19 readers of Walking the Berkshires cast their vote in the 14th Family Archive Caption Contest. 8 (42.1%) of you, supported the leading caption, while 6 (31.6%) supported the next most popular submission.
As we had an exceptionally fine field (with a late write-in, no less), it was down to the wire until the polls closed today, but with no super-delegates to haggle over, this is a winner take all event. It therefore gives me great pleasure to announce that Anthony Turner has prevailed with his classic offering:
"I'd Walk a Camel for a Smile."
This rather extraordinary image is my Great, Great grandmother Alice Jane (Greene) Barker on an Egyptian holiday at Giza in 1904. She is clad in mourning for her late husband, Samuel Barker, Jr., who died the previous year. She was accompanied on this trip by her son Lloyd (not to be confused with the criminal of that name), who had suffered from respiratory problems since childhood.
Now I have ridden on a camel in the the semi-desert of northwestern Namibia but never attempted to do so side-saddle, let alone clad from head to toe in heavy black. Alice Jane Greene Barker was a published poet and an indomitable traveler, but this picture which my cousin Karen found recently is the first I was aware that she had sojourned to the Sphinx! She also had very strong genes, as there is much in her facial features that strongly resembles her son Raymond H. Barker, Sr. and her grandson Robert H. Barker (my grandfather).
What a sensational picture. And that is a great caption, too!
Posted by: Lidian | March 07, 2008 at 04:58 PM