Creating Friction from History

"Mo-ommmmmmmmmmmmmm; do we hafta?!" Mary Anna and Elizabeth Margaret Donner asked in pure harmony. Neither poor girl, now 14 and 15, respectively, had ever liked getting their picture taken. Of course, this was back in the day, before parents could just readily go around snapping photographs aplenty of their prides and joys.

Even as young children, as far back as their parents John and Clara could remember, Mary and Lizzie had never begged for attention either: they were usually more than happy with each other's company, if that. Actually, it seemed that both girls were indeed happiest when left to themselves!

So when they were asked...or told rather, that the traveling photographer was in town and that she was going to photograph them, you might only imagine the uproar in the Donner house that day.

Although the issue was abated somewhat by the fact that it was a female, not a male photographer; it was still attention and that was something that neither of them looked forward to. Still, as both Lizzie and Mary were good little girls, young ladies now, but still precocious, they grudgingly acquiesced.

This photograph might be the only surviving picture of the girls, developed before the party left for the dangerous West.

If you would like to create fiction from history with one of the museum's photos, please contact the Ledger at (406) 287-5301 or email whledger@gmail.com.