I thought I would start this blog by describing the photo I have chosen as a banner.   This is a picture that my mother gave to me in August of 2003 when my parents (Burt and Cleo Matteson)  were downsizing from their townhouse in Houston to go into  independent living.  

It is a photo that was among her mother-in-law’s photographs.    My mother believed that the photo  shows the Matteson family in upstate New York before the family migrated to Illinois.   So it would have been in the mid-1800′s.    We are not sure  who is who in the photograph.   I suppose that Hiram Matteson, my great-grandfather is in this picture and perhaps my grandfather, Burton James Matteson, but I cannot be sure.    

What I find most fascinating about this photo is the horse with  its head up high.   If you recall from reading Anna Sewell’s classic children’s book, Black Beauty, the use of the bearing rein was what spoiled Ginger, the beautiful chestnut  coach horse.   This photograph illustrates perfectly the use of the bearing rein which was so fashionable at the time.   As I recall, Black Beauty was written in 1873.  

My grandfather, Burton James Matteson, was born in Clayton, NY in 1863.    

Does anyone know where this house is and whether or not it is still standing?