1890-1893: Sarah's First Years at School Prove to be No Match for Her Precocious, Inquisitive Nature

Perfect timing! In the jumble of loose pages I'm transcribing, I've come across Sarah Eva Howe's story of her first days at Carrollton School in 1890, plus a few episodes from Grades 2 and 3 as well.

Names are in bold to help family historians find them. As always, ellipses indicate missing or omitted words, and brackets enclose my own comments or clarifications.

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School Year 1890-91 — Memories of Carrollton Classmates
I started to school in September of 1890, in Miss Sue Foster’s room. She had two grades,

Sarah before starting school, age 5

the “card class,” beginners who learned a word at a time from cards held up before them, and the First Reader, into which I was put. So I suppose I could read some and spell and “figger” tho it is hazy in my mind, for Mama read aloud so much to me I can’t remember just when I “flowered into reading” for myself. But I do know that she was already reading fairly advanced children’s books to me and that Mother Goose was so far behind that it seemed a memory.

Jenne Howe¹ was in my grade, and Mildred Goslee, with whom I had already become acquainted. I believe Jenne had started after Christmas [1889?] when she became seven, but a spell of illness either of herself or in the family prevented her from going full time, so she began again with me. The same was true of Mildred, who was a full year older than I (except for ten months). It wasn’t long before we three started walking to and from school most of the time together, and thus began our long friendship, into which Lida Hafford, whose sister married Jenne’s Uncle George² about that time, came a year or so later, tho she was at least two years ahead of us in school. 

Mildred was “kin” too, of course, being Aunt Sallie Goslee Howe’s³ half sister, and around there most of the time; we lived with Uncle Joe⁴ and Aunt Sallie for the first year and a half of our stay in Carrollton. I used to go around to Mildred’s to play, of course; I remember staying to supper one night, when they had a Polish dish pirogues — I suppose you would spell it, tho we called it Pi-rog-ees. Since then I have learned that a pirogue is a boat, and as these were baked meat dumplings I suppose the submersible idea was there, but I didn’t know for sure. Anyway, they were delicious and probably indigestible, highly so, but I ate two or three of them, being away from the watchful parental eyes that even counted hot biscuits on me, and I don’t remember any ill effects. 

I also remember playing church upstairs in Mildred’s room; we refrained from actually playing “communion,” as we felt that wouldn’t be right; but we did play “love feast” and passed bread and water. Mildred was never a great hand to play dolls, her mother having had a succession of live babies, all of whom died young, for her to play with. Mildred still talked about Hugh, her brother who had died at about the same time and same age as Chandler — the twin boys she could remember, too, dying when they were a year old and she was about three or four. Roman Alexander Goslee, her older brother, lived there and went to school (he was in a much older grade than we, as he was about five or six years older and was in W. L.’s⁵ grade) and Levi Goslee (who was still a small child, about a year old when his father Dr. Goslee married Miss Mary Browinski a year from the death of Aunt Sallie’s and Levi’s mother) lived there too; also Mr. Charlie and Mr. Jim and “Sis Nan,” Aunt Sallie’s younger sister about twenty five or -six when I used to go there in 1890. Mr. Jim married Mamie Lindsay, of Ghent, “Aunt Puss” Gaines’s niece, that winter; she only lived a year. Charlie was much younger, he and Levi (he was the youngest) were about 15 and 18 when I first knew them, and Roman 13. Charlie Kipping⁶, tho I didn’t remember him till later, was in the grade with Roman and Levi (who had failed to pass a couple of times because of inattention to study) and 12-year-old Will Salyers5, who was really a year ahead of the other boys because his Aunt Ruth⁷ had taught him to read at home before starting to school. At this time they were probably in the 7th grade, as he graduated 5 years later in 1894, and there were only three years of high school — tho the 8th grade was really a high school year, as they began Latin and Algebra in it. It was taught by Miss Moreland and was a “humdinger.” Levi never went any further than this grade. Roman and Will went on and graduated together, and Charlie K., who took an extra year, graduated with John Howe⁸, who in ’90-’91 was in the 6th grade. I’m not sure which year Lille⁹ went to Science Hill, but she graduated in 1896, so I imagine she was still going to Carrollton Pubic School (then in the “New Building” out on 6th St., now torn down). 

