Adda and Ida Weaver


Today’s visit to the antique store brought a beautiful late 19th century cabinet card into the collection, complete with a name and a location written on the back. 

​The front of the card features a studio portrait of three young women. They are posed against an ornate Victorian backdrop of a stone archway and a gate, captured by the Ritchie Bros. studio in Kingman, Kansas.

​Turning the card over reveals vital clues written in faint pencil

​"Adda was twelve years old when this was taken."

Adda Weaver, Kingman, KS

​Adda is the young girl standing on the far left. Her younger sister, Ida, is standing on the far right. The identity of the woman standing in the center remains a mystery—she is not explicitly named. Because Adda was the oldest daughter in her family, this central figure may be a maternal relative or a close family friend rather than a sibling. 

Thanks to local census and marriage records, we can piece together the world Adda lived in when she stepped into the Ritchie Bros. studio:

Adda B. Weaver was born in Indiana in October 1867 to William and Catherine Weaver. Her father was a carpenter, a trade in high demand when the family relocated to the frontier town of Kingman, Kansas, in the late 1870s or early 1880s.

Adda grew up as the eldest daughter in a large household. She had two younger sisters, Ida (born c. 1870) and Minnie (born c. 1876), as well as two brothers, Albert and Frank.

I found very little information about Ida's life beyond childhood. ​Like Adda, Ida grew up on the Kansas plains after moving with the family from Indiana. Census records confirm she lived in Kingman as part of the large Weaver household alongside Adda, Minnie, Albert, and Frank. Beyond her early life in Kingman, however, specific records detailing Ida's adult life, marriage or passing remain unverified. Her childhood presence is preserved here alongside her family, but her later chapters remain a mystery.

​Adda's life in Kingman saw its share of major milestones. She was married twice during her years in Kansas:

  1. ​First Marriage: On January 10, 1886, she married David S. Garton in Kingman.
  2. ​Second Marriage: Following Garton's passing, Adda remarried on June 20, 1893, to Archie B. Himebaugh, who worked as a local day laborer and teamster.

​Adda and Archie raised three children in Kingman: Hazel (born 1894), William Bryan (born 1896), and their youngest, Mildred, born on August 5, 1903.

​By the 1920s, the family left the Kansas plains behind and relocated to California. Adda spent her later years there, eventually passing away in 1947 at the age of 79.

​This photo is a window into the early days of Kingman, Kansas, preserving the likeness of young girls who watched the town grow from a frontier settlement into a vibrant community. The physical card now rests safely on the shelves, its story finally reconnected to the face on the front.