Name that Face!

A common problem with old photos is that they lack names, dates and locations – crucial information when you’re conducting research decades later. But that’s not the problem facing me at the moment (yes, the pun is intentional). I have located a photo that clearly labels the first and last names of all the people in it. The problem is, I’m not convinced the young man identified as my great-uncle, Percy Riggs, is really him.

The photo is of the St. Cloud Cathedral high school basketball team from 1925. After I discovered that Percy was listed as being in the photo, according to the Stearns History Museum’s online collections directory, my dad went to the museum and made a copy of it. In addition to the photo, Dad and John Decker, museum archivist and chief sleuth, found other mentions in the Cathedral yearbook, the Cathedralite, of Percy playing forward on the 1924-25 basketball team. However, they were unable to find a record of him graduating from the school or find him in the 1924 or 1926 yearbooks.

The back of the photo lists the team members and coaches as follows:

• Back row, left to right: George Pung (guard), P.H. “Percy” Riggs (forward), Rev. T. Leo Keaneny, Virgil Skumautz (center), Raymond Hermanutz (guard)
• Front row, left to right: George Ladner (guard), Oswald Denne (captain, forward), Nick Lies (forward0, John Smuda (forward), Charles Tanner Jr. (coach)

So far, so good, right? But when I looked closely at the boy labeled as Percy, my instinct was to say, no, that must be the wrong guy – although none of the others looks any more like him.

It’s my opinion, based only on photos I have seen of Percy from different times in his life, that it is not Percy. Yet, I can’t completely rule it out, either, knowing that the faces of growing boys do change in the late teen years. Also, it’s clear from the yearbook that he did play on the team.

Blog readers, can you help me out? Look at the photos and let me know what you think.

St. Cloud Cathedral high school basketball team, 1925

Percy?

Percy, 1917

Percy as a college student, unknown date

Percy as a young band director, unknown date

Of course, if it’s not Percy, it raises the question – who else could it be? The yearbook notes that the team started out with 15 young men, and the coach took 10 to the first game of the season in Royalton. But only eight players are in the photo, and only eight names are listed in the yearbook roster, including Percy’s.

Although his name isn’t mentioned in the regular season game recaps, he apparently played well in the first two of the team’s three post-season tournament games. In the game against Superior, which Cathedral won 21-9, Percy replaced team captain Dunne, who was forced out by an attack of appendicitis. Percy’s “splendid floor work and accurate eye baffled the Superior defense,” according to the yearbook. And in the semi-final game against St. Mary’s, which Cathedral won 24-15, the yearbook notes that Percy was “good.” He must not have played much or well in the final game, a 10-27 loss to St. Thomas, because his name was not mentioned again.

It’s not vitally important, but it would be helpful to know whether it is Percy in the photo, for the sake of accuracy. I’m trying to verify more details about his young adult life for the book chapter I’m writing that covers the 1923-25 time period. 

I remains a mystery for now – I will have to keep digging.