Part 2: Sarah's House-to-House Stroll Almost Makes Up for the Missing 1890 U.S. Census

In the second segment of Sarah Eva Howe's "Book of Recollections," we join Sarah at 5th and Seminary as she continues to take us from house to house, family to family, remembering Carrollton, Kentucky, circa 1890. This may be as close to a replacement as we're likely to find for the missing 1890 census of the town.

As I transcribe this journal written by Sarah in 1943, I want to stay faithful to her writing – even her long, convoluted sentences full of parenthetical phrases. However, because Sarah was writing to her own grown-and-married daughter, she felt free to "tell it like it is" – or was –  according to her own memory. A few stories about her neighbors are unflattering. While I have the right to publish info and images from Sarah's scrapbooks and journals, I don't have the right – or desire – to publish anything that could cause hurt or shame among living descendants. After all, without proof, these stories are merely gossip.

Throughout this series of posts, I will indicate omissions with an ellipsis, a series of periods. If you read something about your own ancestor and want the omitted information, please email me so we can discuss it. My email address is under the "About" tab.

And now, on with Sarah's virtual stroll through Carrollton. As always, my own comments are in brackets. All parentheses are Sarah's own.

From 5th Street on, there were no houses on Seminary that I know of until almost 1894 or 5, when the little brick on the corner was built, probably for Pearce Winslow and Maynie (Bond), his wife, for they were living there when Pearce ... left her. Just in passing, isn’t it sad and strange that of the three most prominent families then in the Methodist Church, not a great-grandson of the names survives. Mr. Will Winslow’s son died, so did the child¹ Maynie bore Pearce after he left her; Mr. Henry Winslow left a son, Cooper, who never married. Mr. George [and] Mr. Jim left no children — the girls of course, as Aunt Lou, had sons of different family names. 

Of the Howes, you know of course, Papa’s son² died, Uncle Joe’s boys³ had no children, Aunt Sallie’s son⁴ is a Froman, my children are Salyers⁵; Uncle John’s baby died, Aunt Lou’s and Uncle Will’s boys⁶ had no sons. Of the Conns, the daughters had sons of different names, of course, and even in the Rowland family, with three sons, there was not a son born to any – only to one girl in the family, Louise, who married Harry Stringfellow. Looking around at all the multitude of babies I see, I think it isn’t fair somehow that there is not a Howe, a Conn, or a Winslow left of the old families by name among the youngest generation.

One house built on 5th Street was the Methodist Church parsonage. It was completed in 1899 
at 219 5th St. The first resident was the Reverend J.D. Redd.

But to go back to geography? topography? — I am going to skip down 4th Street, on which no one lived that I remember except the Thoma family — he was the harness maker, and his wife was so pretty. They had three boys and a girl. I’m not sure they were living in the house they now occupy (Mrs. Thoma). In fact I believe they bought it later, but they lived there in 1903, I know, or about the time Mabel graduated and married Charlie Griffith.
 
The Schuermans had moved to Carrollton about 1884, almost the time Mama came to live at Grandma Howe’s⁷ home for a year, when I was little, for Aunt Sallie Howe, as well as several other girls, had quite fallen for Henry, who had a certain rough masculine charm, though a German ruthlessness with his employees (however, he was an impulsive, kindly fellow at heart, good to his family and the best of the three boys). About the time we came to Carrollton, he had won the heart of Ruth Winslow, tho the great opposition of her mother, who however afterwards was devoted to him. Will Schuerman had married Julia Berg, and their first child⁸ was born late in 1890, I think. Julia had a brother, Bob Berg, but he never made much history except as a hard drinker, like Jim Winslow who was, however, of a far superior intellect and amiability. I suppose the Schuermans lived where Miss Hattie did, but they rebuilt the house several times or fixed it over.

Oh, I forgot! In the brick house where cousin Ruth and Henry [Schuerman] lived afterwards, Mr. James Lowe was living when we went there; he was an Englishman or Canadian, I forget which, but I remember him, a quiet, small, oldish man. His much younger half-sister⁹ lived down near Grandpa Howe, and I played with the two boys Jim and Charlie, when I was living at Uncle Joe’s.

