Discovering More About Chris

It was back in the middle of February when we were introduced, thanks to that mystery photo album I had found in an antique store, to three women named Chris, Alice and Dolly. A photograph showed the three of them peering from a window. The album's creator had labeled the picture "at the sitting room of Chris's bungalow."

Of course, we've since learned that the couple who sent that photo album—as a gift to an unnamed person or family—was Harry and Alice Hawkes Reid of County Cork, Ireland. The Alice in this particular photograph was not the Alice who had composed the collection, but, as we've discovered, Harry Reid's sister. With another photograph subsequently sent to me by a descendant of this family, we now learn who Chris was.

You will not find it surprising to learn that Chris was also a sister of Harry Reid.

Almost twenty years after that 1936 family photograph album was compiled for a Christmas gift, the Reid family was snapping pictures for another family occasion: the wedding of their daughter Ruby. One of the poses captured by the camera that April day in 1956 was that of the father of the bride, Harry Reid himself, standing with three of his sisters.

Along with a copy of this more recent photograph, his granddaughter Heather provided me with the names of each of them. There was Alice on the far left, arm in arm with her brother. On the other side of Harry was his sister, by then known as Edith Logan. And at the far right was Chris—yes, that Chris—known then by her married name as Chris Mack.

What I also realized, in reviewing those photographs I shared with you back in February, was the identity of another person named in the subsequent photo labeled "in one of Chris' fields." We've mentioned her yesterday, when realizing that "W. O'Malley" might actually be the Reids' brother-in-law, married to Harry's half sister, Elizabeth.

Sure enough, there was one more woman standing in the group out in Chris' fields, called Lizzie O'Malley. I'll take that as the Elizabeth who became bride of William O'Malley.

This photo album is turning out to be far more of a Reid family collection than one for the Hawkes family. I had certainly taken a wrong turn in my research assumptions; perhaps I was too smitten with the Hawkes family history and heritage to remember to gather details concerning both sides of the family history.

Now, if only we could figure out who Dolly was, we'd have the complete picture on those three who were smiling down from their bungalow window, back in the summer of 1936.

Above: Standing, left to right, on the day of Ruby Reid's 1956 wedding, were her aunt Alice Reid, her father Harry Reid, and her aunts Edith Logan and Chris Mack. The likely setting was at the Bride Park home of Ruby's maternal grandparents, John and Sarah Ruby Hawkes in County Cork, Ireland. Photograph from the private collection of a member of the Hawkes and Reid families, used by permission.