Julia Mabel Holder is discussed on the Holder page. This page presents some of the photos found in Julia’s photo album. These photos are about 100 years old, and most of them show Julia about age 9, about 1916. Julia’s photo album is a typical old-time photo album with black pages bound together with a cord. Old farts like me will recognize this as the type where you insert the photos into the album by putting the corners of each photo into little triangle-shaped paper pockets that have glue on the backs, and you glue the little pockets onto the pages instead of the photo, so you can remove the photo any time. Well, Julia didn’t do that, she glued the whole photo onto each page. And most of these photos are about as good as you would expect a 9-year-old to take. And there are lots of photos of animals, of course, things that would be more interesting to a 9-year-old girl, dogs, cows, horses, goats, pigs, etc. So there are many more photos in her album than what I have scanned in for this page. The quality of these photos leaves a LOT to be desired, but I’ve done the best I can.
In addition to the farm animals, there are a few photos of people in the family, and these are the ones I’m putting here. This project has been kind of time-consuming, because Julia thankfully did write down captions for the photos, but it looks like she used white chalk to write on the black pages. So, combine the thick faint lines of chalk (faint becaue it’s so old) with the bad handwriting and spelling of a 9-year-old, and sometimes it takes awhile to figure out what the heck the words are! The captions are from her point of view of course, so she would write “Aunt Jule” instead of “Julia Martinson”, but since Julia only had one aunt Jule, say, or only one uncle Charlie, it’s easy enough to figure out who the people really are.
First, here is a list of people in Julia’s extended family, so you can more readily understand who these people are.
John Martinson and Bertha Pearson had 7 children:
- Julia, b. 1882, married Charles Leafstone
- Josephine, b. 1885, married Jesse Holder (these are Julia’s parents)
- Arthur, b. 1886
- Ellen, b. 1888, married Mike Povlsen
- Jennie, b. 1891, married Clarence Brassfield
- John, b. 1893
- Edna, b. 1896, married Ralph Marsh
Green Holder and Caltha Allen had 7 children:
- Lola, b 1877, married Rufus Stewart
- Flora (Florence), b. 1879, married John Mathers
- Luella, b. 1882
- Clary, b. 1883
- Bert, b. 1885, married Daisy Mathers
- Jesse, b. 1886, married Josephine Martinson (these are Julia’s parents)
- George, b. 1889, married Alma Paquin
 OK, now that we know who’s who, let’s get to the photos. We will start with the really cute ones, our little Julia on horseback, and I do mean little. This first photo looks like Julia is much younger than the other photos in the album where she is about 9. In this first one, titled “I on Babes”, she looks about 3 years old. Isn’t this the cutest photo? Her little legs don’t even come down halfway to the stirrups. Babes looks very calm and patient! |
 This is the only other photo of Julia on horseback, and it seems like she is 9 here. It looks like her clothes match some of the other photos, so was probably taken at the same time. This one is titled “Molly and I”. She’s kind of hanging onto the reins, but her feet barely touch the top of the stirrups, so she’s not really riding… Anyway, I’m trying to put these photos in a table so they line up with the explanatory text better, but WordPress does not make it easy to use tables! |
 The caption on this photo reads “Franklin School 3rd Grade”, so Julia would be about 9 years old here. You can readily see that she looks about the same in many of the other photos, so this establishes her age and the timeframe, about 1916. Julia is right in the middle, right up front. At the time, the family was living in Sioux City, IA, so I imagine that’s where Franklin School was. |
 This photo had a PostIt note by Julia’s son that reads “Grandpa Jess’s Ford Touring Car”, so this car would belong to Jesse Holder, Julia’s dad, sitting in the driver’s seat. This is the only photo of Julia’s mother Josephine Martinson, except for two others of her in a group of people in this car, probably taken the same day. In all the photos, she is kind of slumped in the back seat with her hat pulled down over her face, and turned away from the camera. This photo shows her the best, and that’s not saying much! Josephine died in the great flu epidemic of 1917-18, and it looks like maybe she was somewhat ill or weak here already, so perhaps she succumbed more readily to the flu. Julia’s caption reads “Aunt Jule, mother, Arty(?), Florence, dad, Shefs and I”. The name Arty is kind of hard to read, this is the best I can come up with, as they all seem to be family members. I believe these are: Julia Martinson (Josephine’s sister), Josephine Martinson Holder (Julia’s mother), Arthur Martinson (Josephine’s brother), Florence Ann Holder (Jesse’s sister), Jesse William Holder (Julia’s dad), Shefs the dog, and Julia Mabel Holder. |
 This photo looks like it was taken about the same time as the next two; Julia is wearing the same dress and shoes, and her hair is the same. The caption for this photo reads “Aunt Jule, Aunt Jennie, and myself”. This would be two of Josephine’s sisters, Julia P. Martinson and Jennie E. Martinson, along with Julia Mabel Holder. |
 The caption on this photo reads “Taken at Stone Park”. This is Julia’s aunt Julia Martinson, and Julia Mabel Holder. It looks like Julia went on an outing to this park with her aunt Julia and uncle Charlie, and she gets her picture taken first with her aunt and then with her uncle. Here she is posing as a nice little lady with her aunt. |
 And here she is posing as a somewhat mischievous child with her uncle, and it looks like they are both having fun. The caption reads “Uncle Charlie and I”, and this would be Charles William Alexander Leafstone. Julia Martinson and Charles Leafstone married around the time of these photos. |
 The caption on this photo reads “Uncle Bert, daddy, Uncle John”. This would be (from left to right) Bert Levi Holder (Jesse’s brother), Jesse William Holder (Julia Mabel Holder’s dad), and John Martinson (Josephine’s brother). This photo is somewhat odd in that Bert is dressed very casually like he has been working around the farm, and the other two men are dressed much more formally, albeit with their suit jackets off and shirt sleeves rolled up. |
 This photo is captioned simply “Edna”. This is Josephine’s sister Edna Ruth Martinson. It seems like Julia had a photo in her album of five of her mother’s sisters and brothers, missing only her sister Ellen Victoria Martinson. Although, there is one photo in the album that I have not included here. It is a photo of two women, one standing on the ground with her hat shading her face so much you can’t tell who it is, and the other woman is standing on a tree stump next to the first woman, but you can’t see her face because her head is chopped off the photo! The caption reads “Aunt Jule and Ella” so that might be Julia Martinson and her sister Ellen Martinson. Not much good to have a photo of people without heads… |
 Now for the real oldies. This photo is captioned “Grandpa, Grandma, Daddy” so this would be Jesse William Holder (on the right) and his parents, Green Nelson Holder and Caltha Jane Allen. This is confirmed by another photo of the parents that is even poorer quality than this one, and is captioned “Grandmother and Grandfather Holder”. It’s hard to say when this photo was taken. Caltha Jane died in 1924, at which time Jesse William was about 37, so it could be any time before that. |
 Yeah, I don’t know why I’m including this photo. I guess just to show how Green Nelson Holder worked on the farm, plowing the fields. This photo is captioned “Grand Daddy and his team”. Interesting perspective for a young girl to take a picture, but again heads were chopped off… |
 OK, last one! Julia is a bit older here, and it’s the only photo in the album with writing directly on the photo. Okoboji is a town and a lake in Iowa. It looks like they are going to stay in some tent or cabin near the lake. At first glance, it looks like Julia is wearing a uniform of some kind, like for Girl Scouts or something where they would take a camping trip, but I’m not at all sure about that. Julia is about 17 in this photo, and it is the clearest photo in the whole album. It also appears to be the latest photo of Julia in the whole album too; there aren’t any where she looks older. |