Eesley Family Group Portrait, c. 1899 — Albert Robert Sr, Jennie Goldie, and Their Ten Children

The twelve-figure formal studio portrait of Albert Robert Eesley Sr (b. 25 December 1837, Stratford-on-Avon, England; d. 5 April 1902, Toronto) and his wife Jennie Goldie (b. 12 December 1836, Ayrshire, Scotland; d. 12 August 1911, Toronto), with all ten of their children, c. 1899.

Two captions on this photograph have reached this archive. The first, a handwritten family note Chuck transmitted in 2026, identifies the ten children by first name in left-to-right order. The second, more precise, is a slide in a family-compiled “Eesleys circa 1900” PowerPoint deck (also transmitted by Chuck) that distinguishes the standing row from the seated row:

The Eesleys Family — Standing left to right: Jennie, George, Charles, Bessie, John, Robert Albert (“Bert”). Seated left to right: Will, Jeanie Goldie Eesley (Mom), Garfield, Albert Robert Eesley (Dad), Alf (Albert Robert), Hanna (“Anna”). Photo taken circa 1900.

The typed identification key that accompanies the portrait — the first family caption named above, transcribed. It confirms the ten children and adds the descent note: “Bert was Robert Albert, father of George Edburn ‘Bus’ Eesley & Grandfather of Dick & Dan.”

The two family captions are now reconciled against Dale Eesley’s FamilySearch tree (the GEDCOM) in this archive. Three of the questions the captions left open are now closed.

What the GEDCOM resolved

1. “Alf (Albert Robert)” in the PowerPoint caption was a family-memory transcription error. Alf’s actual given name in the structured record (FamilySearch ID LZTC-RC2) is Alfred Robert Eesley (b. Jul 1867, d. 1954) — Alfred Robert, not Albert Robert. There were two Albert Roberts in this family, not three: the father (Albert Robert Sr) and Bert (whose given name was actually Robert Albert, the order reversed from his father’s).
2. The “John” of the caption is John Franklin — the Plainwell mill founder — not a separate “John R.” The “J. R.” in William Eesley’s obituary three years later is a transcription error or family-memory variant for “J. F.”; the GEDCOM shows only one John in Albert Robert Sr’s children, with FamilySearch ID LQY3-K8S. The earlier separate “John R. Eesley” entry in this archive has been merged into John Franklin’s page.
3. “Bessie” and “Mrs. George Sinclair” are the same person. The 1899 marriage record in the GEDCOM (family @F128@) shows Bessie Easley marrying George Alexander Sinclair in Toronto, 1899 — the same year as this portrait. So the “Bessie” of the photo caption became “Mrs. George Sinclair” of the c. 1916 William obituary the same year the photograph was taken.

The handwritten family caption also adds the key cross-reference: “Bert was Robert Albert, father of George Edburn ‘Bus’ Eesley & Grandfather of Dick & Dan.” It directly links Bert in this 1899 portrait to Robert Albert “Bert” Eesley — the man whose son was George Edburn “Bus” Eesley (1903–1942), whose grandson was the San Francisco engineer Daniel “Dan” Eesley (1931–2018). The full San-Francisco-via-Buffalo-via-Fremont-via-Toronto path of that branch is anchored back to this 1899 frame.

The ten children in 1899

In chronological order by birth (per the GEDCOM):

• John Franklin Eesley (b. 11 Dec 1859 Hamilton ON, d. 9 Jul 1929 Kalamazoo MI) — “the oldest” of the family caption; the Plainwell mill founder. Aged about 39 in this portrait.
• Hannah Goldie “Anna” (Eesley) Scoon (b. 20 Dec 1863 Paris ON, d. 20 Jun 1932 Toronto) — “Anna” / “Hanna” of the caption; later Mrs. J. B. Scoon. Aged about 35.
• William Eesley (b. 30 Jul 1865 Michigan, d. 24 Apr 1932 College Corner OH) — “Will” of the caption; the College Corner, Ohio miller. Aged about 33.
• Alfred Robert “Alf” Eesley (b. Jul 1867 Michigan, d. 1954) — “Alf” of the caption. Aged about 32.
• Robert Albert “Bert” Eesley (b. 4 May 1871 Michigan, d. 9 Mar 1948 Arlington VA) — “Bert” of the caption; father of George “Bus” and grandfather of Daniel Eesley of San Francisco. Aged 28.
• Bessie (Easley) Sinclair (b. 16 Sep 1874 Bloomfield MI, d. 1959 Toronto) — “Bessie” of the caption. Married George Alexander Sinclair in Toronto in 1899, the same year as this photograph. Aged about 24.
• Jennie (Eesley) Baxter (b. 14 Dec 1875 Clintonville MI, d. 10 Jan 1935 Toronto) — “Jennie” of the caption, named for her Scottish-immigrant mother. Aged about 23.
• Dr. George Henry Eesley (b. 10 Sep 1876 Ovid MI, d. 1974 Toronto) — “George” of the caption; the only one of the brothers who did not become a miller. Practiced medicine in Toronto. Aged about 23.
• Charles Leonard Eesley (b. 26 Sep 1879 Gault ON, d. 9 Oct 1972 Columbus OH) — “Charlie” of the caption; Chuck’s great-grandfather, the line that runs forward through Will Eesley → Charles M. Eesley → Chuck. Aged about 19.
• James Garfield Eesley (b. 16 Sep 1881 Listowel ON, d. 29 Nov 1950 Washington DC) — “Garfield” of the caption, named for U.S. President James A. Garfield (assassinated 1881). Aged about 17.

