Thursday, May 10, 2012

c1880s-1890s Card Given to Oscar Bessey by Teacher Belle Curtis, likely Bingham, Maine


c1880s/1890s card given to student Oscar Bessey by his teacher Belle Curtis.  
The card is approximately 6-3/4" x 4".

It appears that Oscar Bessey and Belle Curtis lived in the Bingham, Maine area.
 

From online research, hopefully correct, and hopefully with the correct Oscar Bessey:

Oscar York Bessey (1881-1951) was at Bingham, Maine, son of Thomas and Cynthia M. (Corson) Bessey.  

On 12 August 1913, at Portland, Maine, he married Amy Dell Edgerly (1883-1968), born 14 May 1883 at Princeton, Maine.  She was the daughter of Wilbert Franklin Edgerly and Emeline (Jellison) Edgerly, born at Princeton, Maine, and Calais, Maine, respectively.

The couple moved to Leominister, Massachusetts, where Oscar worked as a roller in celluloid manufacturing.  They had at least one child, a daughter.

As for teacher Belle Curtis, I found two possibilities.  

One was Belle Dora Curtis (1857-1935), born 3 October 1857 in Maine, daughter of Lafayette and Lucy P. (Raymond) Curtis.  She was listed as a schoolteacher teacher in the 1880 Census of Bingham, Maine.  At some point before 1900, she moved to Massachusetts, where she married Joseph Wakefield Perkins (1854-1937) in 1912.

Another possibility is Belle Curtis, wife of Norman W. Curtis of Solon, Maine, near Bingham in Somerset County.  I think Belle's name was Etta Belle, born about 1862 in Maine, but I don't know her maiden name or if she ever worked in teaching.  She and Norman were married about 1890, when Oscar would have been about ten.

If you have corrections to the information above or alternative theories as to the identities of Oscar Bessey and Belle Curtis, please leave a comment for the benefit of other researchers.

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