Tuesday, February 21, 2012

I have created a podcast about Mary (Polly) Galland Casto.
The biography was written by Ina Hunt Tuft, a great granddaughter of Polly's, about 20 years ago.
In about 1995, at a family reunion, Ina dressed in a costume identical to what Polly is wearing in the photo I am posting today, and read from the biography. We videotaped this performance, but I have been unable to locate the tape at this time. If and when I do locate it, I will look into posting it on this blog.
As I recall, Ina was wearing the same cap and jewelry that Polly is wearing, but I believe she made the dress she wore out of very similar fabric.

Friday, February 10, 2012

I was able to complete editing the Wikipedia article about Isaac Galland. This was really challenging, because the photograph of the George Caleb Bingham portrait is copyrighted by the photographer, and Wikipedia has blocked the website where it is hosted. The website link goes to a gallery and it is difficult to find the exact photo you are looking for; also they apparently have had several broken links referring to images on the travelphotobase.com website.
Isaac Galland was a very complex person. He did many great things, yet he had a dark side.
Susan Easton Black wrote an article called "Isaac Galland: Both Sides of the River, found at http://www.mormonhistoricsitesfoundation.org/publications/nj_fall1996/Black.pdf, which shows Isaac's both sides.