Barbara and William Nester

This portrait photograph shows the farmer William Nester and his wife Barbara Annie Hollar Nester, two deaf residents of Lantz Mills. Barbara was a direct descendant of Petter Hollar, Sr. an early white resident of Shenandoah County who moved his family to Virginia from Pennsylvania in the 1760s. Many members of the Hollar family were congenitally deaf, which led to a statistically high number of deaf residents in the Lantz Mills area. Barbara and William married on August 30, 1858, and together had two hearing children, Isabella (Bell) and John.