Quote:
Originally Posted by Jaybird
I'll use this post to try and get a case together. Sometimes proving a negative is harder than proving a positive and I feel that the burden of saying this is Wilkinson should be on the people that are claiming it. Especially since I don't think it even looks like him. But, that being said, I'll do what I can.
In August 12, 1909 edition of the Humbolt Independent (Humboldt, Iowa), here's an article that seems to be talking about Hopkins Bros men's team. There is no mention of women and there would be if it was a novelty (which it was). Also no mention of Wilkinson. So we might assume that Wilkinson was gone by this time? I think it would be useful to try and get all of the Hopkins Bros Lady postcards that have postmarks to try and narrow down the dating of them.
 
I'm going to try and find a paper with Wilkinson managing the ladies team and get a date for that. But I still don't think that will prove anything. Even if I find an article with him managing the ladies team during the right time frame, that doesn't automatically put him in the picture. |
I actually think it does resemble him, but it's impossible I believe to photo match from this postcard...the guy in the postcard even wears a hat with an unusual brim that is similar to a hat he wears in one of the Monarch team photos...not many men were wearing that style of hat in the early 20th century....I don't have the links anymore to the articles I found that put Wilkinson in charge of a ladies team, but I do recall that they specifically mentioned he was managing a ladies ball team for Hopkins Bros, a sporting goods store that he worked for in Des Moines, IA...he later abandoned that team for his All Nations team.
Also strangely enough in the 20 or so copies of this postcard I have never seen one that is postmarked, which I think is very unusual.
All of this is simply circumstantial, but that said I strongly believe the man in the Hopkins postcard is Wilkinson.