Grandmother Tobias gave a little shrug of her shoulders and a coy smile as she said, “Oh, her? I don’t know who that could be.”

I looked at her in disbelief. What? You know who everyone else in that photo is except the one lady sitting in front of everyone else, head slightly bent but smiling up at the camera as if she has a secret but is not telling?

You don’t know who that is?

“No,” she replied, “no idea.” But there was that look on her face — she was wearing that same smile as the young lady in the picture, the one that says, I have a secret, but I am not telling.

PHOTO PROVIDED The Sundance Kid (Harry A. Longabaugh) and Etta Place are seen just before they sailed for South America, circa 1901, in a photo from the Library of Congress.

So, who is she?

So, I let it go. For about 10 seconds, I let it go. Well then, can you tell me a little bit about the rest of the people in the picture? Grandmother Tobias gave a brief introduction of everyone else in the photo. The older gentleman in the back is Grandmother Tobias’s grandfather, Oliver F. Hallman. He is seated a short distance from his wife. Her name, Grandmother Tobias said with a grin, is Samanna Longabaugh Hallman. From this picture, Samanna appears to be a formidable lady. She is looking straight into the camera, but her head is tilted a bit. She is standing very close to the “unknown” young lady, who is seated in front of her.

There are two other couples in the photo: Oliver and Samanna’s one son and his wife, and Harry and Adelaide Weber, very good friends of the family. The photograph is big even by today’s standards, approximately 20 x 23 inches. It looks as if it was taken in the spring in the early 1900s. We know the approximate date because we know who is in the photo. Except for one.

So, I then asked, are you sure that you don’t know who that is? She has to be related to the lady who is standing behind her. That side of the photo is all family, and they are all posed close to each other, most of them holding hands.

She is dressed in the style of the day, one hand on her hip and the other resting on her leg. And, as I said, head down but eyes looking at the camera and smiling. The picture was taken in a wooded area and seven people are shown, four women and three men.

PHOTO PROVIDED The Sundance Kid (Harry A. Longabaugh), Etta Place and Butch Cassidy (Robert LeRoy Parker) are seen at their ranch house in Argentina in 1904.

Who took the picture?

Who took the picture? Grandmother Tobias had no idea. But then she started to tell a little bit about her Grandfather Oliver and his wife Samanna. Oliver owned a blacksmith shop and foundry in Mont Clare, specializing in ornamental wrought iron. Grandmother Tobias had quite a few candlesticks that her grandfather had made in his shop, and my husband and I have a few pairs in our house that we cherish. Samanna was the daughter of Josiah Longabaugh and Annie G. Place Longabaugh. Samanna had one sister, Emma, and three brothers, Elwood, Harvey and Harry Alonzo Longabaugh. Grandmother stopped here and asked if I had ever heard of Harry before.

The Sundance Kid

No, I couldn’t say that I had. Who was he? He was more popularly known as the Sundance Kid. Grandmother Tobias was the great-niece of the Sundance Kid. He worked for a time with Oliver in his shop and stayed with Oliver and Samanna many times.

My mind immediately went to his common law wife, Etta Place. Had Grandmother Tobias ever actually met Harry or Etta? Harry had passed away before Grandmother was born. But Etta? Was she a distant family member? Samanna’s mother’s maiden name was Place. I took a closer look at the “young lady”. Now that I looked more closely, I saw a resemblance between the “young lady” and Samanna. Could they possibly be related?

Over the years, we have looked at the photograph that hangs over the old fireplace and we have wondered, Is it Etta? We know that Etta and Harry traveled to Bolivia; we have copies of photographs that were taken of them on their ranch. We have looked at photographs that are known to be of Etta, and there are some striking similarities.

No one knows what happened to Etta. She did indicate that she was originally from the East Coast and used the names Etta Place, Ethel Place, Mrs. Harry Longabaugh and Mrs. Harry A. Place. She was described as being strikingly pretty and having a very nice smile, and it was said that she was refined and spoke in an educated manner. The Pinkerton Detective Agency described her in 1906 as having “classic good looks, 27 or 28 years old, 5’4″ to 5’5″ in height, weighing between 110 and 115 pounds with a medium build and brown hair.”

Etta and Sundance marry

In December 1900, Etta and Harry reportedly married, but no marriage records have been found. In January of 1901, the couple visited his family in Mont Clare, and the following month, they posed for the infamous wedding portrait in Union Square. In March of 1902, they returned to New York City on the SS Soldier Prince. Pinkerton detectives later found evidence that Place was homesick and wanted to visit her family, but they could not identify who her family was. Etta and Harry returned again in the summer of 1904. According to the website Legends of America, Etta was tired of living life on the run, and at her request Longabaugh accompanied her from Chile to San Francisco in June of 1906. Sundance then returned to South America, where it is said that he was killed.

Etta’s pistol

What happened to Etta? Grandmother Tobias had no idea. But what she did have in her possession was a black-and-white photograph measuring 20 x 23 inches and showing seven individuals. It hangs in my dining room. Grandmother also had several sepia-toned photographs featuring Etta, Sundance and other unidentified persons on a ranch in South America. Grandmother had a few pieces of jewelry that belonged to Etta. She also had Etta Place’s pistol. I held it in my hands once.

Grandmother Tobias would never admit that she had met Etta, nor would she ever tell how she came into possession of these items.

I believe that she, like the “young lady” in the photograph, knew how to keep a secret.

Jo Ann Tobias is a volunteer with the Lycoming County Genealogical Society. She grew up reading Nancy Drew and the Hardy Boys. When she found out that she had married into a family of “outlaws” with a mysterious end, she was very intrigued. She loves history and mystery. The article is part of the long-running Sun-Gazette series, Lycoming County Women.