Woman Photographer

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PIONEER WOMAN PHOTOGRAPHER BEGAN IN ROSEVILLE

I recently had the pleasure of speaking to the Roseville Women’s Club, an organization still going strong after more than a century in the Warren County village of just under 1,000 residents. In considering an appropriate topic, I remembered hearing about a book based on the life of a former Roseville woman, who was also a pioneer photographer.

Written in 2005 by the photographer’s great-great-great niece, the self-published historical novel tells the story of Mary Jane Sears Wyatt, an Ohio native who in 1871 married a twice-widowed Civil War veteran from western Illinois and settled in Roseville, where she opened a portrait studio. But that was just the beginning of a fascinating career that would take her west during the Nebraska land boom as a traveling photographer with her own railroad car studio.

“She Rode the Rails,” available on Amazon, was written by California author Beverly S. Adam, who first discovered “Mrs. M. J. Wyatt” when she saw the name imprinted on cabinet cards in an old family photograph album, including a photo of Mary Jane’s husband, Andrew A. Wyatt, who would play a central role in the book.

As is often the case when researching the lives of 19th-century women, one comes up against a brick wall. While their husbands’ lives are often chronicled in biographical albums or obituaries, women tend to receive fleeting mention and sometimes are not even identified with a first name. Occasionally, diaries and letters can be found, but too often women were so busy raising children and running households that there was little time for putting pen to paper. In Mary Jane’s case, her work kept her constantly busy for decades, as she not only rode the rails, but also maintained storefront studios in Roseville, as well as Holdrege, Wilcox and Minden, Nebraska.

The shortage of original-source documents concerning Mary Jane caused Adam to decide to write a historical novel, which allowed her to fill in the gaps that existed in the historical record, and tell the story in a compelling narrative. Although it contains passages of speculative fancy, Adam’s extensive genealogical research helps ground the book factually.

Mary Jane’s life is certainly book-worthy, even if the book is not a scholarly biography. Not only did she teach herself photography—then a very complicated art—but prior to meeting her husband several years later, she was an unmarried mother in an era when society tended to view such women as lost souls at best and licentious at worst.

Mary Jane was one of four children born to a widowed cabinet maker named Enoch Sears and his second wife, who also died. After her father married a third time, 17-year-old Mary Jane left home to become a housemaid for a neighboring family. It was at this point that she became pregnant and moved back home, where she gave birth to and raised a son, Charles.

At about that time, the Civil War broke out and four of Mary Jane’s brothers enlisted in Ohio companies. Two were killed on the same day in 1863 at the Battle of Mission Ridge in Chattanooga. Another died in 1865 in a Lexington, Kentucky, hospital after a skirmish with Morgan’s Raiders. Two brothers—Ephraim and Enoch—survived the war, and Enoch became a master carpenter like his father. Adam used that fact to imagine how Mary Jane learned photography. She said that one day a traveling photographer stopped at the Sears farm to ask if his damaged wooden box camera could be repaired. In exchange for those carpentry services, he agreed to teach Mary Jane and her brothers the art of photography.

After the war, her brothers were active in the Grand Army of the Republic and sat on the pension review board to decide which widows and veterans should receive benefits. In 1871, they went to a GAR convention in Chicago and took Mary Jane along to photograph reunion groups. It was here, according to the novel, that Mary Jane met her future husband, Andrew Alexander Wyatt, and it was through Wyatt that the Roseville connection was made.

Wyatt had been born at Industry, Ill., in McDonough County in 1841, the son of a United Brethren preacher. At age 19, he enlisted in Company G of the 16th Regiment, Illinois Infantry. He was a good soldier and received his discharge in 1863. Immediately, however, he enrolled as a veteran and served the remainder of the war, going with Sherman on his march to the sea.

After being discharged, Wyatt, who was known as Andy, worked for the Pan-Handle Railroad on its southern run, then for the young Burlington railroad, as a switch engine operator in at the Aurora Roundhouse. He was also active in the GAR, and according to the book, attended the 1871 Chicago convention, where he met Mary Jane and her son, Charles. Weeks later, the couple was married.

While waiting for the Burlington Missouri River Railroad line to expand west into Nebraska, Andy temporarily settled in Roseville, which had become a railroad stop in 1870. The Wyatts set up housekeeping, first in the Railroad Hotel and later above a paint store that Andy rented on Penn Avenue. In addition to being a train engineer, Andy was a sign and house painter. He went into business with a fellow veteran and widower named Ross.

After Mary Jane became restless with housekeeping, Andy set her up with a photography studio in downtown Roseville. She frequently accompanied Andy on trips to inspect newly laid railroad tracks and took her portable photography equipment with her. In those days, fancy Pullman cars were replacing the old wood-sided cars, and Andy purchased one, which he fitted up as a traveling photographer’s studio.

In 1878, Andy filed a claim on 160 acres of government land in Phelps County, Nebraska. He and Charles worked and improved the land. The following year, Andy was elected sheriff of Holdrege, Nebraska. He sold the claim in Phelps County and he and Mary Jane moved to Holdrege.

In 1884, Andy went to work again as an engineer for the Burlington, a job he held until 1900. In 1887, the couple was doing well financially and Mary Jane had a custom train car built for her photo studio. An engineer strike halted things in 1888, but Andy stayed employed painting houses.

In 1901, the couple moved to Wilcox, and in 1903 they moved to Minden, when Andy was elected sheriff of Kearney County.

Then Andy became ill, fighting a long battle with cancer. He died in 1912 at the age of 71. Not long after, Mary Jane, who was also in her 70s, closed her business and went to live with her son, Charles, in Bakersfield, California, where he was a respected judge.

Mary Jane died at her son’s home on April 29, 1917, at age 75. She was buried in a Bakersfield cemetery.

It is quite possible that no amount of research would shed additional light on the life of Mary Jane Wyatt and unravel some of the many mysteries that surround her life. But there are enough established facts surrounding her to attest to her extraordinary career as a woman and mother decades ahead of her time.

For Maple City Memories, I’m Jeff Rankin.

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