A handsome young man signed, dated and identified his location on the back of this Carte de Visite:   “Your Friend. Frank McMullen. Dayton O. 9/22/84.”

If Frank is about eighteen in this photo, he would have been born about 1866. An 1880 Federal Census record for Dayton, Ohio, shows young Frank, about age 15 (born about 1865) living with his sister, Eva (McMullen) Hanitch; brother-in-law Henry Hanitch, and nephew, three-month-old Walter Hanitch. The address for the family is 207 Water St.

The 1870 census for German Township (about 33 miles southwest of Dayton) shows more McMullens:  Anne, age 37; Eva, age 16; Emma, age 7, as well as Frank, age 5. They are living with the Schaeffer family, and presumably, Anne McMullen is the mother. This record fits since we have Eva and Frank, and also ties into a later Dayton city directory (1893) that shows Ann (the widow of John and confirming Anne as the mother), Frank and younger sister Emma, living at 136 N. Sunset Avenue, in Dayton. In 1893 Frank is working as a traveling salesman for Thresher & Co.

A much earlier Dayton city directory (1881) shows Frank working as a clerk at 17 S. Main St., boarding at 207 W. Water, between Wilkinson and Liberty. So, Frank was out in the work force at least as early as about age sixteen.

Carte de Visite. Dated September 22, 1884. Dayton, Ohio.

Price:  $12.00     Size:  About 2 and 1/2 x 4 and 1/8″

Sources:  Year: 1880; Census Place: Dayton, Montgomery, Ohio; Roll: 1051; Family History Film: 1255051; Page: 106C; Enumeration District: 151; Image: 0211. (Ancestry.com)

Year: 1870; Census Place: German, Montgomery, Ohio; Roll: M593_1248; Page: 475B; Image: 174; Family History Library Film: 552747. (Ancestry.com)

Williams & Co.’s Williams’ Dayton Directory, 1881 – ’82. p. 291. (Ancestry.com. U.S. City Directories, 1822-1989.)

Williams & Co.’s Williams’ Dayton Directory, 1893 – ’94. p. 552. (Ancestry.com. U.S. City Directories, 1822-1989.)