In 1890 OD Welsh and Charles Rollins Edington began a photography studio in Marysville, Kansas. By 1892 Charles Rollins Edington chose this sole profession after a hay straw while working on the family farm punctured his right eye. This same year Edington bought out Welsh’s share in the business founding Edington Photography. During this time C.R Edington made his own wet plates and sensitized his own photo paper. He typically took photographs within his studio on “wet” glass plates or tintype photographs. Wet plates were typically placed within the camera while still wet and were typically sensitized by myriad of different and toxic chemicals. Many families leading up to and during the World War I began with portraits taken in C.R. Edington’s Studio.

 In 19 11 WG Edington was born to Charles and his wife.  W.G. Edington or “Rod” was working at the studio and touching up dust spots on photographs with India ink. He worked at the studio with his wife Virginia from the date of their marriage in 1929. Virginia would tint black and white photos by hand. Rod expressed his interest in music by selling musical instruments at the studio in the 1920s. With the advent of flash bulb photography photographers could more easily take their services to the customer instead of the customary portraits taken within the studio to commemorate special occasions.

By the late forties the studio had become a Kodak processor and Rod began to work large numbers of hours developing film and printing photographs.  He stated later, “I think the longest time I have ever worked was 42 hours straight.”  Also during the 1930s and 1940s Edington had two new arrivals to the family Rodney Edington and Lydia Edington. Lydia later became Mrs. Lydia Spencer by her marriage to Gordon L Spencer in 1964.

On December 25^th 1975 the last picture was taken at the Edington Studio at 107 South 8^th in Marysville, Kansas. The studio stood directly across the street from the Pony Express Station near the present day Marshal County courthouse in downtown Marysville.  The first picture taken by the studio is still among the family’s belongings, the name of the client lost to history.

In 1983 Mark Spencer, the first of three sons born to Gordon and Lydia Spencer began taking photographs for the Kansas National Guard as a Unit Public Affairs representative.  In 1986 Mark began to take forensic photography and video for several investigative agencies on the midwest and east coast of the United States.  At the height of his investigative photography he was licensed in ten separate states as a Private Investigator and owned his own investigative agency.

In 2004 Mark Spencer reestablished the family studio in Auburn, Kansas with his wife and co-photographer Patti the story continues….