Readers of the “Nina Winn Diaries” might enjoy this collection of photographs, which will help illustrate Arlington 100 years ago, and the people and places mentioned in the diaries. New photos will be added as they are digitized. Please contact us if you recognize anything specific from the diaries in these photos, or if there’s anything you’d like to see.

Nina Louise Winn (1877-1958) was the daughter of George Prentiss Winn (1846-1907) and his wife Melissa Sarah Bacon Winn (1853-1886). In 1901, Nina was living with her widowed father and her brother George Albert Winn (1873-1942) at 146 Mystic Street, Arlington, MA. This 1908 photo is of Nina dressed in Colonial dress, participating in an Arlington Historical Society event.

The Winn House at 57 Summer Street The woman standing at the center wearing a black dress & hoop skirt is Mabel Hartwell Winn. The one on the left, behind urn, is miss Florence Harris, and the one on the right in a two-toned dress in bustle is Miss Alice Kelsey (she later lived with Mabel Hartwell Winn for a while). The occasion is a party inviting all the people who went on a European tour with Mabel Hartwell Winn in 1930. They often dressed in these costumes & showed a lot of antiques. The dresses are now in the Smithsonian.

Susanna Adams Winn (1852-1935) was the daughter of Albert Winn (1810-1888) and his wife Sarah Prentiss Winn (1811-1897). Miss Winn attended primary schools in West Cambridge as well as the Tilden Ladies’ Seminary in West Lebanon, NH and lived at her parent’s home, which is still standing at 57 Summer Street, Arlington, MA. Susanna Adams Winn was an artist and never married; she died in Winchendon, MA at her cousin’s home in 1935.

“Art of Antique” Exhibit from Susanna A. Winn’s Old Maid’s party on September 28, 1902. The two paintings (“Prize Piggies” and “Prize Pussies” at the top of grouping of images were done by Susanna Adams Winn and were the basis for chromolithographs published by Boston lithographer Louis Prang and Co. about 1890. To view the chromolithographs created from these paintings, view the online collections of Boston Public Library Print Collection, the Boston Athenaeum and the New York Public Library.

Described in a letter from Barbara Winn “? The house with the body of water in front of . . . . a canal is Aunt Nina’s and great aunt Sarah’s house (37 Summer St.) next . . . at 57. I think it was . . . taken. . the railroad tracks. The brook was called Susen(?) Brooks and ran into the Mill Pond. The building to the left is a farm building at 57 Summer & part of the barn . . . . The land going down to the . . . was called the Orchard. My father gave it (in the 1930s) to the town of Arlington for a Park. They turned it into a dump. The layers had drawn the papers so badly that I was told there was nothing to be done. The brooks was well-named . . and it wasn’t the only su . . ch around. (I know you never liked that word but there is absolutely no substitutive point(?).)”

Mrs. Sarah Daniels Winn, c. 1870s She was born in 1844 in the house which had formerly served as the town’s first public library. She married Albert Winn Jr. in 1867 and he died in 1878. She was a charter member of the Arlington Historical Society and at the time of her death in 1943 was the oldest inhabitant of Arlington.