Lexington, Kentucky, 1933: The Baby of the Salyers Family Achieves Stardom at Henry Clay High

David H. Salyers II, 9th-Grader

In the fall of 1929, the family of Will and Sarah Howe Salyers was getting settled in Lexington, Ky., after moving there from Richmond. The baby of the family, David Hillis Salyers II, enrolled in the 9th grade at Morton Junior High School. Tidbits in his mother's scrapbooks show that he was an above-average student, making As, Bs, and the occasional C. However, he excelled in basketball and in all things musical.



As during his younger years in his home town of Carrollton, he was an active Boy Scout. I'm not sure when this troop photo (below) was taken, but I believe David stayed in scouting through at least part of high school.

David (seated, second from left) with his Boy Scout troop, circa 1929

In January 1930, he graduated from Morton. I don't understand the timing, graduating in January instead of the traditional May or June, but maybe junior high schools, like colleges, offered that option. Whatever the case, I'm touched by the congratulations he received from his oldest brother Bob, who was working in Joliet, Illinois, and his father, who was still a regional salesman and away from home most of the time. In a telegram sent the day before graduation ceremonies, Bob teased his little brother (they were eight years apart in age) and called him by his nickname, "Herbs." I have no idea of the source of that nickname, but David was known in the family as "Little Herbs" and his dad "Big Herbs." Note the two newspaper clippings pasted over the heading of the telegram. The one on the right tells us that David was one of 60 students to graduate from Morton Junior High in ceremonies held on Jan. 17 (1930). The one on the left refers to a trip David made to Richmond to spend a weekend with friends he had made during two years at Madison Junior High.

In a letter (below) dated three days after commencement, Will Salyers tells his son that he learned the news of his graduation via an article in the Louisville Courier-Journal. I struggle with that. Surely Will knew his son was about to complete junior high! Surely Will, like Bob, was teasing. How like a typical dad he was, advising his son to study hard in high school and go out for the basketball team.

David H. Salyers II, 10th-Grader, 1931

I haven't been able to determine if David enrolled at Henry Clay High in January 1930 or not until the following fall. Either way, he apparently did well in his school work. The scrapbooks show a few report cards, basketball schedules, and other memorabilia. His 10th-grade school photo is a family favorite.




By his senior year, 1932-33, he is well known for his work in Scouting, his writing in the student newspaper (a Salyers family tradition), and his baritone singing voice. He had performed in leading rolls in several church, community, and school concerts and operettas when, in February 1933, he tackled his most challenging role, the lead in Henry Clay High School's production of Gilbert and Sullivan's "Iolanthe." To say the family was proud of him understates the case. I've found copies of the operetta photos, programs, and publicity articles in at least four scrapbooks!

David H. Salyers II (center, in a long, curled wig) starring in a Gilbert & Sullivan operetta.

Cast of characters, Henry Clay High School production of "Iolanthe," February 1933

Before the performance, the Lexington Herald-Leader carried two articles about the production and it's star. This one (on right) features the student in the lead role.

Other articles from the same issue (see below) give us insight into the times. At first I thought the "Iolanthe" article was on the front page of the newspaper. After another look, I realized that someone (probably David's mother Sarah Eva Howe Salyers) clipped articles and designed a front page to feature her youngest son. Misleading – but clever!

In the spring of 1933, David received a diploma from Henry Clay High. His senior picture (left) shows him as a serious young man, ready to move on to the University of Kentucky. Based on the posts about his older siblings, you can probably guess some of his activities on campus. We'll take a look at specifics in a future post.

And yes, I think I see sadness in those eyes. Some of us who knew him wonder if that could be a sign of the "twinless twin" factor discussed in a previous post. There's no way of knowing now, but I long to go back in time and talk with him about it.

In the next post we'll follow David as he follows his siblings' footsteps to become a student at the University of Kentucky. David (or his mother; it's unclear who was doing the scrapbooking at that point) saved many pieces of memorabilia about life as a freshman.

After that, we may take a little break and then shift gears, returning to hometown Carrollton and Sarah's childhood. I've just returned from visiting Howe-Salyers descendant Al Hays (son of Sarah's daughter Mary Alice), who blessed me with two stacks of 12x12 pages filled with childhood memories as Sarah recalled them and wrote about them circa 1940. This is the equivalent of two more scrapbooks of family and Carrollton history! Just glancing at a few of the pages, I can advise readers that if they had ancestors in Carrollton as early as 1890, those ancestors' names just might be in this manuscript. Stay tuned!