Now, coming from Seminary to Sycamore on Fourth St., across from the Schuerman house lived the Blessings, a remarkable German family of the most creditable kind (alas, almost extinct, it seems). The Schuermans were German but more well to do and not of a deeply religious or kindly nature like the Blessings, nor as eager for education. The house of this big family was on the same corner of 4th & Sycamore as our house (afterwards) was on 4th & High St. There was Mr. Blessing, who was a butcher and not highly educated himself, and Mrs., who was everything you ever read about a homely, hard working, ambitious-for-her-children immigrant mother. But I imagine she had a background, and certainly she had the drive. Mary (you remember her as Mrs. Told) was one of the first graduates of Carrollton High School –- she and Lena Smith and Lucy Wafford graduated together in exercises held at the 6th St. Schoolhouse in 1890, I believe, or thereabouts; Mr. Weaver was the principal, tho he left and Mr. Melcher came in the year I started to school (the fall of 1890; I may be a trifle off in these dates, but I can verify them later. The three graduation addresses were Mary’s in German, Lena’s in Latin, and Lucy’s in English.

A portion of Sarah's writing about the Blessing family, who lived at 4th & Sycamore in the 1890s.

The oldest Blessing son went on to college, was a Kappa Sig and I believe a Ph.D.; he was a very outstanding boy — went to Swarthmore, I think. George, his name was. Mary married Mr. Told of Vevay; he came from a pretty good family — his brother’s daughter, Mabel Told, used to visit them and she was a very attractive and [a] child who could both recite and sing — one of those “infant prodigies” of the 90s. (Sallie Howe [the writer herself] was rather considered on the verge of one but I am thankful to say lacked some of the characteristics). . . . [The information is ambiguous here; apparently, Mr. Told left the family after three children were born.] Mary raised them (very creditably for the material at hand) and worked for years at Howe’s Store¹⁰ to support them.

The second son graduated with John Howe¹¹ and went to “State College”¹² with Lewis Darling. I imagine he, too, was a Kappa Sig, for Lewis was. His name was Charlie Blessing; he was one of the “Dirty Dozen” with your Uncle Bob Salyers¹³, cousin John Howe¹¹, Charlie and Oscar Kipping, and Allen Gullion and Frank Grace. Then it seemed the rest were not so outstanding — there were two deaf & dumb children, Lily and Violet (you remember Lilly; she was very smart, worked for years at the store). Both attended the Deaf Mute Institute, and Violet married another boy who went to school there. Clarence and Rose were around my age (Rose a little older), and Clarence was not as smart as the other boys. Rose was bright, but not like Mary. She married a Craft and taught school for years at Hindman. The youngest boy was called Bolivar Buckner [Blessing], or "BBB" by most of the children, and there was another boy, Paul, a little older, rather effeminate, who was quite talented in music (but not a genius) and also, strangely enough, a fine mathematician, quite a wizard at it. He taught it afterwards at school somewhere. But the truth was that after the first four or five children came, they shouldn’t have had the others, for they had neither the health themselves or money for the education of the last ones. Buckner just ran wild, tho I believe he afterwards did very well when his brother George took him after the death of his parents.

Right across the street from the Blessings lived the Linnishes. He had only one leg, had lost his other I think in one of the wars in Germany. His daughter Lizzie (who married Clem Roche — they pronounced it Rick!). Come to think of it, they were probably Irish, tho her mother was German, I’m sure. All of them were Catholic, but the Blessings were Lutherans, I imagine. Anyway, with the Stamlers and other non-Catholic Germans they formed the backbone of the Presbyterian Church there at Carrollton. Lizzie was a very pretty girl, we could see them across from our house, as our hill-gardens touched at the bottom. Across from them on the fourth corner of 4th & Sycamore lived the Kreutzers. Mr. K was a protestant, I think, his wife was Catholic and raised the girls that way. One of his daughters married Bud Horan’s uncle, Jim, the handsomest Irishman who was ever 

seen on the streets of our fair city, it was said. (She was good-looking, too, and Elinor, their daughter, was a real beauty; she was Leonora’s age.) The other, Annie, married a brother of Laurence Grobmeier¹⁴ of the family of which I told you earlier. (You remember their children Osmond[?] and Florian Grobmyer, I’m sure.) Annie was one of those flamboyant dressers, wore big hats turned up on the side, and was suspected of using a little rouge.

A queer combination made up the people who lived on the left on Sycamore (as you went down 4th to High). In a tiny frame cottage lived old Mrs. Rhodenbach, an aunt, I believe, of Mrs. Glauber, Bertha’s mother (those early Catholic families are hard to untangle as to relationship). She had a daughter who married an Irishman named Donnelly and had the boy I mentioned, Eddie, and two daughters, Maggie, who lived with us when Leonora was born (Mrs. Weismiller next to Miss Rose’s, you remember) and Katie, who married Ernest Lawrence. 