The two parents are seated at the center of the frame. Albert Robert Sr was sixty-one in 1899; Jennie Goldie was sixty-two.

Why this frame matters

This is the single most consequential family photograph for the Albert Robert Sr branch of the Eesley line in this archive’s possession. It documents:

1. The full sibling roster of Charles Leonard’s generation in one frame, alongside their parents — and visible to the present, anchored to Chuck through his great-grandfather’s identification as “Charlie” in the caption.
2. The Toronto convergence: by 1899, all ten siblings (most of whom would scatter to Ohio, Michigan, New York, Washington D.C., and Toronto across the 20th century) were together at one moment in one place. By the time of William’s c. 1916 obituary, four of the siblings — Anna, Jennie, Bessie, and Dr. George — were Toronto residents, joined by their retired parents.
3. The “Bert was Robert Albert” caption footnote is the document that anchors the Daniel Eesley San Francisco branch back to this generation — Bert → George “Bus” → Dick & Dan, four generations of paternal lineage compressed into one parenthetical.

The two captions, side by side

Two caption documents accompany this photograph in the family archive:

1. A typed caption card — held with the print and scanned alongside it as IMG_4057.jpeg. The text reads exactly:

   Believed to have been taken in 1899

   Parents: Albert Robert Eesley and Jeannie Goldie Eesley

   Bessie · George · Charlie · Jennie · John (oldest) · Bert

   Will · Garfield · Alfred · Anna

   (Bert was Robert Albert, father of George Edburn “Bus” Eesley & Grandfather of Dick & Dan)

   The layout of the names — six names on the top row and four below — mirrors the photograph’s two-row composition. The top row corresponds to the standing figures; the bottom row to the seated children among the seated parents.

2. The “Eesleys circa 1900” PowerPoint deck (also family-archived) — gives the same identifications but distinguishes the standing row from the seated row precisely:

   Standing left to right: Jennie, George, Charles, Bessie, John, Robert Albert (“Bert”).

   Seated left to right: Will, Jeanie Goldie Eesley (Mom), Garfield, Albert Robert Eesley (Dad), Alf (Albert Robert), Hanna (“Anna”).

The two captions together — with the GEDCOM corrections noted above — constitute the definitive identification of every figure in the photograph.

Roberta’s confirmation, June 2026

Roberta Burnes — Lillie Dale Chenoweth Eesley’s granddaughter on the Chenoweth side, and an inheritor of Eesley family material from her Aunt Mary, her mother Helen, and her great-uncle Leonard — independently confirmed three of the cast identifications above in correspondence with Chuck in June 2026, working from her own visual memory of the print before her current labeled copy could be located:

• Charles Leonard Eesley is third from left in the back row.
• His brother George is second from left in the back row, immediately to Charles’s left from the viewer’s perspective.
• Alf is the rightmost of the seated brothers (with his sister Anna to his right).

All three of these match the PowerPoint-deck caption and the GEDCOM reconciliation set out above. Roberta’s confirmation is the third independent cast-identification pass on this photograph (after the family typed caption card and the PowerPoint deck) and the first one done by a Chenoweth-side descendant rather than an Eesley-side descendant. Roberta also notes that she “used to be able to name all of them by sight” and is hunting for a fully-labeled copy she remembers having; if it surfaces, the remaining nine figures (the spouse Jennie Goldie, the patriarch Albert Robert Sr, and the seven other siblings) will all carry her name-confirmation alongside the existing ones.

She also offered a dating note worth carrying alongside the c. 1899 family caption: the photograph could plausibly date closer to Charles Leonard’s marriage to Lillie Dale Chenoweth (which would put the frame c. 1902–1903, the years immediately before their first child Leonard was born in late 1904 or 1905), because “he looks very similar to other pictures taken around that time.” Charles is 19 if the frame is 1899 and ~23 if it is c. 1903; the four-year gap in a young man’s face is sometimes visible and sometimes not. The c. 1899 family-caption dating remains the page’s lead, but Roberta’s alternative-c. 1903 dating possibility is noted as an open question worth carrying.

Family captions transmitted by Chuck Eesley, 2026. High-resolution scan: IMG_4056.jpeg. Caption card scan: IMG_4057.jpeg. Identifications reconciled against Dale Eesley’s FamilySearch tree and William Eesley’s c. 1916 obituary. Cast-identification confirmation pass by Roberta Burnes, June 2026.