An early case of crossdressing?

I was pondering over this picture, trying to figure out who these persons were. I had been exchanging emails with two of my late father’s cousins. It was the general agreement in the family that the man was my G-G-Grandfather Einar Nilsen Løvoll (1846-1939). His first wife Petrine Lassesdatter Vik (b.1856) died in 1894. Einar married Ane Eline Martinusdatter Lande (1857 – 1935) a few years later and together they had two sons. Based on the “fact” that the woman had a little girl on her lap I figured that this had to be Petrine and that the picture was taken about 1891.
So far, so good. But, if this was Einar and Petrine; why was only four of their six children in the picture? I was thinking that their oldest sons Nils Matias (b. 1874) had already moved out.  This still didn’t add up. If the two children in the back were Ludvik (b.1876) and Mathea (my Great grandmother b. 1880), the boy on Einar’s lap was Mikal Edvard (b. 1884) and the girl on Petrine’s lap was Olianna (b. 1890): Where was Petra Einara (b. 1887)??

Then I started thinking; What if the child on the woman’s lap was a boy? Could I find something  indicating that this outfit, that looks very much like a girl’s dress, also was used by boys? I can not remember the exact search phrase I used, but I found an article from the Norwegian newspaper Aftenposten that refered to a book by American historian Jo Paoletti. In her book  “Pink and Blue: Telling the Girls From the Boys in America” Paoletti discusses childrens clothing in relation to gender identification. She tells that in the 1800’s it was quite common that both girls and boys wore dresses.

As Paoletti’s book is telling about American fashions, I needed to find something that could tell me if this was the case in Norway too.

I went to Digitalt Museum which is a large online collection of Norwegian photos. I searched for “gutt kjole (boy dress)”.  Among the hits there I found the two pictures below where the description clearly states that they are boys. This clearly show that this was sort of a unisex way of dressing small children. None of the picture descriptions gave any year, but based on a guestimate I would say that they are taken somewhere around the year 1900.

Now our little mystery was almost solved. The couple were Einar and Petrine. The boy on Einar’s lap was Petter Martinus born 1899 and the boy on Ane Eline’s lap was Einar Andreas born 1901. This means that the picture must have been taken about 1903.

The only thing that didn’t add up now was the two children in the back. There should have been three. I decided that it had to be Mikal. He had two younger sisters; Petra Einara and Olianna. Why was only one of them in the picture, and who was it? I was helped by the farm and family history that cover this area (Rekdal/Hoel 1993:550). Here I am told that as Olianna was only an infant when her mother passed away, she was adopted by a childless couple in the community.

This started out as a mystery, but it was great fun when all the pieces fell into place.

Three of the sons from this family emigrated and settled in the US. This was Nils Einarson Løvoll. He was a ship’s mate. He never married. Ludvig Einarson Løvoll (b. 1876) He settled in Seattle and married a lady named Karen from Tønsberg, Norway. They had two sons, Harold and Russell. Mikal Einarson Løvoll (b. 1884) was a supervisor at a cannery in Alaska. He was married to a Swedish lady, but they did not have children (Rekdal 1993:550).

Sources: 

Siri Eritsland, “Da småguttene gikk i kjole” Aftenposten webedition, September 25. 2013
http://www.aftenposten.no/meninger/Da-smaguttene-gikk-i-kjoler-7320865.html

Olav Rekdal and Marit Rekdal Hoel: “Gards og slektshistorie for Vestnes – Tomrefjord, Øverås, Nerås” Vestnes kommune 1993