Vintage Christmas Greetings

This undated Christmas card was among the items belonging to Marion Louise Moran.  I don't know if it was sent to Louise or if she was the recipient.  Someone has written "lougie" on the inside, was that a nickname for Louise?

The interior has some cute artwork.  Originally there were three ribbons that at one time would've been the belt of the dresses and tied in bows.  One of the ribbons is missing. At first I thought it might have been based on the Three Little Maids Are We but down in the corner it says "Five Little Bills".  Some research did result in finding a children's book written in 1910 called The Dream Adventures of Little Bill.  Perhaps that was the inspiration for this piece.

Toy Boats and Easter Pictures ca. 1915

Here are two photographs of James Henderson Moran IV.  He was born April 7, 1913, the oldest child of James H. Moran III and Virginia Shumate.   In this photograph he almost looks like a cupie doll to me and he's holding a toy boat.  

The next photograph was taken in Memphis Tennessee at Milloy Photography Studio.  He's holding a small Easter Basket and wearing a Little Lord Fauntleroy style suit that was popular at the time.  He's also wearing white hosiery underneath those short pants and I just love the button up shoes.  The only thing that seems missing is the straw hat.

The photograph was annotated:  I came to bring you Easter joy and brought my basket to help gather eggs.  With kisses From James.

Mason Harrell Ezzell ca 1915

It's always wonderful to come across a picture that has been annotated but sometimes that presents more questions than it answers.  We have a baby picture and on the back is written "Mason Harrell Ezzell 3 months and 4 days old".  I thought for sure it would be easy to figure out who this baby was and where he belonged on the family tree but I'm a bit stymied.

My best guess is that he is the son of Robert Andrew Ezzell Sr. and Susan Harrell.  Robert's father was Mason Ezzell.  I had assumed that the baby's name was a combination of his grandfather and his mother's maiden name creating Mason Harrell Ezzell.  The photographers mark is Dyersburg Tennessee and it looks like it says "Darnell" for the studio.  Robert and Susan were married in Dyersburg in 1900 and were living in Dyersburg up into the 1920's. Which seems like a good indicator that I have the right Ezzells. However, I can't find where they had a son by that name.  There is a Thomas Mason Ezzell and a James Harrell Ezzell but that's as close as it gets.

So I began looking at the other Ezzell's who might have had a baby around the same time period but that didn't work out either.  My best hope is that some day an Ezzell descendant will do a web search and come across this page and hopefully be able to clear up the mystery about Mason Harrell Ezzell.

I keep coming back to speculation.  If it is a son of Robert and Susan perhaps it's a case of changing their mind on the name.  Perhaps this could be Thomas Mason or James Harrell.  Perhaps it could be a child they had that died young and doesn't appear in any records that I've been able to find.  Whatever the case may be, he was a cute little thing.

Of course the other connection to the Moran family is not just via the Ezzell name.  The Moran's have their own Harrells: Charles Harrell Moran and Nathan Harrell Moran, my husbands great uncle and his father.