Bill and Lou Horner, Twice for Good Measure, Circa 1910

This real postcard photograph is simply labelled, "Bill and Lou Horner"... twice.  But, unfortunately, there isn't a location or photographer mentioned.

There are a few clues that can help us narrow down the date the postcard was made.  There isn't a postage stamp or postmark, so we aren't lucky enough to get an exact date but the picture was made on AZO paper and you will notice that there are four triangles in the corners of postage stamp box.  This tells us that the postcard was made somewhere between 1904 to 1918.  Later AZO postcards have two triangles up, and two down.  You can also see that the postcard is divided down the middle:  one side for correspondence, the other for name and address.  This development was implemented in North America around 1907.

Lastly, the location of back printing on the card is fairly high up on the AZO card.  This indicates a date of around 1910 and later.  Earlier AZO cards have the words "Post Card" a bit lower on the card.

So I think we can guess a time frame of 1910-1918, making some allowance for photographers using older paper.  But narrowing down which Bill and Lou Horner is another problem entirely.  We have a fairly common surname, with common given names and no location.

I ran it through an Ancestry search anyway.  I did find a William Horner, born 1913, New Jersey, who had a brother Louis, born 1915, New Jersey,  living in Pennsylvania in the 1920 & 1930 censuses.  They were the sons of William and Grace Horner.  The family lived in Philadelphia in 1930, and in Quakertown, PA in 1920.

I haven't been able to find any more on the family, but perhaps a search of the 1940 census would provide some more information to go on (once the site gets less busy after its recent release!)  It's very difficult to know if this is even the correct Bill and Lou, though.  Perhaps we will get lucky and find a relative who has other photos to compare with.