Effie Bowker Forbes

Found Photo: Effie Bowker Forbes of Massachusetts

Name(s): Effie Bowker
Date: Unknown.  Likely before 1896.
Location: Greenfield, Massachusetts / Bernardston, Massachusetts


The photographer is Albert E. Dunklee, who had studios in Athol and Greenfield, Massachusetts in the late 1800s and early 1900s.

Details about Effie's life can be found in "History of the town of Bernardston, Franklin county, Massachusetts. 1736-1900."  Effie Louise Bouker was born in 1869, the daughter of Charles Bowker and Harriet Dawes.  As a young woman, she was a school teacher in her hometown of Bernardston, per the town's annual report in 1890.  In 1896, she married Theodore Charles Forbes.  They settled in Greenfield, Massachusetts and had two sons, Charles Samuel Forbes and Willett Vivian Forbes.  Effie's father-in-law, Charles Pinkney Forbes, was a jeweler and silversmith in Greenfield.  It appears that Effie and her husband Theodore took over his business at a certain point.

Effie's father, Charles, was a medical doctor in Bernardston.  He served as an assistant surgeon  for the Union Army during the Civil War.  Effie had five siblings and half-siblings: Delcet, Alphonzo, Samuel, Arthur and Rose.

Effie died in 1962 at the age of 93.  She is buried in Greenfield, Massachusetts.

Helen Goddard

Found Photo: Helen Goddard of Phillipston, Massachusetts

Name(s): Helen Goddard
Date: unknown
Location: Phillipston, Massachusetts

The photographer is Albert E. Dunklee, who had a studio in Athol, Massachusetts in the late 1800s and early 1900s.  

The child shown in this photo may be the Helen Goddard who was born March 23, 1899 in Phillipston, very near Athol.  She was the daughter of William C. Goddard and Lestina Moody. Helen had five younger siblings: Howard, Dorothy & Donald (twins), John and Rosalyn.  Her name was sometimes spelled Hellen Lestina Goddard in official records.  Helen married Emery Hamlin and moved to New York, where she had two sons.  She died in 1986. 

Arthur F. Wells and Anna Leeds Wells

Found Photo: Arthur F. Wells and Anna Leeds Wells

Name(s): Arthur F. Wells "Father Wells" and Mrs. Arthur F. Wells
Date: unknown
Location: Greenfield, Massachusetts

Benjamin F. Popkins was a studio photographer who worked in Greenfield in the 1860s through the 1890s.  His shop was at the corner of Main and Federal streets in Greenfield.

There was an Arthur F. Wells living in Greenfield in the late 1800s and early 1900s.  There was possibly another living in nearby Deerfield.  However, the key to identifying the people in these photos is the word Bernardston, found on Mrs. Wells' photo.  

This Arthur F. Wells was a deacon in the congregational church in Bernardston, Massachusetts, which is about a 15-minute drive north of Greenfield on today's highways.  He was born around 1836.  He died on March 10, 1918 at the age of 82.  His wife was Anna Leeds.  They had no biological children. Deacon Wells' obituary, posted in the "The Congregationalist and Advance" on April 25, 1918, stated that he and his wife had two foster children, Daniel Murray of Waltham and Olivia, wife of Preston Crowell of Medway.  In addition to acting as deacon of the church, Arthur may have owned a farm in Bernardston.  He may have been the son of Elisha Wells of Leyden.