A New Chapter: The Howe-Salyers Family Moves from Hometown Carrollton to College Town Richmond

In the spring of 1927, Mary Alice and Jim, twins of Will and Sarah Eva Howe Salyers of Carrollton, completed their junior year at Carrollton High. Not many parents would consider uprooting a family and relocating to another town with two children entering that all-important senior year of high school, but that's what Will and Sarah did.

The scrapbooks don't offer a reason for their decision, but consider this possibility: Eldest child Bob had been attending the University of Kentucky in Lexington and decided (for reasons I haven't discovered) to transfer to Eastern Kentucky State Teachers College in Richmond. Three of the four Salyers children would be in Richmond, which was even farther away from home. Will traveled regionally in his job, so he could continue without missing a beat, no matter where in Kentucky he lived. The youngest child, David, would be entering his first year of junior high, so he was at a natural transition point in his schooling. I theorize it was just easier (and more economical during those economically depressed times) for this family – including Sarah's mother and sister – to live in Richmond than in Carrollton. Besides, this family was a living example of "close-knit." Whatever their reasons, off they went! A newspaper story in the Carrollton paper (likely the Democrat) covered the story. You can read at right Carrollton's farewell to the family and appreciation of their value to the community.

The family packed up their belongings at 716 5th Street in Carrollton and hired a moving company to haul the furniture and heavy boxes. Will and sons Jim and David drove to Richmond in the family car. Bob rode in the moving van.

Jim (behind the wheel), David, and Will (barely visible in the front passenger seat) drove from Carrollton to Richmond in the family car, known as the "Gray Job" and the "Topless Wonder."

Sarah and Mary Alice took a bus, carrying with them some of the smaller last-minute items. The trip was not without mishap. As Mary Alice said in a letter to friend Grace Supplee: "Such a trip! Characteristic of the Salyers family, it couldn’t pass uneventfully." The best way to share their adventure is through excerpts from that letter:

We reached Shelbyville without any trouble – the bus was so comfortable, the day so perfect, the driver so courteous, and everything so nice that it couldn’t have been better. At Shelbyville we changed busses [sic] and started "on to Lexington" in a more comfortable, almost luxurious bus and everything seemed more perfect than before. Now here’s where The Box comes in. (The reason for capitalizing it will soon be very plain.) 

You remember the box . . . into which Mother had dumped everything that had been found at the last minute? The big one on which you so carefully wrote our address? And remember how Mother and I carried it down from your house by the string, thus loosening aforesaid string? Well, at Shelbyville the bus driver had swung it up on the top of the bus, along with the basket of flowers, which was already a standing joke between us and the new bus driver (he was Irish!).

We were traveling quietly along somewhere between Frankfort and Versailles when an automobile went by, whose driver called back “Hey, you’re losing something off the top of your bus!” The bus stopped, and our driver got out to see what was wrong. The bus driver [returned] and said “The top of your box has come off, so I put it inside.” Just as the bus was about to start, Mother said to me “Do you reckon anything was lost out? Your new slicker and new hat were in the top of that box.” She went back and looked, and sure enough, they were gone! She rushed up to the front of the bus and told the driver that we had lost about $20 worth of stuff out of that box, and she would have to go back. [That $20 would equal almost $290 today!] The driver was distressed to death, for of course he couldn’t take time to go back with the bus, and still he didn’t want her to go back by herself. When he saw that she was determined to go, he hailed a car going by, which took her in, leaving me to go on to Lexington by myself (and with The Box, which was worse). She had said as she left that she would catch a ride into Lexington and meet me there, so, since I knew that there were cars passing (almost one a minute) to Lexington all the time, I felt a little easier.

The scrapbooks include no photo of the bus. This image from Northern Kentucky Views shows a vintage interurban bus – complete with rooftop luggage rack – that served Carrollton back in the day. Maybe it is similar to the one Sarah and Mary Alice took from Carrollton to Shelbyville. The bus from Shelbyville to Lexington may have been larger.

