Overson family photograph collection

Photographs and negatives relating mostly to the Overson family of St. Johns, Arizona but also from Charles Jarvis and later Margaret Overson's photography business in St. Johns. The images include Overson and related family members, Mormon groups, student class groups, high school sports teams, and a few St. Johns celebrations and street scenes.

Photographs known to be taken by Charles Jarvis consist of a small number of cabinet cards with his studio imprint. These are all studio portraits of individuals, children, and families, taken circa 1890 to 1910, and most appear to be family members although they are unidentified. There are a few school group and church group images probably taken during the late 1890s and forward.

Except for family photographs of Overson children and their activities, most of the collection represents the 1920s to 1940s, a time when Margaret's children were in high school and then marrying and starting their own families. Most of these images are of unidentified family members, and a smaller amount are unidentified portraits of others.

There are also some images of school buildings and students including high school sports teams, bands, drama productions, and graduating classes, mostly from the late 1910s to the late 1930s. Also present are a few images of Mormon church leaders and church groups, women's groups, and a boy scout camping trip (ca. 1930s).

Other highlights include a few images of parades and parade floats, celebrations, cart races at the 1937 Golden Jubilee Parade, and Henry Victor Overson dressed as "Uncle Sam" for a holiday. Other views of rural life include hay harvests, picnics and excursions, building construction, women's gatherings, and home interiors. One image shows a large meterorite on a flat-bed railroad car.

The images are mostly unidentified but some information can be taken from the content, from published histories of St. Johns, and from Margaret J. Overson's published family history which reproduced some of the images. All the images were scanned and are available in digital format. There is a good amount of duplication in the digital scans because images were sometimes scanned as negatives and then as prints, and each print was scanned even if it was a duplicate.

See the spreadsheet for the Overson Family Photographs for more specific information. Please contact an archivist to view spreadsheet.