Horace Sykes moved to Seattle from Oregon in the late 1920s as an expert on fire safety.  He had come to work for Northern Life soon after the insurance company had moved into their new highrise at the southeast corner of Third Ave. and University Street and Third Ave.  It is now called the Seattle Tower.  I have always assumed that at least a good percentage of Horace’s picturesque landscapes were photographed while he was on trips examining insurance claims, and yet this and a photograph of an ice plant destroyed by fire are the only instances or “evidence” of the pain and destruction the insurance examiner must have been very familiar with in his subjects.  This is one of two photographs taken of this unnamed woman, most likely sometime in the late 1940s.  It is the easier one to look at.