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Emma and Emil Beckmann look out from their wedding portrait in the hallway that connects the front and back porches of their house. I saw many things that had been theirs when I first visited the Beckmann house, but it was the wedding portrait that I kept returning to. Nothing else captured my interest as quickly or held it as long as that picture. It told me what Emma and Emil looked like, but it also prompted lots of questions.

I wondered about Emma as a person. To my knowledge, she had accomplished nothing extraordinary. That, in itself, made her special. I wanted to know about her, to understand her, and to find out how she was connected to her place and her time. The wedding portrait, rich with hints about the young couple and their wedding, fascinated me. The more I looked at it, the more I saw:

Emma's dark hair and eyes, her intense expression, the bleached-out whiteness of her dress, the tiny waist, the visible tip of her shoe,

the shadows beneath her dress, ,

her headdress

and buttoned gloves, so bright against Emil's darker hand.

What, I wondered, would Emma say to me if I could move back in time? At that moment, I decided to search for Emma. As I studied the photograph, my first thoughts were of Emma's appearance.

Through a magnifying glass, I noted her rounded face, shortened in appearance by some curly wisps of a pompadour that dips down over her forehead. Emma's dark hair is pulled back from her face and seems secured at the nape of her neck. I guess that her tresses were long. Her dark eyes seem to be looking directly at me. (Had she been instructed to look directly into the camera?) The gaze is intense; the eyes have the largeness of youth. Emma has the look of a little girl here. How old was she when she married?

Emil seems fairer of hair and eyes, too, by comparison with his bride. His eyes are set closer together than Emma's and his mouth is fuller. He looks older, perhaps by a few years, but still of Emma's generation. Was he?

Emil's hands are darker than his face and appear roughened. Veins stand out. His work was, no doubt, physical and out-of-doors. Yet his fingernails are almost as light as Emma's gloves.

The groom's highly polished shoes show dust in their creases. His suit does not fit him as well as Emma's dress fits hers -- the pants drape over his instep and heel; the crease is off-center.

Emma's dress has a high lace-edged collar and leg-o'-mutton sleeves. Just beneath the blouson bodice, Emma's waist is narrow and well-defined. She must have been wearing a corset. Was she warning her mother's wedding dress?

A painted backdrop is behind the couple.

I reasoned that the photograph was made by a photographer because only they owned backdrops of this type. But I could find no photographer's name or location on the photo; none is embossed on the poster board on which the picture is mounted. At first I thought that the picture was made in a studio. But some pieces of evidence within the picture itself contradict that assumption; the toe of Emil's' shoe has cast a shadow directly beneath it. Emma's dress is so bleached by light that details are imperceptible. And little tufts of something appear at the backdrop's base. Some viewers think it's grass. I think that it's the fringed edge of a carpet. Maybe the backdrop was hung from a porch framework and the picture taken out-of-doors. Or perhaps the couple is standing on a rug in a studio. Who was the photographer? Where was the portrait made? When was it made -- on the Beckmann's wedding day or at some other time? What about a celebration--did they have one? Was their wedding like any I knew? What happened on that day?

These explorations are described in Chapter Two of The Search for Emma's Story.