Catherine (Barrett) Peddle
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Catherine (Barrett) Peddle
Updated Jun 26, 2025
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Kelly Mollins
4 favorites
03/25/2014
Comments
AncientFaces
382k+ followers 411 favorites
03/25/2019
We're saying this is Canada - although it wasn't in 1903. Besides, Bread and Cheese Cove? What a name!
Kelly Mollins
4 favorites
03/25/2015
She was from Bread and Cheese Cove (now Upper Island Cove), Newfoundland. This picture was taken about 1903. She was born in 1825 and died in 1908.
Suzanne Romero
8 favorites
03/25/2019
I’d be willing to bet that she couldn’t see very well. That expression comes from years of squinting. I’d be pretty bugged too if I spent the better part of my life not being able to see. JMO
Joanne Jacobellis
151 favorites
03/25/2019
No offense, um, but that old lady scares the heck out of me!!! The little boy to the right - children of the corn?
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Joanne Latham Jacobellis .....this was a time when adults and children worked from sun up to sun down. They didn’t have the comforts that we enjoy today. They all look really tired and wore out to me.
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Imagine working out,in the heat all day in those long dresses, with petticoats and long underwear, stockings and heavy boots. Had to be miserable.
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Lora Gillman Boston I think their in their Sunday best. They didn’t just come in from a field.
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I know it is mean, but this was my first thought...
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Lee Ann Forester Train they still wore a lot of clothing even out in fields...
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Joanne Latham Jacobellis I agree she looks demonic and him too.
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Joanne Latham Jacobellis I thought the same thing
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Joanne Latham Jacobellis children have very light blue eyes so their eyes appear this way in older black and white pictures. Does look somewhat spooky in vintage pictures.😶
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Joanne Latham Jacobellis More like village of the damned...lol!
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Joanne Latham Jacobellis I was thinking the same about Grandma and some of the kids. They are spooked 😱 looking. 😂
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Joanne Latham Jacobellis my thoughts exactly. Like you would of f****** BE haved
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My thoughts also, both of them. Perhaps could be a (barely) manageable chemical imbalance in the brain. They couldn't do much for it back in the day. And asylums were so terrible that anyone that was loved even a little would be kept home by family if at all possible
via Facebook
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Lee Ann Forester Train ,I think that Lora was just making the comment that back in the day the women wore a lot of petticoats ,even when they were working. Wouldn't want to have anyone blush or faint from seeing a bare ankle.A hard life for the working people.
Cindy Roll
25 favorites
03/29/2019
I have pictures of relatives who look like that lol haha
Denise Fiorina-Brzezinski
109 favorites
03/25/2019
Sure it's not a death photo?? A few look deceased, but the lady in the middle really has to be gone 🧐🧐
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Denise Fiorina-Brzezinski no, I think she is just really decrepit.
Denise Fiorina-Brzezinski
109 favorites
03/25/2019
via Facebook
I wonder, if the eldery woman, is actually parted. They posed frequently in that time period, for loved-ones who passed away.
Ree Young
1 follower 234 favorites
03/25/2019
She didn't die until 1908. She just doesn't look happy.
Also, muscles relax after death, and morticians...unless they have a sick sense of humor...don't push the corpse's face into a frown.
If you look at photos of deceased people in old photos...ones that specifically ARE of deceased persons, not just someone who you think looks dead...you will see that they have no facial expression. If anything, they look asleep.
Also, muscles relax after death, and morticians...unless they have a sick sense of humor...don't push the corpse's face into a frown.
If you look at photos of deceased people in old photos...ones that specifically ARE of deceased persons, not just someone who you think looks dead...you will see that they have no facial expression. If anything, they look asleep.
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Ree Young so, I'm thinking she'd be better looking dead??
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Jen Fendley I also wondered if the woman seated is dead, as the aforementioned tradition. If you're certain she's alive then she just looks plain creepy!!
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Ree Young as a lover of the macabre, I've researched postpartum photographs and there are plenty of pictures of the deceased standing, sitting, and with eyes wide open
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More often than not, the dead are horizontal in post mortem photos.
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Jen Fendley That is a fallacy. There were some post-mortem photos but the idea that they sat them up like that is false.
Ree Young
1 follower 234 favorites
03/25/2019
Kimberly Line It's not about her eyes being open. It's the deep frown. That requires muscles to be tensed. I'm a history buff and into the macabre, too (as are my two weird sons LOL!).And I've had a course in forensic pathology. Dead people, especially after being "fixed up" by a mortician, do not look angry like that, nor would the family of the deceased want them to.
I think you mean "postmortem" rather than "postpartum."
