Bits & Pieces: Poetry, Music, Student Rosters, Skirt-length Scandal, and Playing Detective with An Old Photo

Bits & Pieces is a continuing series of posts containing scrapbook snippets that have great info but are too short for stand-alone posts. Some of these small items are too good to leave behind.
 

 1. Sleep Sweetly

Just reading this pleasant, lilting verse is relaxing! I found this in one of Sarah's earliest scrapbooks. The reference to "in this pleasant room" makes me think it would make a welcoming and decorative piece for a guest bedroom.

One web site attributes the poet to Victor Hugo (1802-1885); another site disputes that. When world-renowned biochemist Roger J. Williams was traveling, he saw the poem on the wall of a bedroom in which he stayed. He memorized it and recited it to himself nightly His assistant read it at his funeral in 1988.

  2. News Flash! Teachers Refuse Order to Wear Longer Skirts!

When the Hazel Park, Michigan, school board decreed that teachers wear skirts no shorter than 10 inches above the floor, the teachers protested with a unanimous NO!

Women on the school board argued that the "smock measure" (so called because teachers could opt to wear long smocks over their shorter skirts) was necessary to "protect the moral integrity of the youth of Hazel Park."

The local PTA supported the teachers.

The issue got publicity in papers near and far, so I was able to date the battle to late September/early October 1927. I'm intrigued that Sarah posted this newspaper clipping in her scrapbooks. Maybe there was a similar issue in her local schools.

I don't know which side won, but my bet is on the teachers.

 

 

 

 

3. The Evolution of Carrollton High School, 1880s-1890s

Continuing with the "schools" theme, here's a clipping about the students and faculty of Carrollton, Kentucky, high school from the opening of the school in 1887 to the early 1890s. I found the continuation of the article a month after posting this.

The crayon marks are something only a Salyers could love. James R. Salyers, a son of the scrapbooker Sarah Eva Howe Salyers, saved lots of clippings, and he marked almost every one of them with crayons. (Check out the Salyers surname and Carroll County files in the Kentucky Historical Society library in Frankfort.) In this clipping, he underlined the name of his paternal grandfather. The black line draws the eye to a paragraph that includes the names of several relatives and friends.

The final paragraph lists the roster for 1890 and 1891. What a gold mine for researchers trying to attach their relatives to a time and place! Below are the surnames that appear in the article. Unfortunately, the article's condition make some names impossible to read.

Fishback, Vance, Kipping, Blessing, Salyers, Weaver, Bridges, Hafford, Smith, Goslee,  Hunter, Walters, Beetem, Bergen, Hart, Meek, Palmer, Netherland, Shepherd, Stringfellow, Wilson, Bowling, Steele, Howe, Willis, Donaldson, McCrackin, Raney, Forbes, Sanders, Baker, Caldwell, Jett, Kirby, Schuerman, ???tem, Stout, Ga??es, Darling, Melcher, Hennessy, Moreland, Brash??, Giltner, Foster, Meade, Grobmyer, Whitehead, Cox, Butts, Barrett, Crouch, Mitchell, Bond, Bailey, Dem??, Phillips, Roberts, Vallan???, Arnold, Adcock, Booker, Driskell, Duvall, Hayden, Goughton, Horan, Morgan, . . .


The continuation of this article includes these students of 1890-91: Clarence Nugent, Amelia Pryor, Otis Steele, C??? Wilson, Gideon Wood, Cora McCracken (misspelled CcCracken), Bennie Cox. It also includes the names of  Carrollton school system faculty members up to 1917-18.

4. Leonora's Piano?

The Howe and Cost families of Cincinnati appreciated fine music. Many of the girls and women in both families played piano in their homes, in recitals, and at church.

I think this warranty certificate, dated 1903, may represent the Howe family's purchase of Baldwin piano #7590. Leonora Alice Howe turned 7 years old that year, a perfect age to begin learning. She showed musical promise, so I can imagine her parents, Robert James Howe and Alice Ada Cost Howe, supporting her early talent. Their support was rewarded. Leonora became a sought-after piano soloist, accompanist, and teacher.

5. Whose House This Is I Think I Know

This was the Carrollton, Kentucky home of Will and Sarah Howe Salyers and their children. Their youngest child was born here in 1915. Maybe the others were born in this house, too.
 
In the buggy, there are two babies. (That is difficult to see, but I found a notation to that effect.) This helps date the photo to 1910. Twins James R. and Mary Alice Salyers were born in April of that year. The person standing in the doorway is Sarah Eva Howe Salyers. Wearing the shorter dress is Sarah's 13-year-old sister, Leonora Alice Howe. The woman in the long dress is apparently one of their cousins. All of the dresses are dark, perhaps black. They could be mourning clothes. Sarah's maternal grandfather Richard Henry Cost died in July 1910.