The Trowbridge Siblings

The six Trowbridge siblings were Jessie June, Eloise Hammond, Leslie Amelia, Kate Elliot, Nelson Seymour Jr., and Olive Rose.  (An oldest boy, James Clayton, died at age 2 before the others were born.  I'll refer to birth order without counting him.)

The children were born variously in Nevada and California, and possibly also in Utah, as the family moved around for papa Nelson's merchanting and mining businesses.  When the older children were at or near adulthood the family spent time in Alaska at a mining camp.

The family was clearly cultured.  The father started out as a teacher, and the parents were among the co-founders of the First Unitarian Church of Berkeley in 1891. Three sisters were photographed posing with musical instruments, and an interior shot of their very rough cabin in Alaska shows a music stand.  One sister was a photographer and another was a painter who attended art school.  The four oldest sisters attended Cal, and the brother may have as well.

 

The five Trowbridge sisters: Leslie, Eloise, Jessie, Olive, Kate Elliot.  I can't help wondering if they are posing in dresses they made themselves, as the skill of the dress-making increases with age (with the exception of Olive, who would be too young to make her own). 

The house where they are posing appears to be the same one as in the individual portraits where Nelson and Olive are shown outside.  If all the individual portraits are from the same time, then the ones of Leslie and Eloise presumably show the interior of the same house.  From the background of this group portrait, the location is probably Nevada or California.