Guendolen Carkeek Plestcheeff (1892-1994) was born in Seattle in 1892 at the First Hill mansion home of her parents, British-born Seattle pioneers Morgan and Emily Carkeek. Guendolen was sent to Europe for schooling at age 13 and spent much of the adult life traveling between Seattle and Europe. Following in the footsteps of her mother, who founded the Seattle Historical Society, Guendolen was active in promoting preservation of local history, and was president of Seattle Historical Society for 17 years. Plestcheeff was instrumental in helping the Society acquire the property off Lake Washington Boulevard on which the Museum of History & Industry stood until its move to South Lake Union in 2012.

This photograph was taken after Guendolen Carkeek’s marriage to Theodor Plestcheeff, a refugee Russian aristocrat she met while living in Estonia in the late 1920s

Stamped on photo: Walters

Handwritten on verso: Madame Theodor Plestcheeff née Miss Guendolen Carkeek, Paris 1931