Write a commentThe Oswego Public Library Board of Trustees will be hosting a reception from 2-4 p.m., Sunday, March 3, to recognize former trustees Mary Shanley, Ellie Cali and Charles Young.
Reservations may be made by calling the library at 341-5867.
Those attending the reception are also invited to enjoy the 110-year-old black-and-white photographs in the lower level gallery. These were digitized from the original glass plate negatives through the efforts of director Carol Ferlito with help from a NNYLN (Northern New York Library Network) grant. Research by librarian Edward Elsner has shown the photographer to be Ella Wheeler, of 138 W. Fourth St., and later boarding at 22 W. Oneida St.
History of Ella Wheeler
Fred Dobbie Wheeler married Ella Merrill Crippen Jan. 29, 1880, in Batavia. Ella joined Fred at his place in Oswego and they eventually built a house together in the city. They had their first child in December of that year, Mabel Estelle Wheeler. Walter and Pauline soon followed in 1883 and 1885. The 1897-1898 Boyd's Oswego City Directory shows Fred D. Wheeler as city clerk and has an ad for his fire insurance business in the Second National Bank Buildling at East First and Bridge streets. He also dealt in the coal business and was at one time and alderman for the Third Ward.
Fred and Ella Wheeler lived at 138 W. Fourth St. in the house they built there. It was sold on his passing in 1904 and is now the Reynolds & McGowan Law
Firm.
After his passing, Ella boarded at 22 W. Oneida St., where physician Dr. D. O'Brien was located. The 1910 Oswego City Directory published by Sampson & Murdock says she "moved from city."
Mabel Estelle Wheeler and her mother moved to San Francisco in 1910. Mabel married Edward Seymour Walton of New Orleans, a U.S. Army Quartermaster and Captain, on April 7, 1913. She passed in 1940 according to their tombstone in Riverside Cemetery and is buried with her sister Elma, husband Fred, and daughter Pauline, who died when she was 13.