I think you mean "postmortem" rather than "postpartum."
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Andrea Wheeler postpartum?? After giving birth??
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Jen Fendley - I think you are right. The dark areas on the elderly woman’s cheeks and hands could be indications of decomposition. The flowers and bible are also indications.
Ree Young
1 follower 234 favorites
03/25/2019
Why do you think it's not 1903? That was the early Edwardian period. The clothes fit the period. My dad was born in 1901, 10 months after Queen Victoria died. Photos from that time period show these fashions.
The old woman has the same expression I have when my arthritis hurts and/or when someone wants to take my photo!!
She does look like she's in constant pain. Chronic pain can cause frowns, deep facial lines, etc. I don't know why people think every unsmiling, stiff person in an old picture has to be dead. Some people have a resting b**** face, and the older they get, the more somber they tend to look.
I have friends in Canada...Bread and Cheese Cove is in Newfoundland, Canada.
The old woman has the same expression I have when my arthritis hurts and/or when someone wants to take my photo!!
She does look like she's in constant pain. Chronic pain can cause frowns, deep facial lines, etc. I don't know why people think every unsmiling, stiff person in an old picture has to be dead. Some people have a resting b**** face, and the older they get, the more somber they tend to look.
I have friends in Canada...Bread and Cheese Cove is in Newfoundland, Canada.
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Ree Young - "resting b**** face"! 😂😂😂 From now on, when I see one = RBF! 😂
Ree Young
1 follower 234 favorites
03/25/2019
Karen Turnbull My mouth curves down naturally, so if I'm not actually smiling or frowning, I apparently look unhappy . I've had people walk by while I'm just standing there not thinking of much of anything, and actually say things like, "Smile...it can't be that bad!"
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Ree Young add Bells Palsy at a young age with a mouth that naturally curves down. People think I am mad all the time.
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Ree Young as soon as I read the name I knew it had to be Newfoundland.....from 🇨🇦
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Ree Young - Apparently, I have a "Resting-sad-face". I am asked, Why so sad?" Funny, cuz I didn't realize I have this. 😥 I actually meant to put a smiley face. 😂
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Resting b**** face? Perhaps she's an INTJ female prior to the Myers-Briggs personality test. Our category "looks mean" and "thinks too much for females"🙄
Ree Young
1 follower 234 favorites
03/25/2019
Lynda Locksley Very possible! It happens that I am an INTJ!😀
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Ree Young its an age thing...everything starts drooping/sagging
Ree Young
1 follower 234 favorites
03/25/2019
Denise Haddock Haines Boy, do I know how that goes! I'm 70!! Gravity has become Public Enemy #1!
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Ree Young Grumpy Cat has the same complaint.
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So many people are quick to jump on the post mortem idea, I think she’s just old and cranky
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I agree. And hey, ... she'd probably buried more babies than she'd raised and had a mouth full of painfully rotten teeth - why wouldn't she be cranky?
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Could she be wearing “mourning” clothing, maybe recently lost spouse? She does look in pain!
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Beverly Davis Actually the kid in front looks post modem.
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It appears “eyes” are painted on closed eyelids as was common in post Morten photos, especially the young boy in the right corner.
Ree Young
1 follower 234 favorites
03/27/2019
Gail Young Dodson Some of the children have blue eyes, not brown. The old lady has blue eyes, too.
I have photographs from the 1930s that show my mother and her sisters...the photos are fading, but it's clear that my mom had brown (darker) eyes and her 2 sisters had blue (lighter) eyes. I knew my aunts and their eye color, so I can guarantee that blue eyes in older black-and-white or sepia-toned photos look very light
Also, it's plain that the photo is faded toward the lower section and around to the side.
If anyone is interested in more facts as opposed to hearsay about post mortem photos, this is a good site:
I have photographs from the 1930s that show my mother and her sisters...the photos are fading, but it's clear that my mom had brown (darker) eyes and her 2 sisters had blue (lighter) eyes. I knew my aunts and their eye color, so I can guarantee that blue eyes in older black-and-white or sepia-toned photos look very light
Also, it's plain that the photo is faded toward the lower section and around to the side.
