Pratt County KS Archives Photo Person.....Withers, Orval (Orville) Raymond 1901
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File contributed for use in USGenWeb Archives by:
Debra Crosby http://www.genrecords.net/emailregistry/vols/00010.html#0002467 February 17, 2020, 1:20 pm

Source:             Topeka State Journal Tues Aug 20, 1901
Name:               Orval (Orville) Raymond Withers

Date Of Photograph: 1901
Photo can be seen at:
http://www.usgwarchives.net/ks/pratt/photos/withers177nph.jpg
Image file size: 279.4 Kb


       A KANSAS PRODIGY
Boy Three Years Old Who Develops
     and Prints Photographs

   Medicine Lodge, the home of Jerry Simpson and
Mrs. Nation, claims another wonder. An infant
photographer, not  a man of the camera who takes
babies pictures, but Orville Ray Withers, aged 35
months, who takes photographs. C. S. Hutton is
authority for the following:
   "When nine months old he knew the alphabet
and numbers to 25. They were learned not as
children of six years usually learn them, but by
crawling among a series of alphabetical blocks
and invariably selecting the letter or number
asked for by his tutors.
   "When fourteen months old he began talking
distinctly in monosyllables, and at two years
was in a good reader from the first reader.
   "In the last ten months he has show great
skill in developing photographic negatives and
in printing and finishing the pictures. He has
a remarkable apptitude for photography in all
its branches and the above picture of himself 
was made from a photographt taken by him when
thirty-three months old, in his father's studio
at Medicine Lodge. He is believed to be the
youngest artist in the United States."

Additional Comments:
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