Three more of Lada Draskovic's Sweetniks dolls

Since 2011, I've felt an obligation for Papergreat to serve as a repository for all that we know about Lada Draskovic and her Sweetniks dolls. It's not much, but I hope that gathering it all here will prove useful to some future researcher or internet sleuth who can take the story across the finish line.

These are the Papergreat posts, from oldest to newest:

• Doll fads of 1960
• From the Notepad: Cool links, Lada Draskovic, Twitter and more
• Reader comments: Lincoln life mask, Sweetniks and more
• The Incomplete Lada Draskovic
• An addendum to "The Incomplete Lada Draskovic"
• Extremely rare Sweetnik doll by Lada Draskovic hits eBay
• Another Sweetniks doll by Lada Draskovic surfaces

And now there are three more Sweetniks dolls on eBay that I was previously unaware of. It's really amazing how no two of these dolls by Draskovic seem to be alike. And that so many of them have survived for more than a half-century. The eBay lots and their photos won't be around forever, so I want to post the images here for posterity.

1. This one is listed on eBay as "Vintage 1960’s Sweetnik Doll By Lada Draskovic blonde gold necklace"

2. This one is listed (and misspelled) on eBay as "VTG 1960's "Sweentnik" Beatnik Doll Saks Fifth Avenue Lada Draskovic Rome Italy"

3. And this one is listed on eBay (for more than $3,200!) as "Vintage Original Sweetnik Doll Handmade in Rome Italy In The 1960's by Lada Dras." The description states that it's 13.25 inches tall and adds: "The jewelry is really very cool. There are 3 different long dangle necklaces/chains that adorn her dress. Each one has a slightly different tone and texture. On her left arm there are 4 gold tone bangle bracelets. Her head is ceramic with glued yarn hair and hand painted face. Her face is just stunning in perfect condition. Beautiful long yarn hair is a pale pink color with really cute bangs. Her body is made of a stick, arms are made of pipe cleaners. Her dress is cardboard with navy blue ribbed cloth covering. Adorable navy turtle neck with long sleeves. She sports a pair of light blue cigarette pants that are made of corduroy. Her toenails are painted red on her wooden feet that are very cool sandals. The base of her feet is black velvet with a distinctive heel. This doll is just perfect. She is probably one of a kind."

The Sunbonnet Women of America and their 1925 Halloween seance

Witches! A seance! And a dance!

Oh my. It's a History Mystery. I want to know everything that can be known about the Sunbonnet Women of America. There are only a handful of clippings, all from 1925, about this group on Newspapers.com, and there's zilch on Google.

It's the above clipping that first caught my eye. Headlined "Wicked Witches Listed At Pre-Halloween Seance," it's from the October 18, 1925, edition of The Sunday Star of Washington, D.C. — exactly 99 years ago today. The Sunday Star was the Sunday edition of the Washington Evening Star.

The first paragraph states: "The Sunbonnet Women of America wish to solve the problems of their business brothers and sisters, so they invite them to come and help invoke the wiles of the 'wickedest witches' in a pre-Halloween seance and dance Thursday evening, October 29, at the Central Armory, Eleventh and Clifton streets northwestern."

The invitation itself is in verse:

So the ancient near-witch, Sunbonnet Sue,

Extends a summons to all of you

Who'd dance and laugh and brew and plot

To try the luck of the witches pot.

Disguise yourselves in Halloween hues,

If you'd be favored in the pot that brews,

And present your card at the door of Fate

For the fun begins at half-past eight.

There are favors that may be got,

So be on time to brew in the pot;

You may not know, but it sure is true,

Sunbonnet girls are among the few

Descended from the Salem witches

And work their wiles for Halloween wishers.

"Now, come you all, so eager to learn

If Fate for you her wheel will turn.

The business men do recognize

The worth of Sunbonnets wary and wise,

So they have placed in the witches's pot

Some lovely things which they will plot

That may be won by only those

Who please the witches by their clothes.

