Lizzie Sheeks


Turn over almost any vintage cabinet card, and you might find a penciled name or a cryptic family clue. But rarely do those fragments open up a window into early American history like the inscription on the back of this recent addition to the collection:

​Miss Lizzie Sheeks or Mrs. Lizzie Arnold. Mary Danelys mother.


​Who was this woman standing by a rustic fence? To find out, we have to travel back to the dense forests and pioneering days of 1830s Indiana.

​Elizabeth A. "Lizzie" Sheeks was born on November 2, 1837, in Lawrence County, Indiana. Lizzie’s grandparents, George and Elizabeth Sheeks, were legendary early pioneers of the region. Their original family log cabin was so important to local history that it was later preserved and still stands today as a historic landmark inside Spring Mill State Park.

​The 1850 Federal Census captures a 12 year old Lizzie living in Spice Valley Township, surrounded by a busy household of five younger siblings: William, David, Mary, George, and baby Sarah.

​With her father, John B. Sheeks, tilling the soil as a farmer and her mother, Diadema, managing a packed household, Lizzie’s childhood was defined by frontier agriculture, church gatherings, and a massive network of aunts, uncles, and first cousins who owned neighboring farms just down the road. 

​As Lizzie entered adulthood, the frontier landscape began to give way to organized towns and closer ties between neighboring counties. Lizzie eventually married and took on a new role as a mother. On November 29, 1859, she gave birth to a daughter named Mary Christine.

​It is Mary who holds the key to the handwriting on the back of our portrait. As the decades marched on, Mary grew up and married into the Danely family, a prominent family from just next door in Worthington, Greene County, Indiana. Generations later, a descendant holding this very photograph made sure her legacy wasn't lost, flipping the card over to note that this lovely woman was, in fact, "Mary Danely's mother."

​Lizzie lived out her days on the soil her grandparents had broken. She was eventually laid to rest in the Mitchell City Cemetery in Lawrence County, leaving behind a legacy that stretched from a pioneer log cabin to an elegant example of late 19th century portraiture.

​Today, thanks to a few lines of fading blue ink and a beautifully preserved photograph, Lizzie Sheeks is no longer just a forgotten face from the past, she is a part of early Indiana.


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