Dog days of summer

The month of August is commonly referred to as “the dog days of summer”, so we at Special Collections thought we would share some of our favorite “dog” images from the Hostetler photograph collection.

The first set of pictures were taken around 1905 and show a little girl with a Jack Russell terrier. We believe the girl is Katherine M. Peek, daughter of Burton F. Peek of Moline. Mr. Peek was associated with John Deere Company. Katherine was born December 29, 1900. She studied at Bryn Mawr College and died on March 12,1987  in Pennsylvania.

This next photograph was taken around 1913 and shows a boy sitting on the grass with an Irish wolfhound. This image was part of a set featuring four children: One girl looked to be slightly older than this boy; another girl was preschool aged and a toddler of undetermined gender. All photographs appeared to be taken at a home, not in the studio. The original negative envelope was labeled “Curtis”. With this limited information we are unable to determine the identity of the boy (or the dog).

This image was taken around 1910 and shows a boy sitting on a chair with a collie lying in front of him. This photograph is part of a set of three pictures of the same boy. The original negative envelope was labeled “A. Grates”. With this limited information we are unable to determine the identity of either the boy or the dog in the photograph.

The last image was taken around 1913. We think this is a picture of Irma Kohn, daughter of Louis and Regina Kohn of Rock Island, and an English bulldog, parents unknown. Ms. Kohn (later known as “Koen”) was born October 8, 1884, in Rock Island.  She became  an artist who created oil paintings, watercolors and landscape scenes. She died on July 16, 1975, in California.

(posted by Cristina)