Now, brothers and sisters, eager and true,

Dress up quite well, it may be you."

Yes, the 1920s were certainly roaring. This was not an event to be missed. Keep in mind, though, that it was held in the midst of the Prohibition. Given the very public nature of the event, it's unlikely that there would have been any alcohol openly served. But perhaps some was smuggled in or, ahem, conjured. Maybe some historians who are most astute than I am about the skirting of Prohibition laws see some hints within the witches' invitation regarding what would be available at the dance.

The last paragraph lists some of the newest members of the Sunbonnet Women of America, "all prominent in Government, professional and business circles." I'm going to list them here, because maybe this post will help someone track down something new about one of their ancestors:

Mrs. Susie Moore

Miss Helen E. Burnett

Miss Helen C. Clark

Miss Nita S. Hinman

Mrs. Amelia E. Byrne

Mrs. Elsie C. Gulli

Miss Elizabeth M. Wall

Mrs. Mabel Driver

Miss Elizabeth K. Prender

Miss Mabel J. Carter

Miss Bertha V. Zeller

Miss Alice M. Blandforth

Miss Margaret R. Shedd

Miss Annie Louis Carroll

Miss Edith L. Tate

Miss Madeline Diers

And just imagine, all of them descended from the Salem witches (wink).

Sifting through some of the other Newspaper.com clippings from 1925 sheds little light on the Sunbonnet Women of America. They are first mentioned in early May and seem to be associated with the National Club of the Younger Business Women. That month, they were organizing "the first annual organdy dance of the Sunbonnet Women of America."

An October 9 article specifically mentions the "Washington branch of the Sunbonnet Women of America" and its meeting to discuss the upcoming Halloween dance. 

And that's pretty much it. How long did the organization last? Did it actually have branches in multiple cities? Were they really witches? Did they all vanish after the October 29 seance and summoning? 

Maybe we should do a new seance and try to contact "Sunbonnet Sue" for an eyewitness recap. Stuff like that always ends well in movies. 

A postcard of Earle W. Cook's house, for some reason

OK, here's a bit of a head-scratching mystery.

Why did Dexter Press produce this postcard of the house of Mr. and Mrs. Earle W. Cook, on its triangular plot of land in Kingman, Arizona?

According to Diane Allmen's Dating Dexter Press Postcards webpage, this card (55990-B) was produced in 1962. Other than the Cooks' names and "Kingman, Arizona," the only things listed on the back are the address — 215 Caminodelascolinas, which should be more properly stated as 215 Camino de las Colinas — and the publisher, Fritz Studio of Kingman.

Based on the address, I'm not sure this house still exists.

Earle Wayne Cook Sr. (1902-1966) died just a few years after this postcard was published, of a heart attack on the Fourth of July 1966. The main item of note I can find about him is that he was a Democratic Arizona state senator representing Mohave County. His businesses included bottling, ranching and mining.

And here's a plot twist the postcard publishers certainly couldn't anticipate: In 1967, Cook's son, Earle Theodore Cook Jr., attempted to murder his wife, Jeanne, by blowing up the airplane she was traveling on.

You read that correctly.

It's 2024, and these miscellaneous old postcards can still take you down some serious rabbit holes, folks.

The first article I came across was in the November 19, 1967, edition of The Arizona Republic. The headline states "Bomb Suspect Son of Mohave Senator." The subhead reads "Earle T. Cook Recalled in Kingman as Bright Young Man."

The first paragraph states: "Earle T. Cook, 37, held in Chicago under $100,000 bond for an alleged attempt to bomb a jetliner, was a native of Kingman and the son of a veteran Mohave County senator who died last year."

The federal trial was incredibly swift. Just a few months later, on February 6, 1968, Earle Jr. was found guilty and sentenced to 20 years in prison. The details are summarized in a modern-day Chicago Tribune article by Colleen Connolly. Earle Jr. had apparently been trying for a while to kill his wife of 15 years and the mother of his two sons. He contacted a hit man and considering drowning and shooting as other murder methods.

