Carrollton School c1922: The Picture May Be Worth a Thousand Words, but It Raises a Lot of Questions

How wonderful to find an oversize photo of students at Carrollton (Kentucky) School, back when the school included all grade levels.

How frustrating that when Sarah Eva Howe Salyers pasted it into a scrapbook, she added no commentary – no date, no identifications, no story. Also, the photo was cut into sections so it would fit on a scrapbook page.

Today I share the photo with you and ask for any information you can supply. Maybe you recognize some faces and can supply some names or a date. The sections are ordered as they appear from left to right in the original image.

I have identified only one person, Sarah's daughter Mary Alice, and I marked her in the second image.

These questions come to mind:
1. When was the photo taken? We have clues. Based on dated photos we have of Mary Alice, she appears in this image to be about 12 years old. That dates the photo circa 1922. The clothing corresponds with styles worn at that time.The photographer's credit in the lower left of the first image says "Otto White, North Vernon, Ind." The same photographer took another photo in the same location (outside Carrollton School, according to a helpful reader) on Oct. 24, 1923. You can see that photo in the blog post dated August 20, 2017. Was this photo taken the same day? Was "picture day" an annual event? Why did the school hire a photographer from Indiana instead of a local photographer or one from Louisville or Cincinnati?

2. Mary Alice is in the photo, but where are her brothers? Jim was her twin; her older brother Bob would have been about 15 in 1922; David would have been about 7 years old. If I use my imagination, I can pick out boys who look a little like Jim and David, but that's mostly wishful thinking. Were none of the Salyers boys in school that day?

3. Who are these people? If you can name any of these students (or one of the few who appear to be school staff), please let me know. It's likely that some of these people are mentioned in Sarah's scrapbooks. Several could be related to Sarah, her husband William Levi Salyers, and her children. Many of them or their descendants could be living in Carrollton today.

What questions – or answers – come to your mind when you look at this group photo?

Scraps of Paper Reveal the Life and Times of a Carrollton, Kentucky Schoolboy in the 1920s

In today's exploration of Sarah Eva Howe Salyers's scrapbooks, I came across one she labeled "David H. Salyers, Book 1." Its pages hold a treasure trove of pictures, clippings, cards, and papers that tell the childhood story of her youngest son. I'm sharing some of those items here because they paint a picture of childhood circa 1915-1930. This little boy, David Hillis Salyers II, spent his first 14 years or so in Carrollton, Kentucky, but I think his life was typical of the life boys lived in most American small towns.

The first pages start with David's birth and preschool years. with images and notes about various "firsts" and, as Sarah so often added, bits of poetry that she either quoted or composed.
 
David was born May 14, 1915. His mother reflected on his birth in poetic prose:
To David – from Mother
Fitting your birth in May's calm weather after the wild rush of March, the changeful April sweetness – "Pan," the "March Hare," and then the smiling union – of fairy gifts – of music, and of summer gaiety.





She included a picture of the house in which David was born.

Sarah identified the people in the photo from David's perspective: "Mother [Sarah] inside, Aunt Leonora [Sarah's sister], Grandma [Sarah's mother], Mary Alice & Jimmy [David's siblings]."  (See a picture of how the house looked when he visited there in 1958.)

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Sarah filed many pages with newspaper clippings of "Uncle Wiggly" bedtime stories, which no doubt she read to him. Here's one example:

Like other little boys, David made friends in the neighborhood. Among the first was Noble (last name not given). I think "Davy" appears to be 5 or 6 years old in this photo, which would date it circa 1920.

When David started school, he made more friends. As we learn from this page from what may have been an autograph or "buddies book" popular in those days, some of his friends had interesting nicknames:

Like doting mothers everywhere, Sarah saved David's report cards. This one from first grade (1921-1922, Carrollton City Public School) shows that he got off to a good start. With Sarah as a mother, he probably was writing his ABCs and reading a bit before he started school. Note that he missed most days of school in November and January. I wish Sarah had told us why.

We know that three years later, in October 1925, the whole Salyers family was under quarantine because of measles. Here's a note he wrote to his friend "Chalk," complaining about the confinement and wishing he could go to school instead of having to "sit around all day doing nothing." He signed off saying "your friend in need." Poor David!

When he was 8 years old, David was taking piano lessons from his Aunt Leonora and was ready to play "Moon and Stars" in a recital.

Apparently, little David was prone to bringing home stray dogs. Why else would his mother have put in his scrapbook at least three items related to the topic -- a cartoon, a magazine illustration, and a picture of David himself holding a puppy.

