European Mission President John A. Widtsoe, and no doubt many other Latter-day Saints, were extraordinarily pleased to see this photograph in a London newspaper in September 1928 – it was taken at the conference of mission presidents (and their wives) of the various missions in Europe at Meudon, France, and signaled a new friendliness toward the Church in the British press.
(I need to work on identifying those pictured. I know who was at that conference, but have not yet attached names to faces here.)
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MLA: Parshall, Ardis E. "A Gathering of Presidents, 1928." Keepapitchin.org, 11 Apr 2023, https://keepapitchinin.org/2023/04/11/a-gathering-of-presidents-1928/.
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7 thoughts on “A Gathering of Presidents, 1928”
I’m stuck on that woman (far left, sitting) has a dead racoon (fox?) on her shoulder. I guess I knew that was fashionable, but I always figured it was more like a fur coat and not just a shoulder pelt…
Looks the woman next to her is wearing a similar dead animal on her opposite shoulder! What a difference a century makes …
By now you have probably figured all these out. But I will try, just for fun. These are all just guesses. Nothing definite.
Back row, from left to right. Babette Sophia Rossiter; I couldn’t figure the second person out; Eudora Widtsoe; Marie Townsend Anderson?
I believe the tallest person could be Richard L. Evans, secretary to John A. Widtsoe. The other three, I have no idea.
The Valentines had two adopted kids, a boy and a girl, who were 17 years old. It is possible they are featured somewhere here. The Lillywhites also had a son who would have been about 17 at this time. The Andersons had two sons, 13 and 17. They could possibly be here.
What an amazing contribution, K! Thank you so very much! That you provide links to so many images on Family Search is especially marvelous.
Did you start by determining who was likely to have been there by listing all the European presidents, and then go on to look them up in Family Search and match features? If you used other techniques, I’d like to hear of them — I would learn a thing or three about identifying such groups that way.
I pretty much did just as you said. I used the Church History Biographical Database (it’s an amazing tool) and looked up the missions listed in the photo caption (Denmark, Germany, France, Holland, Switzerland, Norway). The timelines list the presidents for different periods, so I found the presidents that served in 1928, pulled up their biography pages, looked at some photos, and followed the links to their FamilySearch pages. From there I was able to look at enough photos of each person to match distinctive features. Some of the people stand out, like the Tadjes and the Rossiters (and of course, the Widtsoes). They were quick IDs. Others took more work. I tried to focus on photos that at least looked like they were from the 1920s. Some of these people changed quite a bit stylistically over their lifetimes! It is truly fortunate that so many people have posted photos of ancestors on FamilySearch. It has become an immensely useful starting point for finding people.
I wish I could say that I had some special search tool where I cropped their face and had AI analyze it and crawl the web for matches, but I’m not savvy in that way.
K, you’re amazing!
I much prefer your way, K, to AI or some other special sauce — I could actually replicate your procedure, where I wouldn’t be able to do the web crawling.
I’m stuck on that woman (far left, sitting) has a dead racoon (fox?) on her shoulder. I guess I knew that was fashionable, but I always figured it was more like a fur coat and not just a shoulder pelt…
Looks the woman next to her is wearing a similar dead animal on her opposite shoulder! What a difference a century makes …
By now you have probably figured all these out. But I will try, just for fun. These are all just guesses. Nothing definite.
Starting in the front row, going from left to right: Eliza Sophie Walz Tadje (Swiss-German Mission; in this picture she is wearing what looks like the same fox stole); Ida Sophia Anderson Petersen (Danish Mission); Dr. Rose Ellen Bywater Valentine (German and Austrian Mission); Venus Robinson Rossiter (French Mission); Joseph L. Petersen (Danish Mission); Hyrum W. Valentine (German and Austrian Mission; I can’t find other pictures of him wearing glasses, but the face and hairline look similar); Ernest C. Rossiter (French Mission); John P. Lillywhite (Netherlands Mission); Friedrich Wilhelm Tadje (Swiss-German Mission); John A. Widtsoe; Leah Dunford Widtsoe; Lorenzo William Anderson (Norwegian Mission; a big guess, but some facial features match); Sarah Mason Anderson (Norwegian Mission; another big guess); Lillian Dahlsrud Lillywhite (Netherlands Mission; this one is very difficult since you can’t see much of her face).
Back row, from left to right. Babette Sophia Rossiter; I couldn’t figure the second person out; Eudora Widtsoe; Marie Townsend Anderson?
I believe the tallest person could be Richard L. Evans, secretary to John A. Widtsoe. The other three, I have no idea.
The Valentines had two adopted kids, a boy and a girl, who were 17 years old. It is possible they are featured somewhere here. The Lillywhites also had a son who would have been about 17 at this time. The Andersons had two sons, 13 and 17. They could possibly be here.
What an amazing contribution, K! Thank you so very much! That you provide links to so many images on Family Search is especially marvelous.
Did you start by determining who was likely to have been there by listing all the European presidents, and then go on to look them up in Family Search and match features? If you used other techniques, I’d like to hear of them — I would learn a thing or three about identifying such groups that way.
I pretty much did just as you said. I used the Church History Biographical Database (it’s an amazing tool) and looked up the missions listed in the photo caption (Denmark, Germany, France, Holland, Switzerland, Norway). The timelines list the presidents for different periods, so I found the presidents that served in 1928, pulled up their biography pages, looked at some photos, and followed the links to their FamilySearch pages. From there I was able to look at enough photos of each person to match distinctive features. Some of the people stand out, like the Tadjes and the Rossiters (and of course, the Widtsoes). They were quick IDs. Others took more work. I tried to focus on photos that at least looked like they were from the 1920s. Some of these people changed quite a bit stylistically over their lifetimes! It is truly fortunate that so many people have posted photos of ancestors on FamilySearch. It has become an immensely useful starting point for finding people.
I wish I could say that I had some special search tool where I cropped their face and had AI analyze it and crawl the web for matches, but I’m not savvy in that way.
K, you’re amazing!
I much prefer your way, K, to AI or some other special sauce — I could actually replicate your procedure, where I wouldn’t be able to do the web crawling.
*Applause*