LIA Newsletter 10

New Photography

Driving cross country last week, I added to my collection of state capitol buildings. I already had Montana, Wyoming, Iowa and West Virginia, but this trip allowed me to add more. On October 9th, 2025, we got off the interstate in Lincoln, Nebraska.

Two state’s later, we took a side trip to Springfield to capture the Illinois State Capitol.

I’ve driven through Indianapolis many times without ever getting off the Interstate. This time we found our way to the capitol building, only to find that it is being renovated with heavy equipment and scaffolding everywhere. I took several shots and am now working with Photoshop to remove all those pesky distractions. Here is a work in progress.

All my trips through Ohio have by-passed Columbus, but this time I had a reason for heading into town. Here’s one view of the state capitol.

When I get home, I will put these together with other shots to create a 2026 calendar of state capitol buildings.

What I’m up to

This has been a week plus of discoveries. On several levels.

Equality, or Wyoming

First, as I work on my upcoming coffee table photo book, Equality: A Photographic Portrait of Wyoming’s Twenty-three Counties, I was able to photograph Sublette, Sweetwater, and Albany Counties, as well as add to the photos I already had for Teton, Carbon, and Laramie Counties. The project is coming along nicely.

State Capitols

And as I noted in the column to the left, I was able to add four more state capitol buildings to my collection. I have now been in forty-five states and have photographed the state capitol buildings in sixteen. Strangely, thou.gh I have thousands of photos I’ve taken in Oregon and California, I’ve never shot either state capitol.

Family History

Most exciting for me is what I have learned about my own family. Yesterday, Cousin Ron and I spent two hours at the Phelps Tavenner House here in Parkersburg. The brick house was built in 1798 and is the oldest brick house in Wood County. It now serves as a museum and historical library. Our great grandmother was born Mary Elizabeth Phelps in 1835. I was hoping to learn more about her parents, but no luck. I did learn a lot about Jesse and Mary Kincheloe, the seventy year-old couple with whom she lived in 1850.

The Genealogy Room

Then in the afternoon, Ron and I spent another two hours in the Genealogy Room at the Wood County Library. There we found the obituaries for Mary Elizabeth, her husband Henry Leonard Stephens, and our uncle Virgil Stephens, who drowned while canoeing the Ohio River in 1946. Uncle Virgil’s was not a real obit, but rather a front page story about the accident that led to his death.

Great Grandpa’s was a real obit, buried on page 8 of the paper. It was interesting primarily because they got his name wrong, TWICE. The headline called him Rev. F.L. Stephens, and the first line, immediately below, had T.L Stephens. OK, so the typesetter was drunk. His initials were H.L. But I never heard he was a minister, let alone in the United Brethren Church as his obit states. I’ll be checking church records today.

Great Grandma

But Great Grandma’s obit was a hoot! Front page news with the headline “MRS. STEPHENS IS DEAD, AGED 83.” When the genealogist saw that, he said “She must have been important.” When I replied that her maiden name was Phelps, he said “That explains it.”

The obituary lists survivors, including Grandpa, and says that she was a “devout member of the Methodist Episcopal church” and says that she was to be buried in the M.E. church’s cemetery near her home. Again, I’ll be checking church records later today.

A Very Brief History of Methodism in the US

For my readers who don’t know Methodist history, from its beginnings in 1784 up to 1939, much of what we now know as the United Methodist Church was called the Methodist Episcopal Church. And the “United” was added in 1968, when the Methodists merged with the Evangelical United Brethren church. Don’t know why Great Grandpa would have been U.B. and his wife M.E. To quote Oscar Hammerstein, “Tis a puzzlement.”

Recent Sales

On October 13th, 2025, a customer in Nebraska bought this 11 oz mug with a black handle and interior.

On October 11th, 2025, a RedBubble customer bought this image in the form of a small sticker.

While, I was driving cross-country, a customer in South Carolina bought this image as an 11×14 inch photographic print.

On October 8th, a customer in Michigan ordered this 15 oz all white mug.

On October 6th, 2025, a customer in Wisconsin bought this 15oz mug.

Two weeks ago, I noted that a potential customer had sent me a photo of her father’s 1951 Willys-Overland Jeep Pickup. I used that photo to design a mug which she purchased on October 2nd, 2025.