Gloved Mystery

Candy Rypczyk wrote, “My husband had a relative who lost both hands in a coal mining accident in Pennsylvania, and wore heavy gloves like this to hide the hooks he had in place of hands. The young man looks pretty young to have worked in the coal mines, but could also have been born with a hand deformity. Just a thought. (Perhaps the other young man is wearing a glove ‘in sympathy.’)”

I agree with you, Candy. There’s definitely something different about the hands of the man on right. If you compare the dimensions of his hand, the gloved one is significantly larger. That’s not the case with the man on the left—both his hands are the same size. I’ll delve deeper into this mystery by contacting the owner of the photo to see if she has an additional family information.

Thank you also to the reader who suggested the man on the right might have an artificial limb, and to the person who observed the way the men in the front posed their legs for the picture. Another reader thought it might be a golfing glove.

I wonder if the type of glove provides any clues. It’s a heavy leather glove. It’s a little fancy for a work glove and their attire doesn’t suggest they’ve come from their day’s labor to pose for this picture.

So the questions remain:

• What type of glove is this?
• Do their gloved hands correspond with their dominant hands?
• Did they have injured/artificial hands? Perhaps they are missing partial fingers on those hands?
• What did these men do for work?

Isn’t it fun the way a single photo can generate so many questions!