Leap Year Party of the Gay Nineties

Source: Osceola Centennial Issue...1851 to 1951, Osceola Sentinel, August 2, 1951, Section 5, p. 7.

Social Note: It was a gay party that gathered at the home of Miss Ethel Dague at the corner of Cass and Temple streets on the evening of September 30, 1896. It was an occasion long to be remembered, for Milt Gregg brought his camera and newfangled flash pan and took a picture of the crowd at the height of its merry-making! When the smoke from the magnesium powder cleared away and the room was aired out to get the sting of the acrid fumes out of their eyes, the daring game of whist was resumed! Mrs. Archie Wade says it was a Halloween Leap-year party.

Those appearing in the photo are, from left to right in the outside semi-circle: Maude Forney; Fanny Dague (Mrs. O.M. Slaymaker); these two served the refreshments; Will Trent, Blanche Painter, Archie Wade, Bernice Thurston (Mrs. A. F. Wade), A. A. Nowers, Nora Sonner (Mrs. Frank Edwards);

Second row: Eva Mcintire (Galloway), Lou Emery (Mrs. Johnson Richards), Johnson Richards, Jean Bashor, Will Temple, Grace Thompson, Roy Armstrong.

Seated in front: George White and Ethel Dague (Mrs. Roy Armstrong).


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