Old photographs come to me separated from their histories. Dealers cut them out of albums, and take them out of a boxed collections, so by the time that I purchase them, all I know is what I see.
What I see here is a young boy with two very loved and well-cared for goats. Just look the goats’ trimmed and buttoned wool coats! The smile on the lefthand goat reminds me very much of Pip. Don’t you agree?
There must be a story. He’s Professor Ring? The goats perform? I’ve looked on-line and there’s a mention in a Utah newspaper from 1893, but the archive is locked. I have a very busy day today, and am headed out the door; tomorrow I’ll go to my wonderful town library, with it’s wonderful research librarian, and see if I can find out more. But, I couldn’t wait to share this with you. While I’m uncovering the true story, let’s make one up. I imagine that there is a balancing act and hoops. What do you think these goats do when they perform?
Must be so fun to hunt for the story! This image sure conjures creative thoughts. And I think Pip and Caper should have little coats like these.
well . . . . the one on the left who looks like pip – he’s the comedian. the one on the right probably does something to get food – lay down, roll over whatever – stand up on 2 back feet and beg – and then whamo! gets a goat surprise by the silly laugh-get-er.
i don’t know – but i’ll bet they earned their keep!
jean
I thought that maybe they were goat wrestlers. With those horns they could give some really good headbutts. Then I thought with those hooves they could have been good tapdancers. I also thought they could be contestants in a food eating contest, after all, goats do love to eat. But then I thought you must be right Terry their talent probably does involve a balancing and hoop act. It would be nice to know what they really did, good luck researching.
We hope they tap dance and you upload the achived footage to you tube tomorrow.
Yes, the goat on the left has a smile like Pip’s. I’m not sure what kind of goats those are but perhaps Alpine with their long fur. It must be cold for them to have coats even with their lovely fur. When you find out more about this tio, please share it with us.
I found this link while doing my genealogy and was able to get the digital obits for all of my family. You might be able to find something here. http://news.google.com/newspapers. Do you know the name of the newspaper?
I did a google search too “professor ring” “utah” “1893” and found this link. http://chroniclingamerica.loc.gov/lccn/sn85058130/1893-12-15/ed-1/seq-2/;words=UTAH+professor+Utah+ring+1893
The story that came up was not about your professor ring but at least you might have the online newspaper link.
Great link! But, sadly, add “goat” to the search parameters and nothing comes up. The librarian at my small town library lives for this sort of question (at least I like to think she does as she always looks delighted when I come in) so I will see what she can find out this afternoon.
I put in “goats” and it found 269.
http://chroniclingamerica.loc.gov/search/pages/results/?state=Utah&date1=1893&date2=1893&proxtext=%22goats%22&dateFilterType=yearRange&rows=20&searchType=basic&x=18&y=13
Sorry the Tribune does not go back to 1893 :-\