Fannie Appleman


​Historical ephemera has a way of keeping the past alive, but it often leaves us with puzzles. For a long time, this portrait was a mystery. Hidden behind a faded pencil inscription on its damaged backing card, the identity of the subject was obscured by time and a bit of geographic confusion.

​What originally looked like a faint reference to "Kinsley, Kansas" turned out to be something entirely different. By digging into the history of the late 19th and early 20th century census records, the true story emerged: this is Fannie Appleman of Kingsley, Pennsylvania.

​The original cabinet card depicts a young woman standing beside a woven wicker chair. She wears a white Edwardian era dress, a cameo brooch pinned at her throat. 

​Born around 1887, Fannie would have been a young woman in her late teens or early twenties when she sat for this portrait in the early 1900s. She was just transitioning from her rural childhood into her new life.

​Through federal census records, we can begin to reconstruct the life Fannie built in the agricultural landscape of Susquehanna County, Pennsylvania:

  • ​The Household: Fannie married Orin Appleman, a local farmer whose family roots ran deep in the Kingsley and Brooklyn Township areas.
  • ​The Next Generation: By the 1920 census, Fannie and Orin were busy raising two young sons, George S. and Irvin S. Appleman.
  • ​A Family Home: The Appleman household was a multi-generational one; Orin’s father, Jacob J. Appleman, also lived on the family farm with them.

​Fannie Appleman may have lived a quiet life centered around her family and the hills of Kingsley, Pennsylvania, but through the careful preservation of her portrait, her story continues to be told.


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