Next to her lived Ben Myers, who was a bricklayer, and his wife and a pretty niece, Grace Covington. I’m trying to think whom she married. Next lived the Schonlows.¹⁵  ... 

Next to the Schonlows (a step down an alley, but almost on the same street) lived the Washingtons, of color, with a whole family of children. These two houses were back of the church. On summer evenings we could sit in our back yard (at 4th & High) and see the Washingtons disporting themselves in their back yard, with enough distance to make it a lovely picture of the old south and Stephen Foster.¹⁶ The littlest girl, Mesie, was a perfect little “topsy.” The old grandmother, a good old woman, who lived with them, fell down the steep back steps and broke her neck, but we weren’t looking over at the time. Alec was the name of the father. I’m hazy about the other side of the street of that square.

Of course, no one lived on 4th St. between Sycamore and High St. because those wonderful gardens stretched down from the houses on each street corner to a little stream which ran through a kind of culvert at the very depth of the little valley where the line fence ran. (When the “backwaters” came up, this filled out into a sizable stream.) And by the way, before leaving this part of town I find I didn’t mention the youngest Schonlow girl, Elizabeth, who married Ed Hill, the dairyman, and died with her second child, I believe. She was a very nice girl, too. His first wife was Laura Glauber, and of her family I will tell when we get to upper Sixth St. beyond Seminary, and there we might as well go after slipping out Fifth Street from High, first (and now we are getting down into where I lived). 

Leaving the Winslow and Donaldson homes to be described with High Street, Aunt Lou and Uncle Will6 lived at the same house then that Aunt Lou has lived in all her married life, but of course the place where the parsonage and the Robertson house and the one next to it are now was just their side yard and pasture, where we played many a happy hour. I don’t know who lived in the gray brick across the street, but the Goslees moved in there about 1891 (but when I first went to Mildred’s house, they were living on Main Street).

************** To Be Continued **************

 Endnotes:
¹The first child, as far as I know, was unnamed and died shortly after birth. The second child, William Beverly Winslow, died in 1907 at age 6. Several Winslow families gave their children the name William Beverly, honoring the ancestor of that name who lived in Carrollton from 1814 to 1883. The mention of "Aunt Lou" refers to daughter Louisiana Winslow (1852-1944),who married Sarah's uncle William Ficklin Howe (1846-1916).  
²Chandler Howe, Sarah's brother, who died 10 Nov 1889 at age 19 months.
³James Goslee Howe and George Thompson Howe, sons of Joseph B. and Sallie Goslee Howe
⁴Robert Hiram Froman, b. about 1885 to Sarah Varena Howe and Hiram M. Froman  
⁵Sarah married William Levi Salyers on 14 Dec 1905  
⁶Sarah's paternal uncle William Ficklin Howe and wife Louisiana "Lou" Winslow Howe had two sons, Winslow B. Howe and John Junior Howe.
⁷Reference to Alice Ada Cost Howe, who was Sarah's mother and her children's grandmother.
⁸Henry Burg Schuerman, born 17 Feb 1889  
⁹Sarah later corrects this relationship to step-daughter.
¹⁰Howe’s Department Store was owned and operated by Sarah’s grandfather, father, and uncles.   ¹¹John Junior Howe (1879-1939), son of Sarah's uncle William Ficklin Howe  
¹²University of Kentucky, Lexington
¹³Robert King Salyers, Sarah's father's brother, who died while in his teens
¹⁴Possibly Grobmeyer; Sarah wrote one, then wrote the other over it.
¹⁵Sarah wrote that this family had several sons and three daughters, but she named only Rudy, Annie, Mamie [or Marnie?], and Elizabeth.
¹⁶This paragraph reveals attitudes of that time period. We can't change history. 

Sarah and Jenn Travel to Lakeland, 1898

I grew up in Louisville, Kentucky, in the 1940s and 1950s. On days when my two younger sisters and I wore our mother's patience thin, she would throw up her hands and proclaim, "I might as well check in at Lakeland." We were too young to know what Lakeland was, but Mama's tone of voice told us it must be a place for people who had just about reached their breaking point.

Decades later, I figured out that Mama was referring to Lakeland Asylum for the Insane (as it was once known), a mental health facility in Anchorage, just east of Louisville. Other names for the facility were Central Kentucky Lunatic Asylum, Lakeland Hospital, and Central Kentucky Asylum for the Insane. You may know it by its present name, Central State Hospital.

In 1898, Sarah Eva Howe and her cousin Jenne, both about 15 years of age, traveled from Carrollton, Kentucky, to Anchorage to visit Mildred Goslee, whose father was the Lakeland superintendent. Sarah's comments give us a peek at some of the social customs of the day and include references to some of the charity and mission projects that involved her mother, cousins, aunts, and friends in Carrollton, Kentucky.

