Entry #20

I have long been fascinated by this photo of Kate Daniel. Kate, born 28 October 1890 was the youngest daughter of Gerhardt and Mary Daniel. As you can see, the photo has the inscription, “1 arm Annie” on the left. On the right, it appears to say, “Please be 2 to me your Sister Anna.” That doesn’t make any sense, even if I add punctuation that isn’t there. The handwriting on the back confirms that Kate Daniel is the cousin of JJB (or John Joseph Biermann, my grandfather). The reference to Anna must mean Anna Biermann, one of John’s older sisters. Anna, born in 1892, would have been closest to Kate’s age.

I am pretty sure that Kate’s mother was Mary Catharine Maune Daniel and the sister of my great, great grandmother, Mary Elizabeth Maune Biermann. At any rate, I know it was a close family relationship because my father remembers visiting back and forth from Cincinnati to the Daniel farm near Saint Leon, Indiana. He was never able to explain how the Daniels were related, though.

What I have not been able to decide is whether or not Kate Daniel really had just one arm. My Biermann family was notorious for writing tongue-in-cheek comments on the family photos; however, tonight when I scanned the photo for the first time, I enlarged it to about eight times its regular size. It truly looks as though Kate has just one arm. Further, the gloved hand that she is holding in front of her has an odd appearance to me. Is it my imagination or is Kate’s thumb disproportionately large? Kate was still unmarried and living with her parents up through the 1920 census, which was taken in January. Her father died in February and the 1920 census is the last hint I have of Kate Daniel. I have no clue what became of her, but her mother is living with another daughter in the next census.

If Kate Daniel really was one-armed, the inscription seems cruel. On the other hand, it is possible that the comment was written by Kate herself.