Nelson Robison and his family sat for this formal portrait at an unknown date — but probably around 1900 — somewhere in Colorado. Nelson, born in Medina, Ohio, was the first-born son of William R. Robison and Aseneth Mead. Nelson’s nephew Charlie Robison, who lent me this picture in 1985, told me that the daughter on the left of this picture was named “Lou,” and that her married name was Ingraham. “She was a contortionist,” he told me, without further explanation. The son in the middle of the picture (Clyde) was a school teacher. Charlie referred to him as “cross-eyed.” The woman Nelson married in 1868 was named Caroline (pictured here). She was born in Iowa in 1843, but I don’t know her family name or anything more about her. After they were married they moved almost immediately to Colorado, where their first child, Clyde, was born in 1869. The 1870 Federal Census lists Nelson’s occupation as “printer,” and living with his wife Caroline and one-year-old son Clyde, in Golden City, Jefferson County, Colorado.
I don’t know much more about any of them, but what an interesting gallery of faces!