Great Depression or Not, Sarah's Family Enjoyed Life in the 1930s

Like most if not all families at that time, the family of Will and Sarah Howe Salyers had financial troubles in the mid-1930s Great Depression era. True, they fared better than many others, but they felt the effects nonetheless. Still, life went on, and The Salyers family made the most of it. Here are some examples of good times in the midst of troubles.

Sarah's Malaise
In 1932, Sarah Eva Howe Salyers was approaching 50 years of age and apparently feeling the stress of housekeeping, cooking, and providing for her family on a shoestring budget. (Remember that three of her four children, who ranged in age from 18 to 26, lived at home – a common situation during the Depression.)

Will, whose job required regional travel, wrote to Sarah, urging her to get more rest. At some point, Will convinced her to take a break from her responsibilities in Lexington and visit their home town of Carrollton. She stayed in Carrollton a few weeks, reconnecting with friends and relatives. I can imagine how much fun she had! Sarah had been involved in many church and community organizations when she lived in Carrollton. She was respected and popular. She pasted into a scrapbook this picture taken during her visit:

Sarah Eva Howe Salyers (center) with relatives and friends during her visit to Carrollton, circa 1933

Beside the picture is this note, written by someone other than Sarah (who was called Sally):

"Let us be gay"'s our motto
Fun and frolic galore – 
We sit entranced –
bask in her smiles –
Sally's with us once more.

The trip must have been the tonic Sarah needed. I see no mention in the next few scrapbooks that she endured fatigue or headaches after her return.


Mary Alice's New Beau
On a summer Sunday in 1933, Mary Alice's friends Virginia Nevins and Bill Shafer introduced her to a young man from Falmouth. His name was Lawrence Colvin. Lawrence was a farmer and beekeeper who sold honey. The scrapbooks include several letters Lawrence wrote to Mary Alice. The letters are delightful to read and never end without compliments to the recipient and comments on the fun Lawrence had when he was with her.

Lawrence sent this letter from the Chicago World's Fair, where he went with others to learn about the latest approaches in agriculture. I include it here because it offers insight into the life and times of the era. A partial transcription follows the image.

Among the most interesting of Lawrence's observations:

I spent Tue[sday] and Wed[nesday] at the fair. I suppose that I had expected too much for I was disappointed in many of the exhibits. Ripley's Odditorium is a collection of freakish people and of people who seem to enjoy torture. I am sure that most of the acts hurt me more than it did them. For an example one man lifts a heavy weight by a hook pushed through a hole in his tongue.
They say that a visit to the hall of science is worth a year in college but one would have to go to college twn years in order to understand it. A lecture on "The Use of Silicon and Maganese [sic] Briquets in the Cupola" left me leaning weakly against the railing. As soon as I had recovered sufficiently I left. I went to the Chicago Theater this afternoon. I saw Sally Rand in her famous fan dance, Joseph Chemavsky and his orchestra, and Cab Calloway."
Lawrence went on to write that Calloway "leads his band with a vigourous manner dancing up and down the stage much of the time, and occasionally bursting forth in his famous 'hi-de-ho.'"

(Lawrence sounded serious about Mary Alice in his letters, but I have yet to find any evidence that she was serious about him. By the mid-1930s she had met a young man named Richard Allen Hays, who lived in Anchorage in Jefferson County. She married him in 1939.)

Music!
Music was a major form of entertainment for members of the Salyers family in the 1930s. Some of them played instruments, some of them sang, and all of them listened to music either on the radio or in live performances. The scrapbooks are full of references, and many of those references in the mid-1930s were about the youngest of Sarah's four children. David was known for his singing, both when he was a child in Carrollton and later in high school and college. A proud Sarah wrote to her husband (as usual, working out of town) about their son's performance at the Methodist church. A partial transcription, complete with Sarah's footnote, follows the image. The names she lists are Sarah's Carrollton relatives who traveled to Lexington for the performance.

Dr. Banks [the pastor] commented on the large congregation (and someone said 'You can thank David Salyers and his following for that!"). Miss Lucy Winslow and Lida, Uncle Will and Cecil and Katherine Howe, Jean, Mary and Wilhelmina, Aunt Sallie Goslee and George who hardly ever comes to church, and at the last minute in came John Howe with Aunt Sallie Froman and Caby, just as [David] began to sing. . . . No one ever has seen all these people together at our church before, perhaps.* They were all delighted with him and can't compliment his voice enough, it seems.

*And never did again.

