John C. Nichols and Eunice C. Amick Nichols?, photo found in Lenoir City, TN

Front

On the lower front of the photo the words “Beckwith Studio, So. Sioux City, Neb.” are stamped into the photo paper.

Back

The back of the photo has the words “POST CARD, CORRESPONDENCE, ADDRESS, and PLACE STAMP HERE” lightly printed on the back of the photo.

The handwritten label “Grandma & Grandpa Nichols” and the name “Ruth” are written in the same handwriting and with the same red pen. There is also a handwritten number 3 with a circle around it written with a pencil or fine black pen.

Explanation

We found this photo lying in the middle of the road on Twin Coves Circle in Lenoir City, TN around October 26, 2022. The photo was in very good shape. It had not rained during the previous few days and there is very little traffic on Twin Coves Circle, so the photo could have been dropped on the road a few days before that. We displayed a sign about the lost photo on our mailbox for about two weeks, hoping that if someone in our neighborhood had lost it, they would notice the sign. I also searched for local Nichols families but did not find any Nichols in our area.

I then started analyzing the photo to see if I could find the owners of the photo by finding the people in the photo. A call to the longest-operating photography studio in South Sioux City did not reveal any information about the Beckwith Studio where the photo was taken.

I then learned that formatting photos so that they could serve as postcards started in around 1902, so the picture must have been taken after 1902.

By starting with census records, I was able to determine that the Beckwith of the Beckwith Studio was Mentor Sidney Beckwith (June 3, 1883 – August 25, 1968) who operated his photography studio in South Sioux City, NE between 1918 and 1936. I estimated that the people in the picture were about 50-60 years old when the photo was taken.

I then used census records to discover a “John Charles Nichols” and his wife “Eunice Chloe Amick Nichols” who were both born in the 1880s and were living in nearby Summit, Dakota County, NE during the years when the photograph was taken. This couple also had a daughter named “Ruth”.

It is my best guess that John C. and Eunice Nichols are the couple in the photograph. What I cannot explain is how their photo would have ended-up on a road in Tennessee. I’m hoping that uploading this photo will allow it to be claimed by relatives of this couple.