100 years ago today, a photo taken at the Wrensted Studio in Casper, Wyoming appeared in the local newspaper:
Regular readers of that paper might have recalled that Ella Wrensted, the proprietor of the Wrensted studio in Casper, had married Harry Boone in early December 1924. The studio retained the Wrensted name even after Miss Wrensted changed her name to Mrs. Boone.
A notice later appeared in the newspaper (on December 29, 1924) that explained that Mr. and. Mrs. Harry Boone would be traveling in New Mexico for the next three months. A person only identified as “M. Frank” was listed as running the studio until Mrs. Boone returned to Casper.
Let me offer a little more backstory on Ella Wrensted Boone.
Ella Wrensted, born on December 27, 1892 in the U.S. to Danish immigrants, was from a long line of female photographers. Ella had learned photography as a teenager from her Aunt Benedicte Wrensted, who had herself learned photography as a teenager from her Aunt Charlotte Wrensted. (Charlotte Wrensted ran a popular studio in Denmark for many years).
Benedicte Wrensted (Ella’s aunt), after being acclaimed as a photographer in Denmark, emigrated to the U.S. in the 1890s, establishing a studio in Pocatello, Idaho in 1895. Pocatello is where Ella Wrensted worked with her Aunt Benedicte, learning how to be a photographer and also how to run a photography studio.
Benedicte Wrensted has actually gotten a fair amount of press in recent years, as her Pocatello studio catered to a clientele that included members of two local Native American tribes. In the early 1900s she was perhaps unusual in that she didn’t discriminate: any and all were welcome to come in and pay to have their portrait made in her studio. Click here to read more about Benedicte Wrensted’s life. If you click on that link, you will be looking at a document on the Internet Archive website that includes several photos by Benedicte, plus photos of the interior and exterior of her studio in Idaho, and also a few photos of her extended family. The family photos include including one of her mother and her Aunt Charlotte (the photographer).
Plus, of course, there are photos of her niece, Ella, including this fun one of Ella in a “photo dress”:
From Anthro notes : National Museum of Natural History bulletin for teachers
Notes on this photo are included in the document:
Ella Wrensted was Benedicte’s niece and one of her assistants. In 1909 she was
seventeen-years-old. In this photograph, she wears a dress decorated with portraits
made by the Wrensted studio. This photograph probably was used for promotional
purposes. Ella took almost all of the photographs that were made outside the
studio, including those at the Fort Hall Indian Reservation. Ella Wrensted later
became a commercial photographer in Wyoming, continuing the family
tradition of women photographers. – [Notes on Figure 1]
After working with her Aunt Benedict for many years in Pocatello, Ella moved to Casper, Wyoming, eventually buying a studio there in 1923. Ella ran that studio until 1926, when she sold it and moved to southern California. For the next 12 years, her husband Harry worked in the oil fields in California, while Ella stayed at home with their two children.
However, in 1938, Harry died from injuries sustained in an accident at work. Ella, unexpectedly left to raise their two small children on her own, eventually went back to work as a photographer. By 1946 she had opened a photo studio, the Del Mar Studio, in Bellflower, California. She ran that studio for many years. [It’s hard to say exactly how long she ran that studio, since there are gaps in the city directories and newspapers that are available online for our research. But by 1960 that studio doesn’t seem to be in existence, and there’s no other evidence we’ve uncovered to date that would indicate Ella ran another studio after that.]
Ella Wrensted Boone lived to be 93 years old, dying in California in 1986. She is buried next to her parents and siblings in Pocatello, Idaho. By all accounts, she was the last of the Wrensted women to become a professional photographer.
Also, for what it’s worth, she is the only female photographer we’ve run across to date who to have met a personal “representative” of Santa. 😉 So it seemed appropriate to share that fact today – after all, ’tis the season and all…
By the way, tomorrow (December 27th, 2024) marks the 132nd anniversary of Ella Wrensted Boone’s birth. Happy birthday, Ella!
