Restore if possible and dating please

[PaulaToo]

Little lad down the front has the same pointed chin, perhaps he was the younger man's son ...

[IgorStrav]

Jim thinks this is just before WW1, making Justontime's grandma early twenties?

It would fit with the "nanny" hypothesis, except, of course, that she worked in a shoe factory, you said?

It's an odd photo, isn't it - with the exception of the smiling girl in the back row and the woman on the right, who has a pleasant expression on her face, the others look either puzzled or downright bored.  Your granny also has the air of being in the wrong place, somehow, do you know what I mean?

[PaulaToo]

Just realised why the lady is smiling ...
She's the only one with a wristwatch ... well, that's what it looks like.
Shoe factory ... blows that theory.

[justontime]

IgorStrav, I know exactly what you mean about my grandma seeming to be in the wrong place. I have wondered why she is sitting in the centre of the photo, it looks odd.  

PaulaToo, she definitely worked in a shoe factory, so did her whole family and almost all her neighbours. It was a shoe town and she grew up in one of the poorest parts of the town. Her father had had a good job but he drank all the money he made, but by the time this photo was taken he had died.

Chinakay, Your comment made me laugh. I like this photo because it makes me smile but I would love to know the story behind it.

[justontime]

She does have a wrist watch, I don't know how uncommon that would be. The shoe factory is a fact rather than a theory as far as my grandma is concerned, but I know that the lady with the watch is not one of my grandmother's siblings so I can not be sure of her circumstances.

[PaulaToo]

Her place in the photo was what made me think she might be nanny to the little ones

[mare]

  could the group be something to do with the eyes? I could be imagining it but several of them look a bit different ... unless it's sun in the eyes or a scary photographer

[justontime]

Yes, several of them seem to have odd eyes in the picture. I am guessing that it must just be a poor photo, it was very faded. My grandma wore glasses in later life, but there was nothing especially odd about her eyes. She was no great beauty but she didn't have a squint or bulging eyes or anything like that.

I have been trying to find some of these faces on other photos. I have one with another group of women including my grandma's sister, the date is about right, and it is a better photo but I am not sure if any of the women are the same. I think I will end up dreaming about it tonight.

[justontime]

PaulaToo, I think my grandma had a wrist watch too! On another photo with two of her sisters at roughly the same date she seems to be wearing a watch. It could be a bracelet but it looks very like a watch, perhaps it was just worn for the photo or perhaps watches were reasonably common, I don't know.