When we got to Lexington, I got out and stood a few minutes on the sidewalk to see about my baggage (as is customary). As I stood near the end of the bus, I happened to glance in where The Box was, and my heart sank “clear to my toenails.” Grace, you never saw such a mess! As you may remember, the box had two separate lids, one on top and the other on the bottom –– that is, just alike on both ends. Well, the four sides, having lost one lid, had linked together and, in the jolting of the bus, separated from the other one, thus spilling most of the contents of The Box out onto the seat! I nearly expired at the thought of getting it back together and getting it inside, especially as my arms were full to overflowing with the mandolin, the smaller box (the other one you addressed), a book that we had forgotten to pack, two small packages, Mother’s coat, and the pocketbook. So you see how much room I had for a basket of flowers and that terrible Box – even if I could put it together. Just as I was standing there wondering what would be the quickest and quietest way to commit suicide, the bus driver (the angel!) came hurrying up and said, “We’ll try to put your box together for you, lady. ... I could have hugged him where he stood! (He was good-looking anyway, but alas! middle-aged and probably married – he had that married look!) I hadn’t been there very long when that “Angel Disguised as a Bus Driver” came in to inform me that while putting The Box together, he had found a slicker and wondered if that was the one we had thought was lost. I went out to the bus with him, and there, sure enough, was the slicker! (It was my alligator-skin-looking one that Uncle Joe gave me.) A further search at the bottom of The Box disclosed my new hat, and then I realized what had happened. In being put on the bus at Shelbyville, it had been turned upside down and instead of the top it was the bottom which had come off! Of course, Mother never thought of that, and knowing that the slicker and hat had been at the top, naturally supposed them to be lost.

Mr. McGaughey [the bus driver], after giving me some fatherly advice and reassuring me again and again that he was sure Mother would get there all right and for me not to worry, etc., etc. . . . had to leave and go back to his bus (not until, however, he had received my most heartfelt, earnest thanks and appreciation! I sat down to wait, keeping my "eye peeled” for Mother, and hadn’t long to wait before she appeared. She had gone back about a mile in the car we hailed, finding papers strewn all along the way (magazine stories we had saved) but no slicker or hat. The two ladies in the car were so interested in her search and stopped at several filling stations for her to inquire if anything had been brought in that might be from The Box. Then just after they had to turn in a lane leading to their house, leaving her “by the side of the road,” an opulent-looking car came along, which she hailed to ask if they had seen anything of the lost articles. The driver was an awfully nice-looking man who said that he hadn’t seen them, but that he was going on to Lexington –– hearing which, Mother asked him if she might ride in with him (you see, Lexington wasn’t very far away). A few minutes after they started she found out that he was Mr. Netz, the man who, as representative of the company, bought the bridge down at Carrollton. We had heard so much about him and had taken so many telephone messages from him to Mr. Newman, that Mother felt like she knew him well, although she had never seen him before. He remembers hearing about us, and of course, calling up at our house so much, so they had a fine time going into Lexington that when they got to the bus station, he asked if he might wait a minute and see if, by chance, they had been turned in, or I had found them or anything. So as soon as Mother got in the station she took me back out to tell him about finding them. And thus I got to meet the great Mr. Netz, of whom I had heard so much.

We reached Richmond and the Goodloe Apartments –- which, as I prophesied, were in the awfullest mess imaginable. Everything had to be changed from where it was, so we worked like horses all the rest of the day. Grandma and Aunt Leonora came that night, so I went over to Loraine’s to stay all night, giving them my room. When we told Grandma all about The Box, etc., she said “What a shame it had to happen that way,” but I said “Shame my eye! We wouldn’t have had it different for anything. I never had so much fun in my life!” 

Sarah's mother Alice Ada Cost Howe standing outside Goodloe Apartments, where the Howe-Salyers family lived from the summer of 1927 to the summer of 1929.

A segment of the letter from Mary Alice to her friend Grace. Mary Alice noted that she hand-copied the letter so she could include the story of The Box in the scrapbook.