Finally, Earle Jr. took things into his own hands and built a bomb at home.

I'll let the Tribune take it from here:

"What happened next is unthinkable in today’s world of air travel. Cook took his wife to O’Hare and checked her bags while she waited in a lounge, according to a Tribune report. An FBI agent said Cook then removed the contents of one of the bags, placed the homemade bomb inside and handed the bags to an airport porter who checked them. There was no search of the bags whatsoever. Ironically, the same porter who took the luggage without checking it handled it roughly, causing parts of the bomb to dislodge and malfunction, the FBI surmised.

"When the bomb went off in the luggage compartment, it made a loud noise that caught the attention of the pilot and passengers, but nobody realized it was a bomb. The pilot thought the plane struck a downdraft, so he kept flying. It was only when they arrived at their destination in San Diego that the crew found the bomb parts and wreckage in the luggage hold."

Earle Jr. was busted. His likely affairs with other women, conversations with the hit man and multiple insurance policies on his wife didn't help matters during the trial.

According to the Tribune, before being sent off to prison, Earle Jr. said: “I feel that I have been given a trial under a system I believe in. I believe in our form of government. The only thing I am sorry about is that I am innocent. The evidence presented didn’t quite portray my innocence.”

Earle Jr. remarried in 1977 and died in 1981 at age 50. I couldn't find an obituary. All I have is this unused postcard of his parents' house in the Arizona desert.

Another Sweetniks doll by Lada Draskovic surfaces

Whoa! On the heels of November's post about one of Lada Draskovic's 1960s Sweetniks dolls showing up on eBay, a reader has gotten in touch and shared the story of her Sweetniks doll. It's incredible how many of these are still around and in great condition.

Kita from Texas wrote to share her information and the above photos of her Sweetniks doll, which she has kindly given me permission to share here:

"I was searching to see what I could find out about my beatnik doll. I ran across your blog about these dolls. ... I thought you would like to hear of another 'sighting' of the Beatnik/Sweetnik Doll! ... I wish I could remember where in San Antonio, Texas, my mother bought the doll. I will need to research if there was a Saks there. I thought most likely it was a famous store named Joske’s in downtown San Antonio. I was with her and I remember telling her I really wanted it. Too bad, too, that I don’t know what she paid for it. ...

"I have had her since the early 1960s and bought it new. She was enclosed in a plastic top, but I discarded that when I put it in my china cabinet, years ago. I am the original owner and for some reason I kept her all these years. She is in excellent shape, as you can see from the pictures. I always kept very good care of all my dolls and didn’t actually play with them. I was an outdoorsy kid, which was good luck for my beatnik! ...

"I am considering selling her. But, I would like to get her into the right hands, being that she is so rare. Not a strand of hair is out of place after all these years and lots of moving. ... A museum would suit her fine!"

Kita added later that she contacted Sotheby's for a possible auction consignment, but was told that they had no information on Draskovic's Sweetniks and couldn't help her further. These unique dolls truly remain a mystery! Meanwhile, another reader posetd this intriguing comment: "I have what I’m pretty sure is a Sweetnik doll from the early 60s — Elizabeth Taylor as Cleopatra." I asked for more details, but haven't heard anything further.

Extremely rare Sweetnik doll by Lada Draskovic hits eBay

It was more than 12½ years ago that I first learned of Lada Draskovic's "beatnik dolls," officially called Sweetniks, thanks to a small photograph in the 1961 Compton Yearbook.

Over time, I compiled everything I discovered about Draskovic in 2013's The Incomplete Lada Draskovic and 2018's An Addendum to "The Incomplete Lada Draskovic." It's a history tale for which I still have far more questions than answers. And the dolls themselves are rarer still; there can't be many still in existence. 

