Billy and Anna Meyer family photo

William "Billy" Meyer married Anna Otremba circa 1875.  Their first child, August, was born in 1876.  In the 1885 Minnesota census, the young couple lived with Katherina Otremba (Anton's widow) and some of Anna's sibs.  Anna was a sister to Mary (Otremba) Hesch, Paul's wife, and our great grandmother, ok?   To grandma Lizzy, they were Aunt Anna and Uncle Billy ☺.

Back to 1885: Billy and Anna had 5 kids by then: August, Mary, Katherine, Willy and Anna (different and unusual names, huh?)  Twenty years later, in the 1905 Minnesota census, the additional kids were Katie, Maggie, Joseph, Anton, Cecilia, Lizzy and Mathias.

So, trying to figure out what year the above photo was taken, would you say the youngest kid looks about 10?  Then this was about 1900.  Billy would have been 49, and Anna, 43.

There are two especially cool things about this: 

1) the photo I found in the Atlas was tiny--3 inches by 2 inches--but just look how clear it is.  We were meant to find it ☺! And

2) We first ID'd Billy Meyer and Anna Otremba on the right in this picture.  We figure it was summer, 1925.  By summer 1926, both John Hesch and Billy Meyer were gone...John in January and Billy in March of 1926.

Credit: Family Search and The Pictorial Atlas of Morrison County, Minnesota.