I Did Not Make It Up
Sister Nan was so upset that she had been portrayed as the wife of a man twice her age that she demanded her brother begin telling everyone the painting was of a man and his daughter, a myth that persists to this day.
This is the house that appears in the painting.
It stands in Eldon, Iowa, where it was built by Charles and Catharine Dibble in 1881 as a home for them and their 8 children. It contains just 504 square feet. The Dibbles lost the house in 1897 when they were unable to pay the taxes. The family relocated to Portland where we can only hope things turned out better.