Carol Pesch and Jean Fader were never given a reason to doubt that their late mother, Dorothy Elliott, was a kindhearted woman of many skills who also possessed an indefatigable love for life. Judging by the photos included in her memorial slideshow, it seems she spent much of her 100 years on Earth smiling, and enjoying the company of her family.

And although they always knew she had a keen interest in photography, when they came across a box full of enlarged black and white photographic prints while going through her home belongings after she passed in late 2016 — prints indicating she had worked as a professional photographer for various stories that ran in the East Providence Post in 1963 — their curiosity was piqued to find out more.

A woman ahead of her time
A Long Island native, Elliott was born on May 26, 1916. She grew up in Long Island, the daughter of a butcher and the eldest of five children. In 1936, she defied societal expectations of women at the time and graduated from NYU with a degree in chemistry.

But despite being a Renaissance woman ahead of her time, women weren’t welcome in professional labs at the time, so she settled on a job first as a typist and then as a chemical librarian for General Chemical, where she would meet her husband, Robert, a New Hampshire native who worked as a chemist.

The two wed in 1941 and moved to Riverside in 1949 following the war, where Robert had landed a job at Rumford Chemical Works. They soon moved to a home in Rumford owned by the company and lived there from 1952 to 1959, until settling back in Riverside from 1959 to 1975. The family raised three children, including the first-born Jean and second-born Carol, along with a son, Robert.

From the time that she was young, Elliott found herself a score of hobbies, including swimming, tennis, sewing, playing the organ and, most importantly for this article, photography; the latter of which she picked up from her uncle.

Although her husband reportedly had mixed feelings on her working outside of the home, he nonetheless encouraged her photography hobby by constructing homemade darkrooms in their homes, according to Jean. Ultimately, Elliott seemingly won that argument anyways, because the family wound up with two cars to accommodate her various endeavors.

“She’d buzz around town in a Plymouth coupe,” Jean recalled with a laugh.

‘Prize pictures’ featured in The Post
One of those endeavors, it turns out, was as the lone staff photographer for the very publication you are reading right now, over 60 years ago.

Included within the dozens of prints in the box that Carol and Jean found were shots of people they didn’t know or recognize, shots of events and things happening around East Providence at the time. Some had detailed descriptions, like the shots taken for the 1963 Miss East Providence beauty pageant, where a woman in Carol’s graduating class, Joan Stevens, earned the crown.

Others included vague descriptions or no descriptions at all, such as an unnamed “Farmhand” hoisting a calf, or a sharply-dressed man with a pinky ring posing for a portrait, now known only to the modern eye as “Mr. G.”

We were able to go back into our archives and confirm that Elliott was indeed listed in the masthead throughout the 1963 copies of the Post as the only staff photographer. Many of the photo prints shown to The Post by Carol and Jean could be found within these pages, including a cover-page story for the “Magazine Section” published by the paper on Aug. 22, 1963, that chronicled the deconstruction of “The Red Bridge”, an East Providence landmark that has since been replaced by The Henderson Bridge.

Other shots for the paper included photos for a feature story on the soon-to-come spring season, and cozy photographs of kids and Santa for the Christmas edition in December of 1963.

Also included within the prints the sisters found was a clipping from an advertiser trade magazine, which quoted the East Providence Post’s general manager at the time, Arthur Eisenstein, in 1963, giving Elliott a lion’s share of credit for a boost in subscribers they had earned since she came on board.

“Our lady photographer’s prize pictures helped us gain 2,000 subscribers,” Eisenstein’s testimonial is titled. “Much of the credit goes to our one-girl photo staff. Her pictures won us three first prizes for photography in the 1963 New England Press Association contest. Advertisers have responded to our ‘new look’, too, with a healthy increase in linage. We encourage them to use photos, because a locally-oriented picture in an ad gains it twice the attention.”

In her later years, Elliott found playing organ music to be her true passion. She and Robert traveled often to attend theater organ conventions, and she even ventured all the way to Organ, Texas (yes, that’s the name) to purchase a particularly nice organ. Until she reached her early 90s, she would drive herself to New Bedford, Mass. from her home in North Kingstown to play the organ at the Zeiterion Theatre for children's programs. She died on Dec. 23, 2016.

“She was a lively person,” Carol said.

Recognize anyone you know?
Carol and Jean are curious to find out if anyone from East Providence (or any native Townies who were around in the 50s and 60s but have since moved away) can help identify any of the people found in these photographs.

The sisters are also potentially interested in finding out if a group, such as the East Providence Historical Society, would be interested in taking possession of some of the prints to use for historical purposes.

You can reach out to Ethan Hartley at ehartley@eastbaymediagroup.com if you think you might be able to identify anybody.