Photo inscription: "Taken in the first big year of peaches. The horse: Old Kit. Dog: Old Tom. Mort, Maud, Margaret, Duane Crittenden, Ellis Rd., 1912."
Ellis Rd. is the old name of Washtenaw when it approached Ypsilanti. In this picture, if it were taken in 1912, Mortimer is 42, his wife Maud is 39, daughter Margaret is 11 and son Duane is 9. Maud had had 2 children and both had survived. Their farm was on the west side of Ypsilanti somewhere outside the city limits.
No info on the man in the background, likely a farmhand. Based offhand from the market reports I've read in papers from around this time I'd guess these peaches might fetch around 45 cents a bushel more or less. This crop apparently warranted an expensive photo...why? Had Mortimer taken a big risk in buying this farm and was triumphant that his orchards were producing? He wanted someone to remember, and we do, his first big year of peaches.
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