But another doll has cropped up. I have an eBay email alert for "Sweetniks," just in case it might provide a lead to learning more about Draskovic or her dolls. This newly listed doll is different than the other two I've seen color pictures of (one purple-haired, with a matching cat, and the other blonde). This one has brown hair (with maybe a hint of magenta) and is wearing an outfit that I think definitely qualifies as beatnik. It's amazing how unique each doll is.

It's listed on eBay for $1,300 by a seller in Illinois. That sounds about right, because we know that one Sweetnik was initially listed on eBay for $1,200 in 2018, and that the buyer later accepted the best offer (which was undisclosed). It, of course, only takes one collector who knows about the Sweetniks, is aware of their extreme rarity, and has the available funds in order to make a sale. So it will be interesting to see if someone snatches this one up. It's certainly a beauty.

The eBay listing doesn't tell us much that's new, stating "Vintage 'Sweetnik' doll from early 1960’s. Made in Italy by artist Lada Draskovic. These are very rare. Original made for Saks. Very few made it into the United States. Excellent condition. Hand painted. Doll is almost 15” tall."

But the photos are excellent — some of the best I've seen of these elusive dolls. I'm going to share them here for posterity; this post should be around much longer than an eBay listing, and I feel a deep obligation at this point to document everything that's known about Draskovic's Sweetniks.

Great links: "A Wrinkle in Time" mystery is solved

In May, Sarah Elizabeth asked a simple question on the Unquiet Things blog: "Why is it that in this current year of 2023, no one seems to know who the cover artist is for this iconic Dell Laurel-Leaf A Wrinkle in Time cover art?? In a time when we have so much information available to us at our literal fingertips, how could it possibly be that the above marvelously and terrifyingly iconic imagery is perpetually credited to 'unknown artist'?"

Solving this mystery was not straightforward, but it was solved.

I was one of the members of Generation X for whom this was, indeed, an iconic paperback (first printed in 1976). We were assigned to read it at C.E. McCall Middle School in Montoursville in fifth or sixth grade, circa 1981 to 1983, and I recall many worn copies of this exact paperback lining a shelf below the classroom window. The cover was an attention-grabber, even if the story itself wasn't the easiest entry point into science-fiction for this middle school student. But I'm so glad my teacher introduced us to thought-provoking, challenging books. That matters.

Elizabeth's post spurred a lot of speculation and work by book sleuths. And the mystery was finally solved: The illustrator was Richard Bober (1943-2022). It took nearly a half-century for him to get public credit.

Taking the handoff from Elizabeth and finding the answer was Amory Sivertson of the podcast WBUR podcast Endless Thread, which focuses on questions and stories related to Reddit posts (Elizabeth had set Reddit to the task of solving the mystery.)

You can listen to the 44-minute podcast or read the full transcript here. It's hugely entertaining, especially for book sleuths. (And, as an aside that I can agree with wholeheartedly, someone says, "15% of everything is destroyed by cats." Also, the mystery comes to a conclusion in a Pennsylvania basement.

As Elizabeth wrote triumphantly, "I am a bit overwhelmed, and I don’t know what more there is to say about it anymore, but the case is cracked, and the mystery is solved!"

The story even caught the attention of The New York Times, where staff writer Amanda Holpuch described Bober's cover artwork thusly: "The mystery cover art shows a strapping centaur with delicate wings flying above a menacing green face with bright red eyes. Craggy mountains and fluffy dark clouds surround the haunting figures. The website Book Riot called the art 'nightmare fuel.'"

Menacing green face? Yes.

Haunting figures? Yes.

Nightmare fuel? Yup.

But mystery cover art? No longer. That was Richard Bober who fueled our 1970s and 1980s imaginations with his cover artwork to accompany Madeleine L'Engle's award-winning novel. 

Friday fanzine excerpt: Anita B. Kimble's poem

Here's a lost poem from the past. Fifty-five years ago, in summer 1968, the short poem "Hindsight" was published in the 22-page one-shot fanzine "Moonshot" (FAPA 124).

