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| Arva A Fargo, c.1897, Chico, CA |
Following the trend of images of allied family in the new packet from my mother, it contained this photo of Arva A. Fargo. Arva married my great grandfather's sister Sally Proctor in 1904, but before that he had another family in California. According to the 1900 Federal Census, Arva was born in Pennsylvania in March 1857. His early life has been difficult to trace, but I believe that I found him in Siskiyou, CA in 1860 and Ada, Idaho in 1880. He married Mary Campbell in the latter half of 1880, almost certainly in California, and had four surviving children - Amal (b.1881), Elmore Arva (b.1884), Edna (b.1887) and Lola (b.1894). They are shown living together as a family in the 1900 Federal Census in Pleasanton Town, Alameda, California. His wife must have died shortly after the 1900 Census since Arva ended up in Washington by October 24, 1904, when he married Sally at her parents house in Columbia City. Since she was already 42 years old when they married, they did not have any children together.
This photo is by Hiram Hamilton Frye who was born Sept 1, 1841 and died May 21, 1900. He operated a photography studio at 6 1/2 Mill St, Grass Valley, CA in the 1880s and on 2nd Street in Chico, CA in the 1890s until his death in 1900. On another of his photos that I came across, it stated that his studio was "Established in 1879", but a Frye Family Tree on Ancestry.com states that he was working as a photographer as early as 1874. I found a strikingly similar photo to this one in the Small Family Album. He must have enjoyed photographing middle aged men with beards! From Arva's apparent age and the photographer's location and years active, I would guess this photo was taken between 1895-1900.
I have been diligently researching to find his descendants from his first wife with the goal of sharing this wonderful photo with them. Hopefully, in the future, someone will be happy to see their own ancestor in him.
