This black and white photograph shows Alice Gardiner Sennrich, (1878-1968), photographer from Valley Falls, Kansas. The daughter of Tom Gardiner and Mattie Kirkpatrick Gardiner of Winchester, Kansas, she moved in 1880 with her family to Valley Falls where her father established the Valley Falls Register newspaper. As a young woman growing up in a small Kansas community, Alice choose an unconventional career in photography. On January 1, 1902, she purchased the C.S. Edington photography studio in Valley Falls and within a few years was making a name for herself as a Kansas photographer. In 1909, the Photographers Association of Kansas awarded her a first prize medal for her photos of children. She also received a gold medal and a prize of five dollars for her style of retouching photos. In 1915 as her business began to flourish, she married John Sennrich a carpenter and painter from Valley Falls. After their marriage, the couple remained in Valley Falls so Alice could continue to operate her business. For a number of years Alice's artistic eye captured life in a typical northeast Kansas community until she began to loose her eyesight in the 1950s. As her eyesight deteriorated, she could no longer maintain her studio and donated her equipment and props to the Kansas Historical Society. She was blind the last ten years of her life. In 1968, Alice Gardiner Sennrich passed away at the age of ninety at a nursing home in Valley Falls, Kansas.

Creator: Sennrich, Alice G.
Date: Between 1898 and 1900