The eight-line poem, which begins "When love has come and died away," was penned by Anita B. Kimble. There are some folks with that name who come up on Google searches, but none that I can 100% tie to being the author of this short piece, so it's a mystery. Perhaps some readers can help out, so that we can more properly credit the author.

Here are some of the other names of creators, many well-known with that era's fanzine community, tied to "Moonshot." I think they can serve as our best possible leads to learn more about Anita: Rick Sneary (The Hermit of South Gate), Len Moffatt, June M. Moffatt, Gail Van Achtoven, Jeremy Konigsberg, Don Fitch, Stan Woolston (J. Stanley Woolston), Ed Cox, Lois Lavender, Ethel Lindsay, Dean A. Grennell, Scott Kimble, Deedee Lavender, Roy Lavender, and Cathy Konigsberg.

Mystery RPPC: Century-old class photo

Here's an old real photo postcard featuring a school class photo from what was likely a one-room schoolhouse, in Somewhere U.S.A., some year. It's a Kruxo RPPC with no stamp box on the back. So I think that roughly puts it between 1910 and 1920. There's no writing on the back, and thus we know zilch about who these kids are.

It's always interesting to zoom in and examine the faces of all these children and wonder about how their lives unfolded. After doing that, this is a good place to start if you want to check out more RPPCs on Papergreat.

Mystery snapshot: A girl, a carriage and a carved pumpkin

Here's a fun relic. This old photograph, 4½ inches wide, shows a little girl (maybe around 3 years old?) with a baby carriage that has a friendly-looking jack-o'-lantern hanging from the side. Presumably, the girl's baby doll is inside the carriage. But we can't rule out muskrats. 

She's bundled up fairly well, so it's not hard to imagine it's late October somewhere in the northern United States. And, indeed, the stamp on the back of the photograph indicates that his was printed by McMillen Photo Finishers at the corner of Cummings Street and Gilmore Avenue in Winona, Minnesota.

Alas, there's no other information on the back, so this will likely remain a Halloween-themed mystery for eternity.

Mystery portraits of long ago

I don't think I've posted either one of these miniature portraits before. I did my due diligence in trying to search past Papergreat posts. But there are 3,400+ of them, y'all, and sometimes it's impossible to keep track of what I've posted. 

These are both 2½ inches wide. They would have been with one of the collections of photos and ephemera that were packed into the Oak Crest Lane house. They are probably distant relatives or friends of distant relatives, but there are no captions or notes on the back, only the photographer's information. 

Printed on the back of the photograph of the woman is: "The Number of this Negative is 10562 which please designate when ordering Duplicates. From Garrett's, Wilmington, Del. Unless this Negative is purchased it will be preserved only one year from the time of takin." (Yes, it's spelled "takin.") 

Printed on the back of the photograph of the girl is: "J.K. SUTTERLEY, 302 Market Street, Wilmington, Delaware. Photographer. No. _____. This negative kept one year. Copies can be had any time from it at reduced prices."

Semi-mystery RPPC: Charles Lamb & Eleanor Walrod

This unsent real photo postcard has a pair of full names written on the back, in neat cursive. But, the names — Charles Lamb and Eleanor Walrod — don't seem to be unique enough to get us near any kind of answer as to who these two were. A middle name or region of the country could have further helped.

We also know that it's an AZO postcard that dates to between 1910 and 1930. Which means, very roughly, that these two were likely born between 1890 and 1914. And, factoring in a wide range of reasonable life spans (but no "early" death by war, disease or accident) they died anywhere between 1955 and 2010 — a huge range, which shows how complicated the research can get.

Beyond that, we're essentially out of clues. Can we assume they were headed to a prom or a dance? That's a nice straw hat Charles is wearing, by the way.

Perhaps that fact that this photo, attached to these two names, now appears on the internet will help the mystery to be solved.

