Adorable Dorothy

Found Photo Project #4

By Eilene Lyon

Postscript on #3 – Fort Wayne Stenographer

I was able to track down Jessie Armstrong McDonald’s granddaughters. I sent one of them the photograph of Jessie taken about 1920. We had a nice chat on the phone. After Jessie’s husband died, she went to live with her daughter’s family, so the granddaughters had the opportunity to get to know her well. They appreciate having the photograph.

Project #4

This is actually an extension of my original Found Photo Project post. One of those first three images is a two-year-old named Dorothy Elizabeth Beaty. For that image, I focused more on the photographers, the Gerhard Sisters, than the subject.

I decided to revisit Dorothy’s portrait, because my initial efforts to find a family member were unsuccessful. Recently I was able to track down one of Dorothy’s granddaughters and she now has the original photograph. I’ve also learned a bit more about Dorothy’s story.

Dorothy E. Beaty was born in St. Louis, Missouri, on January 17, 1905, and was the only child of David Beckett Beaty (known as Beckett) and Kathryne S. Barney.¹ Beckett was a native of Jerseyville, Illinois. Kathryne was born in Boulder County, Colorado, to Civil War veteran William M. Barney and his first wife, Melissa Rannells.² Kathryne lost her mother when she was just 8 years old. For some reason she was separated from her father and siblings in the 1880 census, the following year.³

Beckett and Kathryne married in Denver, Colorado, in 1896, but had moved to St. Louis by 1900, where Beckett was a grocer.⁴ In 1910, he was a commercial fruit merchant.⁵ In 1920, both Beckett and Kathryn fell ill. Beckett passed away in July and his body was sent to Illinois for burial. His 15-year-old daughter, Dorothy, accompanied him, then returned home to her mother.⁶

Kathryne and Dorothy then went to stay with Kathryne’s younger sister, Emma (Barney) Miller, then living in Oklahoma City. Kathryne succumbed to her illness in mid-September, leaving young Dorothy an orphan.⁷ Her aunt and uncle, Emma and John T. Miller, then took responsibility for seeing her reared to adulthood.

J.T. Miller held a variety of jobs: soldier, poultry farm manager, retail sales. He and Emma took Dorothy to Van Nuys, Los Angeles, California. In her early 20s, Dorothy worked as an office manager for a Van Nuys department store called Moore’s. She found romance with Samuel James Woody, a California native eight years her senior, and they married in December 1927.⁸

Samuel had a job with the power company for some years, first as a truck driver, then as a lineman.⁹ He later went to work for the Van Nuys hardware store and became part-owner by the time of his marriage to Dorothy. He was very active in civic organizations, too, fast on his way to becoming a pillar of the community.¹⁰

Dorothy’s uncle, Ralph B. Barney, gave her away at the ceremony. Her aunt and uncle Miller beamed with pride, of course.  After the wedding, attended only by close family and friends, Dorothy and Samuel drove to San Francisco to board a ship back home to Los Angeles as their honeymoon trip.¹¹

Over the years, the couple became parents to two sons, then later grandparents, all the while living in Van Nuys. Samuel died suddenly in 1963 at the age of 69.¹² Dorothy never remarried and was a widow for 31 years. She died in Van Nuys in 1994.¹³

 

Feature image: Dorothy Elizabeth Beaty, St. Louis, MO, age 2 ½ years. Original has been sent to a granddaughter.