If anyone is interested in more facts as opposed to hearsay about post mortem photos, this is a good site:
Susan Schloss
1 follower 496 favorites
03/25/2019
I wouldn't want to be near Granny! In fact, all of them are quite angry/scary/mean-looking!
via Facebook
Wow, what a testament to the drudgery of life during that period! Every last one of them looks evil, bitter, unhappy, possessed, exhausted, or screaming "HELP" from the inside !! Let's all show this to our children and tell them how lucky they are !!
via Facebook
Oh they're not that bad. The women look tired - but they probably were. The kids look unimpressed, but they were probably being made to stand still for a long time in hot itchy clothes waiting for the photo to expose. And the old woman does look grumpy, but she was probably tired and in pain and couldn't be bothered with all this modern tomfoolery. Can't say I blame her! :-)
Nancy Rist
1 follower 10 favorites
03/25/2019
I think she's stooped and is trying to raise her head for the picture. A lot of old people look mad or mean and really aren't. I looked in the mirror to check my "don't do that" look that I give kids and realized I looked like a very evil witch. LOL
Nancy Rist
1 follower 10 favorites
03/25/2019
And the kids are probably thinking "I have things to do. Let's get this over with.".
via Facebook
If the old lady was dead the other women would be dressed in black. She was probably just pissed at how long the photographer was taking to take the photo
via Facebook
Women went through a lot of physical work back in the day and just having no air conditioning I’d look like that in one summer !! 😳 She looks worn like leather.
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Elena. She looks alive to me. Her hands look alive..it says she died in 1908. I have seen a lot of death photos. She just doesn’t look dead but I’ve been wrong before.
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Awesome pic! Grandma looks like she cant see well, and perhaps has suffered a lot of pain. Its incredible to realize how advanced we have become in medicine, but back then people really suffered. The children dont look like theyre scared of her, do they!?
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I've read a few suggestions of why this photo is so attention getting. I'll add my thoughts. I see this photo and think that the only time my family is together for photos is after a death, for the funeral. Someone insists on getting the camera no matter how upset we are. And this mix of expressions seems appropriate to me in that scenario. I'm not suggesting the gentle-woman in the center is deceased. Just that the expressions say STRESS to me, and my first reaction was to question which one is the new widow and which one just lost her son? Plus there is no adult male in the picture. Maybe I have too much imagination.
Paul Sieg
13 favorites
03/25/2019
Bonnie Lease Uh.... when she spoke, I guess you listened. Or, her panties truly were in a bunch. 😎
Patrick James
1 follower 33 favorites
03/25/2019
Well one thing is for sure, they're all dead now.
via Facebook
She may not actually be alive. Notice the way the woman behind her holds her shoulder as if to prop her up. In those days, pictures were taken off dead relatives amongst the living, in a poise like that so that the family could remember them. If you Google it, you'll see some really ghoulish ones, like children propped up to stand near live siblings.
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I love the photo thankyou for sharing. I see a very strong female head of the family matriarch .She's doing a wonderful job in difficult times to raise the young ones on her own I think if her husband was alive he'd be in the photo. They are dressed so well possibly all hand made clothes from mum . The love obviously there positioned so close to her ,hands on her to show love and respect..she obviously also cares for a beautiful garden look at the beautiful bouquets of flowers makes me think of a significant occasion that day to dress in there best clothes and have the bouquets ...I think photo taken outside their local church and she has her bible on her lap
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Gail Wright LMAO off Gail. No, it's all those kids. They'll do that to a body. I know....
Wendy Reardon 
Donna Michaud
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Probably the same number of houses as when that photo was taken, too.
Kim Zaczynski
via Facebook
Lots of disease and no vaccinations, no government assistance, no McDonald’s, no AC, no trauma centers around the corner, no 911, it was a hard life and a lot of those sarcastically commenting are very lucky that they dont have a clue what that is like. Bet if we somehow lost all this most wouldn't Have the survival skills to Last a year much less live to see grandkids like this woman did. Average lifespan at this time for the Middle class was about 41 years.
via Facebook
This is before people were told to say cheese so no smiling. The older woman was surely used to the photography that required everyone to take a deep breath and hold it so the body didn't move and to stare without blinking as the exposure took a long time. Most of the really old group photos show people with thick necks from holding breath and weird faces with eyes looking strange. They were also told not to move their eyes around as they would blur and look blind.
via Facebook
Séverine je suis sûre que c'est la femme du gars qu'on à trouvé en photo. ,😂
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Can’t be a death photo, the dead can definitely not hold a furrowed brow like that.
That’s just plain old angry age we got going there. 😁
That’s just plain old angry age we got going there. 😁
Paula Rodrigues
1 follower 303 favorites
03/29/2019
The old woman looks savage!
Gloria Hayes
1 follower 5 favorites
04/08/2019
Grandma is having to face the sun while the picture is being taken and hold the pose with her eyes open for what would be a a long time, to someone old with cataracts, glaucoma, and sensitivity to glare in their old eyeballs.
via Facebook
Bread and Cheese Cove is a real place in Newfoundland in Canada! It was renamed to Bishop's Cove .
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Lori Russell
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