Lakeland Administration Building, built c1872 ²

As soon as school closed, Jenne and I began to get ready for our big trip, which was to be a visit to Mildred Goslee at Anchorage, or rather Lakeland, for tho she went to school at Bellewood¹and we were to attend her closing exercises, she lived with her family in the Superintendents home at the Asylum. We ate at their table, with the other doctors and their wives, and the food was really delicious; we went all over the buildings “on tours,” especially into the kitchens, where I saw more beans being prepared to cook than ever in my life so far. On Saturday night we looked on at the dance given every week for the patients and attendants. We attended class night, when Mildred sang and several girls contested for a prize in “elocution.” The girl who won had a long recitation about a gypsy, which ended “like Wild Zaratella, whose lover is dead.” Sunday we attended church at the present Anchorage Presbyterian Church. At the close of the service Mildred introduced us to several of her friends; one well dressed lady rushed up to us and said “Have you ever heard of Ramabai?” We were dazed, we never had, and didn’t know whether it was a medicine or a new kind of flower or food.

Mildred arranged that we should go to her home next day to hear about “her” (as we found out later Ramabai was). We still didn’t understand very well when she told us about the Zenana work in India which was Pandita Ramabai's great contribution to progress – it was one of her special charities, this lady, and she was quite wealthy, living in a lovely home. She was so enthusiastic about it that she talked about it to everyone. Since then I have found out what a really marvelous person Ramabai was, but I didn’t understand it then. We had our Missionary Society, the Willing Workers (changed in 1893, I believe, to Carrollton Truehearts for Mrs. S.C. Trueheart) and of course there were the adult

The Willing Workers Missionary Society of Carrollton (Kentucky) Methodist Episcopal Church received this certificate circa 1886 recognizing a $10 donation to a project in China. Sarah's mother Alice Ada Cost Howe was a member of that society, and Sarah later joined.

societies, the Foreign Mission and “home mission” or “Parsonage” societies – but we had no missionaries in India in the southern Methodist church so knew nothing of the work done there.

The graduation exercises were held, I believe, Tuesday morning – this was the week of June 9, for on that day we went to the exercises at "Rest Cottage" named for the Frances E. Willard one in Chicago where poor working girls could go for a week of free vacation in the summer and have instruction and entertainment as well as food and lodging. Jennie Casseday was really the originator of the idea, and every WCTU³ had (and has yet) a department in her honor called The Flower Mission in which special attention is given to sending, as she did (and she was for so many years acclaimed), little bunches of flowers to the sick at hospitals with verses of cheer and comfort attached. Her birthday, June 9th is always especially celebrated by a particular act of mercy – in Carrollton we took a treat and held a service on that day at the Poor Farm.

So, as I say, in 1898 on that day we went to exercises at Rest Cottage. On Tuesday there was the Bellewood Graduation. I don’t remember much about it, except that there was an Anne Finzer who graduated (of the Nicholas Finzer Company, tobacco people). She had the most exquisite white dress of lace and sheer “voile” and carried a sheaf of lilies (and this was why I particularly remembered her) in her withered left arm pressed against her body; she probably had had infantile paralysis⁴, tho we knew nothing of it then – even her wealth had not been able to help that poor little arm.

On another page in the same scrapbook, Sarah provides a bit more history of Bellewood Seminary. The excerpt refers again to Mildred Goslee.

Transcription: [Mildred Goslee was] now living at Lakeland Hospital, where her father was superintendent (appointed by Governor Bradley) and was for the second year attending Bellewood Seminary, a famous local Presbyterian School (its buildings now are incorporated in the Orphanage at Anchorage and the chapel is the Anchorage Pres. Church. This is the school mentioned in The Little Colonel at Boarding School written sometime later.


ENDNOTES
¹ Bellewood Female Seminary, established in 1860 by William Wallace Hill. The school was associated with the Anchorage Presbyterian Church until the school closed in 1916. Source: The Encyclopedia of Louisville by John E. Kieber, page 33, via Google Books.
² Image ULPA 1994.18.0716, Herald Post Collection, 1994.18, Photographic Archives, University of Louisville, Louisville, Kentucky. Used here with permission.
³ Women's Christian Temperance Union. Sarah's mother, and later Sarah, were members.
⁴ An old term for polio, an infectious disease (now all but eradicated in the U.S.) that can cause paralysis, difficulty breathing, and sometimes death. Source: www.mayoclinic.org.