May Koons


​Recently, a late 19th century cabinet card made its way into the collection. It features a young woman dressed in an elegant gown.

​But it was the reverse side of the card that truly brought her world to life.

Turn the card over, and there's a cursive script and a green studio backstamp. The handwritten inscription reads:

​"Will El accept kindness of his old friend. May Koons."


​Below her signature is the mark of her hometown artist: Bumgardner, Photographer. New Lexington, Ohio.

​In the Victorian era, gifting a portrait was a deeply personal gesture. The phrase "accept kindness" was a common societal convention of the 1880s, a polite, warm way of asking a close friend to accept a token of remembrance. The recipient, affectionately nicknamed "El," was likely an "old friend" from her childhood neighborhood or school days. Someone who occupied a special place in her social circle.

​Thanks to that photographer's stamp and a bit of genealogical sleuthing, we don't have to wonder who May was. We can actually walk right into her childhood home.

​The trail began in the archives of the New Lexington Democratic Herald. In December 1875, a local school report published a list of primary school pupils who had achieved high marks in attendance and scholarship. Right there among the neighborhood children was a young girl named May Koons.

​Fast forward to the 1880 Federal Census for Pike Township, the district encompassing the town of New Lexington and May’s full identity comes into sharp focus.

​Listed under her full name, Lilly M. Koons, she was 13 years old in the summer of 1880. Her middle name was May, the moniker she clearly preferred to use with her friends. She grew up in a working class household headed by her parents, John Koons, a carpenter, and Sarah Koons, who managed the household. May was surrounded by a house full of brothers: William, Charles, George, and Frank.

When we look back at the portrait, we are seeing Lilly May Koons as she transitioned from the schoolgirl into a young woman finding her own path.

​Sometime in the mid to late 1880s, when she was in her late teens or early twenties, May walked to downtown New Lexington. She stepped into the studio of John Adams Bumgardner to capture her likeness.

​This portrait wasn't meant for a family album to be tucked away on her parents' shelf. It was a gift meant to be given to a friend. By leaving her portrait with "El," Lilly May ensured that a tiny piece of her youth, her style, and her warmth would survive for over a century, long after the ink dried on her note.


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