Dejazmatch Gebre Selassie Baria Gabr (Tigrinya: ደጅ አዝማች ገብረ ስላሴ ባርያ ጋብር) was the Governor of Adwa in Tigray. Born in 1872. In 1902 he was appointed joint Governor of Tigray province.
In the first photo, which was taken in 1930, the Governor is wearing the ceremonial robe of the city of Axum. And in the third photo was the house of Dejazmach Gebre Selassie Baria Gebir and his wife Wolete Israel Seyoum. In 1974 this house was confiscated by the Derg, the new revolutionary government, and became a local government office. After the Derg was overthrown in 1991 it was abandoned. In 2006 it was restored and a new museum built in the compound.
“Princess Wolete Israel Seyoum (1906 – 1988), was the daughter of Leul Ras Seyoum Mengesha, Prince of Tigray, and great-granddaughter of Emperor Yohannes IV of Abyssinia. She was thus the sister of Leul Ras Mengesha Seyoum. She was first married to the much older Dejazmach Gebre Selassie Baria Gabr of Adwa by whom she had a son, Dejazmach Zewde Gebre Selassie. She was widowed not long after the birth of her son. She then married Crown Prince Asfaw Wossen in 1931. The marriage of Crown Prince Asfaw Wossen and Princess Wolete Israel was part of Emperor Haile Selassie’s efforts at forging closer bonds between the western Tigrean branch of the Imperial family and his own Shewan branch. At the same time that Princess Wolete Israel married the Crown Prince, her cousin (and her father’s rival for primacy in Tigray), Dejazmach Haile Selassie Gugsa of the eastern Tigrean branch of the Imperial dynasty was married to the Emperor’s daughter Princess Zenebework. It was hoped that these marriages would ensure closer bonds between the two rival princely houses of Tigray with the Emperor’s family. Princess Wolete Israel & Prince Asfaw Wossen had a daughter, Princess Ijigayehu.”