David with a puppy (a stray?) circa 1925

Of course, every boy needed a bicycle. Here's David on a bike. I'm guessing the year at 1927.

Sarah's scrapbook for David also included memories of historic events. She devoted a page to a Cincinnati newspaper's coverage of Charles A. Lindbergh's return to the U.S. after his historic trans-Atlantic flight. The small clipping at the bottom notes a Carrollton connection:

 (I have no idea why she included on the scrapbook page an article about Ohio State University conferring posthumous degrees on three seniors who had died that year.)

The scrapbook offers glimpses of David's social life, too. This article from the Carrollton newspaper describes a party he hosted, with the help of his older sister, Mary Alice. The mention of a movie helps us date the clipping, because the silent film was produced in 1923.

Actor Jackie Coogan must have been a local favorite, because the scrapbooks have other clippings about his movies. Here is a piece about a film produced in 1926:

Like his mother, grandparents, great-grandparents, and all of his uncles, aunts, and cousins, David showed an interest in politics, starting in his grade-school years. In this note dated 1924, friend James Alexander encourages him to vote for Oscar, probably a candidate for a student leadership post at the Carrollton school.

Young David did some campaigning himself. This scrapbook page presented campaign materials he made for one of his mother's Howe cousins, John J. Howe. I'm unsure if the materials were related to a local election (John held several local offices over the years) or John's run for U.S. Senate in 1924.

Like many boys then and now, David joined the Boy Scouts of America. This colorful, 3-panel card shows he was registered for the 1932-1933 membership year. At that time he was 17 years old and a student at Henry Clay High School in Lexington. His parents had moved there a few years before that when David's older siblings enrolled in college at Eastern and the University of Kentucky.

It's amazing that a few photos and scraps of paper can tell us so much about someone we thought we knew. David's own son (my husband) learned a lot about his dad from this one scrapbook. We're even more eager now to see what the other books reveal about his Howe and Salyers ancestors.

You can read more about David in a post dated January 8, 2017.

 

 

Greetings! Cards and Notes Tell Stories of the Early 1900s

If email, Facebook, and Twitter had been around in the early 1900s, we would have no insight into communication among members of the Howe and Salyers families of Carrollton, Kentucky. Thank goodness people actually wrote notes and cards to each other – and thank goodness Sarah Eva Howe Salyers pasted so many of those notes and cards into her scrapbooks.

The most recent scrapbook I've explored contains many cards, and each one tells us something not only about Sarah but about the time in which she was a young woman. Today we'll look at some of those cards from the 1920s and 1930s.

Some cards in the scrapbook celebrate birthdays, while others are for staying in touch. Here are examples of both kinds.

These two birthday cards are pasted to old, crumbling pages, and I dare not try to remove them to see who sent them and who received them.

This birthday card was probably addressed to one of Sarah's children.

This sweet card invites someone to visit.

Someone is nudging the recipient of this card to write back. The sender, or maybe Sarah herself, tagged the dogs with the names of Sarah's children: James Richard, Bob, and Mary Alice.

Sarah's sister Leonora Alice Howe sent this postcard from Cincinnati to her brother-in-law (Sarah's husband), William Levi Salyers, while he was traveling on business.

Sarah sent this card to her husband, who was again traveling in his job as a representative of Moore Brothers Company, distributor of stoves and furnaces. She wrote a poignant note: 
"Who looks for your buttons now?"

Sarah kept many cards that have a Dutch theme. Most of them, like this one, are stereotypical – a child wearing wooden shoes, a windmill, and messages written in ethnic vernacular to simulate mispronunciation of American speech. I know from her descendants that she often used this phrase about the weather: "There's just enough blue in the sky today to make a Dutchman a pair of britches." I'll post more Dutch-themed cards in future posts, maybe with some insight about American attitudes about Dutch immigrants in the early 1900s. 

I wish I knew the story behind this card. Who sent it? Who received it?

Last but not least, this card sent by Sarah's son James Richard ("Jim") to his sister Mary Alice, suggesting that it might apply to her. It was in the early 1930s, and letters in the scrapbook reveal that Mary Alice had caught the eye of a young man named Lawrence. Jim suggested that she would jump up and run after him if he walked down her street.

Postcards and note cards tell a lot of stories. We'll look at more of them in a future post. In the meantime, I'll take a break from blogging to spend time with visiting relatives – three generations descended from Sarah's daughter Mary Alice.

