Notes
This photograph was taken in August 1916 of five Fontaine family members:
John Winston Fontaine, a great-great grandson of Patrick Henry, was born on January 27, 1887, to Rev. Patrick Henry Fontaine (1841-1915) and Annie Elizabeth Redd (1847-1936) at "Elmo" in Halifax County, Virginia. He was 29 years old at the time of this photograph. He never married and did not have children. John was a professor of music who taught at several colleges, including Atlantic Christian College (later Atlantic University) in Wilson, North Carolina. He died on August 21, 1973, and was buried with his parents in Amis Chapel Cemetery in Granville County, North Carolina.
Martha "Pattie" Redd Reamey, a third-great granddaughter of Patrick Henry, was born on September 19, 1870, in Henry County, Virginia, to William Spotswood Redd (1839-1909) and Mary Taylor Wooten (1844-1918). She married twice, first to Overton Reamey and then to J. B. Walker. At the time of this photograph, Pattie was 46 years old and based on the inscription on the back, she had not yet married Walker. She died on February 19, 1933. She was first cousins with John Fontaine.
Pattie's mother, Mary Taylor Wooten Redd, is the woman wearing black and sitting in the chair. She was born on August 27, 1844, in Henry County, Virginia. She married William Spotswood Redd, a great-great-grandson of Patrick Henry, on October 10, 1865. They had five children, including Pattie. At the time of this photograph, she was 72 years old. She died two years later, on April 26, 1918, and was buried at "Bellevue" in Henry County, Virginia.
The identity of and familial connection to "S R Fontaine" is not yet known.
Ella Redd Fontaine was John Fontaine's oldest sister, born on January 13, 1866, at "Everhope" in Greensboro, North Carolina, to Rev. Patrick Henry Fontaine and Annie Elizabeth Redd. She married Altamont L. Smith in Halifax County, Virginia, on November 12, 1884, and they had one daughter, Annie Fontaine Smith (1885-1945), a year later. She was 50 years old at the time of this photograph and had not yet married her second husband, Russell Stoddard. Ella died on October 21, 1941.
This photograph was given to PHMF on May 3, 2023, by Monique and Philip Heller. They inherited this object and the others in this accession from her stepmother, Catherine Spotswood Fontaine Lawrence (1938-2015), a third-great-granddaughter of Patrick Henry. Ella Smith and John Fontaine were her aunt and uncle.