Figure 1.--Gordon Voelker wears what look like long-cut flannel short pants. His pants have belt loops and a belt. But this seems to be oirnamental. The pants are button style, held up by buttons on the short. You can see the buttons showing just bove the belt. He wears dark-tan long stockings with what at first look like T-strap sandals. The sandals were a little unusual in America, although very common in England. But on closer examination look like two-tone Oxfords--brown and black perhaps. And I think I detect shoe laces. Such shoes would be more likely than the English-style sandals.

This photo postcard portrait shows Gordon Voelker with a wonderful cocker spaniel. No doubt the family's faithful dog. He looks rather ungappy, I'm not quite sure why. We think the portrait was taken in the 1920s. Post card portraits were most common during the 1900s-20s, they were much less common in the 1930s. Voelker I think is a Dutch name, but we do not know where he was from in America. He has a center part hair style. Gordon wears a patterened shirt with a plaid tie. Notice how wide it is and tied to hang above the belt. He has what look like long-cut flannel short pants. His pants have belt loops and a belt. But the belt seems to be ornamental. The short pants are button-on style, held up by buttons on the shirt. You can see the buttons showing just above the belt. A reader writes, "The buttons at the waist line are quite obviously NOT for suspenders because there are too many for that and they are in the wrong place. Suspender buttons would be attached to the trousers and not to the shirt or blouse. I'm certain the boy is wearing a button-on blouse that attached to the waistband of his short pants and that the belt is merely ornamental and not functional in holding up his trousers. Note the looseness of the belt and the slight pull on the buttons." He wears darkish long stockings rather than the lighter tan stockings that were ecoming ppular, but they are clearly not the black stockings that were so dominant in the 1900s and 10s. They may be brown and seemed to be slighly ribbed. We at first thought that Gordon was wearing T-strap sandals. The sandals were a little unusual in America, although very common in England. But on closer examination look like two-tone Oxfords--brown and black perhaps. And I think I detect shoe laces. Such shoes would be more likely than the English-style sandals. Our reader writes, "I would judge the boy to be about 8 or 9 years old--an age when button-on blouses were still being worn by boys. Boys of Gordon's age during the 1920s usually wore underwaists with pin-on supporters although it is possible he wears a garter-waist--most likely of the Dr. Parker style."

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Created: 1:07 AM 9/5/2007
Last edited: 2:58 PM 2/3/2008