Chenoweth Family Reunion — Harrisburg, Ohio, c. 1901–1902

A massive Chenoweth family reunion photographed under a striped fair tent on a grassy slope — perhaps a hundred people in formal turn-of-the-century dress, the men in dark suits and bowler hats, the women in long pale dresses and hats with brims, children in front. The setting and the scale point to a probable location of Harrisburg, Ohio in Franklin County — the Pleasant Township area where the Chenoweth line had been concentrated since the early nineteenth century. The frame is in remarkable shape for its age.

Transmitted by Roberta Burnes in June 2026 from material she inherited from her Aunt Mary, her mother Helen Burnes, and her great-uncle Leonard Eesley.

Dating the photograph

Roberta has identified her great-aunt Elsie Chenoweth Borror at center with her husband Jonas Borror, holding a toddler. The blur on that small group is consistent with the difficulty of holding a small child still for the long exposure of a turn-of-the-century group portrait. If the toddler is the Borrors’ first-born son Eugene Everette Borror (b. 1 September 1901), the photograph dates to approximately 1901–1902 — with Eugene in his first or second year. The Borror family register has no earlier child, which lends further support to that identification.

The labeled version

Roberta provided both an unmarked print (above, as the primary archival image) and a labeled version with three identifications circled in blue ink:

The three confirmed identifications:

• Upper left: Lillie Dale Chenoweth Eesley — Roberta’s grandmother and Chuck’s great-grandmother. The Chenoweth matriarch of the Eesley line. She would have been about 24 in 1901, four years after her own birth (per the structured record: born 5 August 1877) and not yet two years away from her marriage to Charles Leonard Eesley around 1903.
• Center: Elsie Chenoweth Borror — Lillie’s older sister (b. 20 July 1869 per Egge’s record) — with her husband Jonas Borror (b. 25 May 1863) and the toddler who is most likely their first son Eugene Everette Borror (b. 1 September 1901). The blur on the small group is exposure-related.
• Upper right: Joseph Hill Chenoweth and his wife Mary Ohio Timmons Chenoweth — Roberta’s great-grandparents and Chuck’s great-great-grandparents. Joseph was 68 at the probable date of the photograph; Mary was 56. They would live until 1910 (Joseph) and 1919 (Mary), respectively.

The three identifications cover the central Chenoweth-Timmons family threesome and the Chenoweth daughter (Elsie) who carried the line into the Borrors. Roberta has noted that the remaining ~95 figures in the frame are extended Chenoweth, Timmons, Smith, and connected family relations; most are unidentified, and a future labeled-cast pass against Egge’s Elijah Jr. and Nancy descendants page would likely surface another dozen identifications.

Why this photograph matters

This is, on present evidence, the largest single Chenoweth family gathering preserved in any photograph in this archive. The 1948–49 Charles Leonard Eesley group portrait, the 1973–75 Charles Leonard reunion at Highland Ridge — both held meaningful numbers of family members, but this one holds the entire Chenoweth network of one moment, with the deepest direct-line ancestors (Joseph Hill and Mary Timmons) present in the same frame as their daughter Lillie Dale, who would carry the line forward to the Eesleys.

The continuity from this reunion forward to the c. 1971–1972 reunion of Lillie Dale’s own descendants marks the same family practice across seventy-plus years — the Chenoweth-descendant tradition of getting everyone in one frame on a summer afternoon under a tent on a grassy hillside.

Source: Eesley/Chenoweth family archive, transmitted by Roberta Burnes in June 2026, from material inherited from Aunt Mary, Mother Helen, and Great-Uncle Leonard. Cast identifications by Roberta on a labeled companion print; dating by Eugene Borror’s 1 September 1901 birth date and the toddler’s apparent age.