Other mystery RPPCs

• Young child and a note from Lizzie B.
• Christmas: Four girls sitting in a sleigh
• Girl holding a cat
• Girl with extremely long hair
• Two folks sitting in the yard
• Family trio within an oval
• Young woman wearing glasses
• Family from 100-plus years ago
• Toddler in a rocking chair
• Mystery classroom (1907-1929)
• Young woman and young man
• Vintage tree huggers
• Well-dressed girl and chair
• The old man and the boat
• Four women sitting on the ground
• Who were these three kids?
• Just an ordinary fella
• 5 young ladies (4 of them cheery)
• Man and two women
• Three women in Atlantic City, New Jersey
• House with children on the front porch
• Woman and her cat
• Children getting a ride from a goat
• Man with cat reading Harold Bell Wright novel
• Woman feeding chickens
• Woman feeding a chipmunk at Yellowstone
• Man sitting in chair
• Wizard girl
• Girl with stuffed bear
• Odd building (a mystery solved)
• Man in bowler hat and tired girl
• Young girl with parasol and animal
• What appears to be an old school room
• Girl with parasol and witchy socks
• Long-ago toddler with fuzzy toy
• Couple of wee folk
• Feeding chickens (Chapter 2)
• Group of 4 kids (Frances, Cecil, Lucian and Irvan)
• Bundled-up mystery crowd
• Woman feeding a farm animal

RPPC mystery pair of the day

This AZO real photo postcard dates to between 1910 and 1930, and there is no information on the back. 

Some choices have been made here: The subjects are looking in different directions. The sunlight is shining directly onto their faces. The image is tilted slightly and cut off at the bottom. The background is uninspired. Not sure how this photographer is ever going to make it into the ranks of being a six-figure Instagram influencer. 

Christmas Day mystery RPPC

Merry Christmas! Vrolijk kerstfeest. Crăciun fericit. 圣诞节快乐

For today's holly-jolly merriment, we have this studio-posed real photo postcard of four girls sitting in a sleigh that's being "pulled" by what appears, sadly, to be a taxidermied white-tailed deer, presumably serving as a stiff reindeer substitute.

The background is a nice, if not entirely convincing, matte painting of a snow-covered landscape, complete with some sort of estate or mansion. The girls are coordinated with their white outfits/dresses. It was certainly a Big Deal that they went to the studio to have their group photograph taken.

I've always wondered how many postcards people received for such studio RPPCs. Was it possible to get more than one RPPC of the same photograph? That would make them possible to send out to friends and family. I might be naive in this thinking, though, especially depending which decade we're talking about in the early 20th century. Experts on the topic would certainly know better.

One reason I wonder whether multiple copies were made of some of these RPPCs is because I come across so many blank ones. The postcard was never sent and no one ever annotated the back, giving us names, dates and places. Was this because they were an "extra" card from the lot? Or, in this case, is it even possible that this was an RPPC "proof," given the "3" scratched in the corner?

This particular blank mystery RPPC was produced by PMC, according to the stamp box on the back, as identified through Playle.com.¹ Its two upward arrows and two downward arrows date it to between 1907 and 1915, according to Playle. So, these girls were all born before the Great War.²

Here's a closer look at them and the "reindeer." 

Christmas Day footnotes

1. Playle.com, which has been an invaluable resource for Papergreat over the past decade, has this note on its website: "IMPORTANT NOTICE: The Playle.com Postcard Sales and Auction site will be closing soon. Sales will cease on December 22, 2020, and the site will close on December 31, 2020. The deltiology information areas of the site will remain open. If you have any questions, please email us at support@playle.com. Thank you for your support over these many years."

Big bummer. I am glad the "deltiology information" areas will remain. They are important knowledge for historians and ephmeraologists.