Was Sarah Eva Howe Salyers America's First 'Helicopter Parent'?

In September 1925, Robert King Salyers started his sophomore year at the University of Kentucky. He lived at the Kappa Sigma fraternity house at 430 E. Maxwell in Lexington.

The scrapbooks yield several letters from Bob to his mother, Sarah Eva Howe Salyers, and from Sarah to Bob. What a treat to discover some things in this world are the same 92 years later! In excerpts from one letter (transcription below the image), Sarah pines for Bob and mentions other parents who are missing the young people who left Carrollton, Kentucky to attend college. Sarah also offers advice, entreats Bob to keep promises made (with no mention of what those promises were), and urges him to continue with medical treatment for an ailment not disclosed in the letters. I was amused to find that our precocious, inventive, fiercely independent Sarah had become a bit of a “helicopter parent,” today’s definition of one who hovers over a child to the point of micromanagement.

Dearest Bobby;
I was so sorry not to get to talk to you tonight –- I long to hear your voice, my Bobby! The town is full of bereft mothers tonight, tho. Mr. Harry and Miss Grace say they are missing the girls so terribly –- I haven’t talked to Miss Mabel, but I know how she feels; Roman [Browinski, a 1923 graduate of Carrollton High and Bob’s distant cousin] leaves tomorrow, and Doug Vest on Wednesday. I have tried to get you on the telephone at least six times! Especially when Roman was here at dinner yesterday, and again today at dinner, so you could talk to Giltner [possibly surnamed Salyers; another distant cousin].

I’m afraid you were cold tonight, without your covers. I sent them today; I hope you slept in your bathrobe and put your overcoat over you!

. . . [Referring to making pumpkin pies] I’ll save one till you come home, or perhaps I can send you one in a box. Please write and tell me about everything. Can’t you write me a letter as long as the ones you used to write to little Thomy? You don’t have to write [those] any more. Please don’t put off the inoculation and lose the effect of the first! Please tell me about the courses you are taking, what studies, etc. About the [Kappa Sigma] House, and what boys are there. Don’t forget what you promised me to do –- and don’t forget to go to church. 

With deepest love, Mother.

A letter from Bob to his mother responds to a few of her inquiries:

Dear Mother,

. . . I got my suit yesterday, also my laundry, for which I thank you very much. I’ll send you some more soon. I got a letter from Dad yesterday and he said he’d be thru here about next Thursday. I’ll certainly be glad to see him.

Well, it cost me $38 to register, and I have my schedule fixed up, but it does not suit me. To begin with, I changed into the college of commerce and had to take 11 hours of freshmen requirements which I did not have last year. I have college algebra, 3 courses in economics (3 hours each), psychology, military science and 2 hours of psychology lab, every Tuesday.

. . . We have all of the old boys back, except the ones who graduated, and ten good pledges. There are 24 living in the house now. Everything looks good for a big year.

Give my regards to everybody.

Your son, Bob

In a later letter, Bob named the Kappa Sigma pledges of 1925:
Dave McNamara and Eggy Marshall from Frankfort
T. Newman from Ashland
Bill Matheny from Stanford
R. Dycus and J.H. Adams from Smithland
George Penn of Lexington
Ed. Davis from Berea
George Broadus’s brother (no other information)
Joe Thomas from Hopkinsville

Like any college student, Bob wrote home about money:

I wrote a check on you for $3.50 and perhaps you had better send me $7 or $8 as I still have some books to get. Books cost $5 apiece or thereabouts once in a while $2.50 or $3. I am not going to write any more checks now.

Of course, college can’t be all work and no play. There’s football! Bob writes home to his brother:

Jim, old boy, I’ll be glad to have you come up to the Centre game if we can get seats and a way over, both of which will be pretty difficult. I’ll let you

Ticket stub, 1925 (found for sale on eBay)

know right away so you can come up to some other game if I can’t get seats for the other. Really, the best game will be the one with W&L [Washington and Lee] this Saturday. . . There is one with Sewanee the next Saturday and one with Tennessee on Thanksgiving – the Homecoming day. Maybe that one will be best.

To his mother, he mentioned going to a couple of college parties and the football game. He also wrote home about an achievement:

. . . I am enclosing a clipping [gone now from the scrapbook] announcing the pledging of the SuKy Circle, considered by many the foremost honorary [fraternal organization] on the campus. . . . To make a long story short, your little boy was among the lucky ones to be pledged at the exercises tonight. I have worked pretty hard for it but now I realize it was worth it.