David and his voice were in high demand. He sang at weddings, funerals, and other special occasions, and he performed in many stage productions, both at Henry Clay High School and at the University of Kentucky. A page in this event program from February 1933 lists David as the lead in "Iolanthe," a Gilbert and Sullivan opera staged by Henry Clay High School.

 

The scrapbooks for the 1930s are full of programs from musical events at the University of Kentucky, Lexington churches and auditoriums, and other locations. There are also many clippings about movies that played at the Kentucky, the Grand, and other Lexington theaters. I don't know how many movies the Salyers family members attended, because the 25-cent admission was more than the cost of a hot meal in a local cafeteria. Still, ads like this one for a 1932 production are fun to see.

 Over the next few posts, we'll explore more about the 1930s in Carrollton, Lexington, and other places in Kentucky. Depression or no Depression, those were lively times!

Bits & Pieces: Music Fills the Air – and the Scrapbooks

As do most scrapbooks, Sarah Eva Howe's contain bits and pieces that reveal more about her interests. Today we'll look at a few of those random gems – all of them related to music and its importance to the extended Howe family.


1. "Uncle Harry," a Published Composer

Sarah's uncle Richard Henry "Harry" Cost, Jr., wrote both music and lyrics to "Down Where The Daisies Grow." Richards Publishing Company of Cincinnati, Ohio, published the song in 1917, the year Harry turned 41 years old. Several in the family put their own words to familiar tunes, but Harry's is the only original composition I've seen in published form.

In two other blog posts, read more about the gregarious Harry and see a photo taken when he was 6 years old.

2. Sousa's First March?
According to this clipping (source not noted), "Free Lunch Cadets" was John Philip Sousa's first published song. The copyright date, hard to read in the illustration but provided on multiple websites, is 1877.  

Note the sign on the wall: "Saur Krout Lunch To Day." In the 1870s, German immigrants and their descendants made up a significant part of the population in Philadelphia (where the music was published) and Cincinnati (where Sarah's German-descendant Cost ancestors lived). According to online genealogy sites, more of today's Americans  descend from German ancestry than from any other nationality. I wonder if the sign in the drawing is meant to be a derisive jab at German immigrants of that day? Piano sheet music for this march is available free online.


3. Carrollton Glee Club

The Carrollton Glee Club performance program is undated. Because of the listed performers and the pages advertising local businesses, I calculate that the event took place after1890 and before 1920.
Performers in the program include Mrs. (Katherine) Boughner, Miss Coan, Mr. (T. Sanders) Orr, Miss Maxwell, Mr. (W.) Schuerman, Mr. (R.M.) Hiner, and Mr. (W.W.) Masterson. Mr. Schuerman was related to the Howes by marriage, and the rest were no doubt acquainted with the Howes through business, the Carrollton Methodist Episcopal Church, or other affiliations.

 4. Organ Recital at Carrollton First Methodist Church, 1927

An organ recital in Carrollton on March 10, 1927, featured W.E. Pilcher, Jr., representing Henry Pilcher's Sons Organ Company of Louisville. Also performing were violinist Harriett Poynter and vocalist Mrs. J. Gex Williams. Maybe the women were members of Carrollton First Methodist Church.

The history of the organ company goes back several generations to England. To paraphrase information on a website: Henry Pilcher, Sr. of Canterbury apprenticed as an organ builder in London. He arrived in New York in 1832 and established a business in New Jersey. His sons, Henry Pilcher, Jr. and William Pilcher II opened an organ building shop in St. Louis in 1852. During the Civil War era, the firm relocated to Chicago. In 1874, the Pilcher firm once again moved their business to Louisville, Kentucky. The firm built more than 1,800 organs for churches, concert halls, and universities across the country. In 1944 the factory closed and the assets were sold to the M. P. Möller Organ Company of Hagerstown, Maryland. 

5. Miscellaneous
Three more sheet music covers relate either Sarah's interests in music – or maybe, being an artist herself, she appreciated the illustrations. 


"The Fireman's Call" is "respectfully dedicated to the Officers and Members of the Fire Department of Boston." The music is from an opera, "The Maid of Judah," written in 1832.



Stephen Foster's "Jeanie With the Light Brown Hair" 
has a publication date of 1854. Here in the Bluegrass State, we know Foster best as the composer of "My Old Kentucky Home."



"Home Run Quick Step" (1861) honors "the members of the Mercantile Base Ball Club of Philadelphia." A clearer image and details are available from the digital collection of the Library of Congress. (From that web page, search for images and details about the Foster piece as well.)