A Women’s Study Club Play or Halloween Fun?

Bill Rosler and friend dressed in women’s clothing - SJ Museum photo

Shaun Hub­bard shares Octo­ber’s month­ly col­umn from the SJ His­tor­i­cal Society…

This pho­to­graph is labeled sim­ply “Bill Rosler and friend dressed in women’s cloth­ing.” That much we know, and the rest could use a lit­tle more expla­na­tion. The pho­to­graph is undat­ed. It is known that Bill Rosler (1878–1968) is the man on the left. It is believed that the woman stand­ing between the two men is Ada­line Thrones (1871–1957), Bill’s sis­ter who mar­ried Anton Thrones. Par­ents of Bill and Ada­line were Christo­pher Rosler, an Amer­i­can Camp sol­dier orig­i­nal­ly from Ger­many, and Anna Pike, a Tsimshi­an who had come down from Alas­ka with her par­ents to fish the Salmon Bank.

But let’s get back to the pho­to. Who is the man on the right? Was the dress up occa­sion for the play once put on by the Women’s Study Club in which hus­bands were talked into dress­ing like women? Or is this a snap­shot from Hal­loween of yes­ter­year? If you know any answers, please con­tact the San Juan His­tor­i­cal Soci­ety and Muse­um. And enjoy plan­ning your cos­tume this month, as these two men cer­tain­ly did.

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