Out of Our Past
Three Scollard Girls
Lottie, Eliza & Clara Scollard
On the back of this old photograph of three of the family girls is written “Agnes Scollard’s son a priest – Connell…Lottie, Eliza, Clara”.
Who might these young ladies be? Unraveling their family connections takes some work. It is known that the young women in the photograph were members of a Scollard family. Also known, it the fact that their family came from Ennismore Township, Peterborough County.
The photograph is done in the style of a post card. It was taken at Royal Studio, Medicine Hat, Alberta. These small details can help give a time frame to its taking.
New Photographic Post Cards
The Kodak Company introduced the No. 3A Folding Pocket camera in 1903. As a result of this design, images could be printed on postcard backs. Postcard backs, of course, were a specialty paper for production of postcards.
In 1907, Kodak introduced a service called “Real Photo Postcards”. Production of photograph postcards began.
By appearance these ladies are perhaps in their twenties. It is a noteworthy point of history, that Real Photo Postcards remained popular from their introduction until about the 1930s.
Girls in the James Scollard Family of Ennismore
There is one Scollard family in Ennismore which is the most likely one to which these young ladies belong. James Scollard, born 1841 in Ennismore Township, married Mary Ann Young, born in 1846 in Young’s Point, Smith Township. They married about 1866. James and Mary Ann had a family of ten daughters and two sons. Among the daughters were Elizabeth, born in 1867, Mary, born 1868 and Clara born in 1870. Ellen Jane was born in 1872, Catherine was born in 1878 and Honora in 1880. Then Loretta was born in 1882; Agnes was born in 1884; Bridget was born 1886 and lastly, Frances was born in 1888.
Of the ten daughters, it is Elizabeth or Eliza, Clara and Loretta or Lottie, who appear in this group photo.
Loretta Scollard married Timothy Joseph Crough in Ennismore on 20 September 1910. They lived in the township and raised a family of three sons and a daughter.
Elizabeth Scollard became the wife of William Harrington on 23 October 1893. They lived in Ennismore and raised a family of eight children.
A Photographic Time Frame
Finally, to conclude the details of these four Scollard sisters, Agnes married a Charles Connolly (also spelled Connelly). It appears that she lived in Alberta after her marriage. A marriage date for Agnes is not known. She was still living at home in Ennismore, Ontario in 1911. As well, if all the girls in the photograph were at least twenty years old, then Loretta was not in her twenties until after 1902. Thus the time frame for the old photograph must have been between 1911 and probably 1921, when the girls were young enough to be in their twenties and not yet so involved with the raising of their own families.
