Brattins are brothers and sisters, and Pearl Antle says that the girl seated in front of Ira Garrison is Nona Higgs or the one who is standing next to Chart may be Nona Higgs, Nona was the girlfriend to one of the Garrison brothers but she died about this time... no one remembers for certain?

I believe that the girl seated in front of Ira Garrison is Nona Higgs as I found an individual picture of the girl in the same dress in my Aunt Monta Higgs collection.

Pearl Antle says the girl standing by Chart is Nella Chaney and the first Blankenship girl is Myrtle Blankenship.

We are certain about the identity of the persons my dad named that are in red type. There may be someone out there who has other known pictures of these people.

I have seen other family pictures with this same backdrop and most have been dated to 1898 or 1899.

Betty Higgs Lamberson
 

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The first Mrs. Ira Garrison was Myrtle McGlothlin, born in September 1885, married on December 21, 1901, and dying in childbirth on August 24, 1902. According to my mother, Vera Garrison Howerton, daughter of Ira and second wife Mary Etta Vassar, the McGlothlins strongly disapproved of their daughter marrying Ira, and when she died they buried her as Myrtle McGlothlin instead of Garrison. She has a tombstone in Chitwood Cemetery but there is some belief that she is actually buried in Hogeye (Overton) Cemetery under the large McGlothlin stone. This is unverified as of this date.  Dennis Howerton