Circa 1915, this photo of a Craig County, Virginia farming family might have been taken to celebrate a wedding. Note, the flowers and the hairpiece on the woman on the far right. The patriarch of the family, seated, is Oscar Washington Carper. Oscar and his wife Amanda had eleven children together.
Oscar was a survivor of the third, and bloodiest day at the Battle of Gettysburg. He served with the 28th Virginia Regiment, Company C. He was captured at "The Angle" following General Pickett's ill-fated charge. He was paroled February 16, 1865 and returned to Craig County where he then married Amanda Leffel on 11 July 1866.
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A treasured photograph from my cousin's collection, this is Charles and Ellen McKenzie of Avilton, Maryland. Together they had twelve children. Not all would survive childhood, indeed even the teen years were fraught with danger (in the coal mines and they lost a son in a mining accident.) She died at the young age of just 35, a month after giving birth to her last child from peritonitis resulting from a gallbladder attack. She left behind children ranging from 1 month to 17 years of age. Charles, "Barney" as his friends called him, did as his wife begged him on her death bed, and kept the children together. No easy feat for a widower in those days I am sure.