My thanks to everyone who offered suggestions on the blog and in email. I think I have figured this one out. Lets look at the full photo as I explain how I came to my answer:

This photo was marked as being my great-grandfather and his family so I worked on the assumption that all of the kids were his. From that point I looked to the photo for clues.

The trees seem to be in full leaf and not looking too stressed from a long hot summer, that makes me think this was taken in late spring or early summer. As I looked at the ditch and the long pipe beside it, I remembered reading something in my grandfather’s memoirs about a farm they lived on when he was a child and how they had brought plumbing into the house. I re-read the writings and learned that they had moved to the farm in Kansas when he was almost 10 years old in 1908. Soon after moving there, they dug a new well and installed a windmill over it. Then they laid a pipe to bring water to the house and near by barn. I also read how Grandpa’s mother had kept him inside as her helper from the time he was ten until he was 14.

I decided that all of that work would have been too much for one year, plus all their regular farm work. I think they dug the well and erected the wind mill the first year and laid the pipe the second year, when Grandpa was going on 11 years old. I guessed that this was the type of job they would do in the spring, after crops were in, because the ground would be softer and it still wouldn’t be too awful hot out.

I also noticed that the whole depth/size thing was a little deceptive in this photo. Notice how the dad doesn’t look all that much larger than the boy, and how the girl looks huskier than her brother behind her. I shrunk the girl until her head was about the same size as the boy’s head, then I placed her level to the boy. Turns out that there is a greater height difference than you might think.

The final clues were the birth dates of all the children. Putting it all together I come up with this: It is early July 1909 in Allen county, Kansas.  Father, George, age 35 1/2 is in the trench. The toddler, age 21 months, is Everette. Oldest son, Francis, is 12 1/2. He is in the background turned away from the camera. The little girl is Eva and she is 4 years and 3 months old. The boy in the hat is Chester and he is actually almost 9 1/2 years old. The only child missing is 10 year, 10 month old Russell, and we know where he is – in the kitchen helping mom.