2. And so Happy Christmas (war is over)

We hope you had fun (if you want it)

The near and the dear ones (war is over)

The old and the young (now)

Utter mystery photo

Sigh. I wish I knew more about this found photo. But it comes with no clues whatsoever. We can't even tell much about these two girls posing in a backyard based upon their clothing, can we? Wouldn't it be amazing to know more about the lives they lived? 

The snapshot, including the white border, is just 2⅜ inches wide. The pots on the tree stumps are an interesting design touch. That sapling in the background might be a huge tree now. Or perhaps it's long gone. 

Friday's mostly mystery photo

This is Ray.

That's all we know beyond what we can see here. His name is written on the front and back of the 3½-inch-wide photograph. The snapshot was once pasted into a photo album, the kind with the black-paper pages. (It's kind of odd, and certainly I've been guilty of this at times, to think about all the modern folks who has meticulously removed pasted photographs, one by one, from old albums and scrapbooks. Sometime it's to preserve them in better or easier ways. Sometimes it's to save just a few pieces of ephemera from an otherwise mundane repository of memories. Sometimes it's so that those snapshots can be sold individually in flea markets and antique stores.)

Ray is certainly cleaned up real well for this photograph. Shirt, jacket, pants and a nice belt. Face scrubbed and hair combed. Would he rather be wearing jeans and a T-shirt and climbing that tree behind him?

If we had to guess a time period based on his clothes, this might be a little bit after World War II, right? 

Is Ray still around? How about those houses and that tree? What were his family's plans on this day? What were the other photos once surrounding this on the page of the photo album? Siblings? Pets? Birthdays? Vacations? 

And who ultimately removed it from the photo album? A family member? A stranger? 

Thursday's mystery photo

Today's snapshot is 2⅝ inches wide, was once pasted into a scrapbook/photo album, and is slightly out of focus. A young woman with short hair and a necklace looks into the distance — not at the photographer — as she casts a shadow onto what appears to be a well-constructed barn complex. That's it. That's all we know. Was another photographer taking a straight-on shot of her at the time, and this photographer decided to document it from the side? Or was "moody" the intent of the photo? Am I wrong to say that her shoes do not seem to be proper footwear for someone who might spend time around this barn? Is that a ring on her finger? 

Mystery photos contain so many mysteries!

Wednesday's semi-mystery photo

For today's camping photo, which is 3½ inches wide, we do have some caption information on the back. It states:

NO 47

OUR CAMP AT DORST CAMP, SEQUOIA, AFTER RETURNING FROM HIKE TO LITTLE BALDY SEQUOIA

This would be the Dorst Creek Campground at Sequoia National Park in central California. Their hike was the Little Baldy Trail (or Little Baldy Dome Trail). The peak of that trail is said to provide an amazing view, if there's good weather. The National Park Service website states:

"The Little Baldy Trail climbs along switchbacks to the top of a granite dome, passing an incredible variety of wildlfowers along the way. The trail starts from the highest point on the Generals Highway, winding 1.7 miles (2.7 km) and gaining 790 feet (241 m) in elevation. At the top, enjoy views of the Great Western Divide and beyond. You might rest and have a picnic while enjoying this 360-degree view. When you're done, return the way you came for a total of 3.4-mile (5.5-km) round-trip hike."  

The California Through My Lens blog has some nice photos of the hike.

I don't know anything else about this photo. Who these campers were, or even when they were camping. The car that's pictured might give us some hints as to the era, though.

Tuesday's mystery photo

Today's mystery photo features a dapper-looking young person standing on some very nice brick steps. Clearly, this family was not struggling financially.

The snapshot, which is 2¾ inches wide, was once pasted in a scrapbook and there is no identifying information that I can discern, although I can see small portions of the stamp from the business that processed the photo long ago.

I'm no expert on clothing, but this is certainly an interesting outfit, with the wide-collar shirt, double-breasted overcoat, cuffed pants and dress shoes. Spinning a (silly) modern context onto a vintage photo, I might say this kid is cosplaying as either Draco Malfoy or Tilda Swinton.