Scraps of Paper May Solve a Family History Mystery for the Howe-Salyers Family – and Maybe for Your Family, Too

Between 1907 and the late 1920s, Sarah Eva Howe Salyers and her husband William Levi Salyers reared four children in Carrollton, Kentucky. The family's scrapbooks are full of memories saved during those growing-up years. Together, these bits of paper are solving some unknowns in my genealogical research. Maybe these image, names, and dates will help solve some of yours.

The Carrollton High School Senior Class of 1928
Graduates in alphabetical order (with some guessing on my part because of flaws in the caption): Lucile Ashby, Virginia Bond, Paul Carraco, Thomas Cochran, Justine Cook, Bertie Coombs, Eunice Corn, Thomas Fisher, Gladys Fuller, George Harris, Ruth Hill, Dolly Horan, Thelma Hughes, Robert Kipping, Ruth Meadows, Lola Mitchell, Mary Ruth Mitchell, Vera Morgan, Zeba Morgan, Donald O'Neal, Morgan Perry, Harold Romerill, Ethel Sharp, Bessie Belle Winn.

 

Mystery Solved?

A report card for the 1926-1927 school year, when Sarah's daughter Mary Alice was a junior at Carrollton High School. The only thing on the card that surprises me are the two "C" grades in geometry. I never knew avid reader and learner Mary Alice to be "average" in anything! Note the "Ex" written in the Exam column for every grading period. Did that stand for "excellent," or was she "excused" from the exams? 

The combination of this card and the photo above may solve a family history mystery. Mary Alice isn't included in the senior class photo for 1928. Maybe it proves that the Salyers family moved to the Richmond-Lexington area in the summer after the 1926-1927. That's the best clue I've found so far to nail down when they left Carrollton to move closer to Eastern State College and the University of Kentucky. All four of the Salyers children attended one school or the other – or both.

Go, Carrollton High Athletes!
Mary Alice's twin brother Jim played quarterback on the Carrollton High football team. Here's the roster, probably for 1926-1927. I wish the list included first names. Note that many of the names coincide with those in the senior picture of 1927-1928. Jim would have been a junior in 1926-27. Like Mary Alice, he apparently missed graduating from Carrollton High with his buddies.

I've transcribed the surnames to help with online searches: Baker, Bergin, Brazelton, Breeck, Carraco, Cochran, Coombs, Duvall, Gex, Hill, Jeter, Kipping, Lancaster, Lindsay, Perry, Romerill, Salyers, Taylor, Webster, Wilhoit.

 

In 1926, the Anchorage High School football was the visiting team when Carrollton High played at Grobmyer's Park. Here is one of the many sporting event tickets found in the scrapbook. The ticket stub advertises a daredevil halftime show.

   

Jim also played "basket ball" for Carrollton High. Here's the cover of the schedule for the 1924-1925 season, when Don Ping was the coach and student Harold Thompson was captain. Below is the list of games played that season. If I interpret the card correctly, the Carrollton team did not fare well during the first half of the season.

In this photo dated 1927, Jim would have been 17 years old.

Howe Brothers department store, founded by Sarah Eva Howe's grandfather and managed by Sarah's father and some of his brothers, tied their advertising in the Carrollton Democrat to high school sports:

In the 1920s Kitchen

Of course, not all family memories are tied to sports. Here are two recipe cards in Sarah's handwriting. What fun to picture her making these breads for her family.

Photos are full of memories, too. Among many pictures in the scrapbooks are these two of Sarah's youngest son, David Hillis Salyers, with Wilhelmina Schuerman, daughter of Sarah's cousin Ruth Louise Howe Schuerman and her husband Henry Berg Schuerman. I estimate the date of the photo at 1923. The children are dressed in costumes, possibly for a school play.

I hope you found some names and dates that give you an ah-ha moment in your family history research. Sometimes the smallest things can solve the biggest puzzles.