He also reassured her:

I have been to church both Sundays, once at the Presbyterian church and once to the Baptist. Will go to Park [a Methodist church] this Sunday.

Sarah, an active member of the Carrollton Methodist Church from childhood, must have been pleased to read that!

A "Little Fairy" Daughter for Will and Sarah Howe Salyers

Mary Alice with mother Sarah Howe Salyers, c1914

Mary Alice Salyers was born to on April 6, 1910. I long to include her baby picture here, but I have never seen a picture of baby/toddler Mary Alice that didn't also include her twin Jim!

To solve that problem, I've cropped one of the images to feature her with only her mother. After all, as you will see, she was like her mother in many ways. You can see several more images in a previous post about the twins.

Letters in the family scrapbooks refer to young Mary Alice as a "little fairy" and a "sweet little elf." Maybe that little round face and those big eyes played a part in that. Based on what I know of the adult Mary Alice, I can imagine her as a little girl full of creativity, a keen interest in everything, and a love for books and stories.

This fading picture hints at another part of her personality. An older Mary Alice, maybe 10 years old, is playing with her brothers Jim and Bob and two unknown (to me) adolescents. This image fits with the adventurous and playful Mary Alice who in her 60s and 70s waded with my children in a creek, gave them rides in a wheelbarrow, and helped them catch bugs.

Mary Alice Salyers forming a pyramid with brothers Jim (far left) and Bob (far right) and two, c1920

Mary Alice Salyers, c1928 (age 18)

When Mary Alice was in her mid-teens, she moved from Carrollton to Richmond, Kentucky, where she graduated from Madison High School circa 1928. (I'm guessing at the year, based on her birth year of 1910.) I wonder if this portrait might be her senior picture. Like most of the photos in the scrapbooks and family albums, it is not dated. I may discover details about her high school years as I delve into more scrapbooks. Her mother Sarah made some of them specifically for her, but Mary Alice made many scrapbooks, too, just like her mother.

Mary Alice got her college degree from the University of Kentucky, where she was a member of Kappa Delta social sorority; Theta Sigma Phi communications/journalism society; Phi Beta Kappa honor society for the liberal arts; Kappa Delta Pi honor society for the field of education; and Mortar Board, a society recognizing scholarship, leadership, and service. All of these accolades fit with the Mary Alice I knew 35 years later.

From about 1934 to 1939, Mary Alice was the librarian in Somerset's combined city and high school Carnegie Library. She left that job when she married Richard Allen Hays of Anchorage, Kentucky. What fun it is to read newspaper articles about her engagement and wedding. This article from the Lexington Leader of April 9, 1939 (found at genealogybank.com) describes how Mary Alice announced her engagement to her friends. Of course the event involved books!

An article in the same paper's "Personals" column of June 4, 1939, described a linen shower give in Mary Alice's honor. "Gifts for the bride-elect were presented in a box made to resemble books on a shelf," with the names of the guests as authors of the books.

The ceremony uniting Dick and Mary Alice in marriage took place at sunset on June 17, 1939 in the garden of her parents' home in Lexington. 

(Will and Sarah moved there from Richmond around 1930.)  The local paper reported the next day: "The bride, given in marriage by her father, wore her mother's wedding gown of ivory silk, shirred in princess style, with lace veil caught to a wreath of white rosebuds."

What a treat to see Sarah Eva Howe's wedding dress! I have not come across any  pictures of Sarah's wedding (14 December 1905 in Carrollton, Ky.). Now I can imagine the way she looked when she married Will Salyers.

Dick and Mary Alice moved to a farm in Jefferson County during the 1940s. In 1945, Mary Alice gave birth to the couple's only child, Richard Allen Hays, Jr. A few decades later, they downsized into Dick's childhood home in Anchorage.

Mary Alice was an educator and librarian at Anchorage School, where she made reading important – and fun – for students from the 1940s to 1975. She offered summer sessions that brought her students in to read, do projects based on that summer's theme, and hear stories. Like her mother Sarah, Mary Alice could tell a good story.

Mary Alice died on July 18, 1998, just two months after becoming a widow. Her story continues through her son and his wife, their sons, and a new generation now numbering two.

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There will be more posts about Mary Alice, because Sarah created scrapbooks for her and because Mary Alice created some of the scrapbooks herself.

Over the next few weeks, I'll be taking a break from blogging to spend time with living cousins. In the next post, we'll return to the scrapbooks to learn about a death in the Howe-Salyers family – a death that brought Sarah much sorrow barely two weeks after the birth of her twins.