05/17/2026
This picture of women at the gate of a Lubbock farm, printed on a postcard and located in the SMU Archives, has raised questions when posted on other sites. As Paul Harvey would say, here is the rest of the story.
The postcard was written on June 2, 1914, by Daisy Cory Kirby and sent to her brother, Carl Cory, who lived in Little River, Kansas. In the photograph, Daisy is holding her son, Edgil Kirby, who was born on November 8, 1913, in Lubbock. The farm location is unknown and the other woman in the image is unidentified.
Daisy married John William Kirby on March 29, 1913, in Pottawatomie County, Oklahoma. Shortly after their marriage, the couple relocated to Lubbock to farm. In 1915, Daisy returned to Little River, Kansas, to keep house for her brother Carl. The fate of J.W. Kirby is unknown.
After Carl's marriage in 1921, Daisy moved to Ellsworth, Kansas, where she worked as an operator for the telephone company. Daisy passed away in 1928 at the age of 43. After her death, Edgil lived with his grandmother Cory. In the 1950s, Edgil worked in the woodwork shop of the Supreme Propeller Company in Wichita, Kansas. He opened Kirby’s Cabinet Shop in Springfield, Missouri and later business was selling coins and antiques at his Park Central Flea Market. Edgil passed away in 2004, leaving behind five sons, a daughter, twenty grandchildren and 32 great-grandchildren. Edgil Kirby, whose first photograph was taken in Lubbock in 1914, died at age 90 in Springfield, Missouri.