I don’t remember that first year so very well, except that going was very irksome to me. I so much preferred the “literary pursuits” and conversation of home, the pleasant sunny room and hall of Grandfather’s house, and the lovely yard where that fall I found the grave of Aunt Sallie Froman’s¹⁰ little dog Trip and began decorating it with little pieces of marble picked up behind the tombstone cutters in the alley. I think it was that fall, too, that Aunt Sallie gave us the squirrel, which used to run about the room a good deal and up onto Papa’s shoulder. He got to be a good deal of trouble, tho, so I think we finally gave him back. I still wanted what I couldn’t have, a dog. Cats were out of the question except a staid old Tom who lived around the cellar and stable, a black-with-white-feet cat who was certainly no good as a pet. Aunt Sallie only tolerated him because he kept down the mouse population; all her family disliked cats — in the case of Mr. Jim, Roman and Mildred, it was really “Cat-Fear.” They turned pale and sick and had to leave the room when a cat came in.

School Year 1891-92 — McGuffey's Reader and Ray's Arithmetic
There was a school entertainment that winter of ’91-’92. I keep trying to remember things from it; Marie Butler sang again “The Loveliest Doll in the World.” I remember the tune well; and a boy and girl sang “The Little Green Peach” — “hard trials for them, too, Johnny Jones and his sister Sue and the peach of emerald hue, boo hoo, boo hoo!”  One of the hits was the “Ten Little Sunflowers” song. The children had caps of leaves around their faces, and as each one disappeared like the ten little Indians, the others carried on till only one was left. A little boy in my grade named Walter Meeks, such a cute, pesky little boy, and he brought down the house when he piped up in a treble that carried to the last rows, “One little sunflower blooming all alone. It had to go to bed, and then there was none!" Perhaps later more things may swim up from the “lost seas” about this show, which was given by the whole school, tho I don’t remember many high school students in it.

Carrollton School circa 1890. Sarah marked with an X the door used by students in the upper grades.

It is strange that I don’t remember more about my second year of school. Miss Ella Giltner¹¹ was my teacher, both in the 2nd and 3rd grades, but it doesn’t seem that anything special comes up out of that nine months, except it seems there were several spelling matches, my first experience with the “gentle artifices.” 

I remember feeling superior to strange little girls who were only starting; one child, Carrie Garriott, whose people had just moved to town from the country, was so agonizingly shy, was afraid to ask anything, even where the outdoor toilet was! She wore such big heavy shoes, and some of the little girls were laughing at her, tho her father owned a big farm and had just bought a big house. I wish I could say that I rushed up to her and befriended her against the world, but I’m afraid I did nothing of the sort, but I did feel sorry for her and I think spoke to her as soon as anyone did. I met her the next Sunday at Sunday school, as they were devoted Methodists, and she was soon one of us, tho as long as I knew her she never quite knew how to dress, as to style or color. She is quite well to do now, lives in Princeton, Ky., and her son attended the University of Kentucky, tho I never knew which boy he was. 

Stella Carrico (Paul’s aunt, I feel sure) came to school that year, and a pale slim shy little girl with a long plait named Pearl Delane. Jim Webster was in my grade and used to come by and walk to school (and sometimes from school) with me. He was a slim pale person too, very studious, in fact perfection in his studies, tho he had adenoids and couldn’t read aloud as I could (that was my strong point, with spelling). 

Hugh Caldwell, brother of Henry but without his charm or red hair, was in the class, Jenne and Mildred (Lida, about two years older, was already in the fifth grade), Albert Whitehead, and, I think, John Dufour from Prestonsville. . . . Oh yes, I believe Henry “my turn”Darling  was there and probably Carroll Gullion, for they were with me later, I know. One little girl from Locust, I believe, when asked her name, piped up “Dinky O’Banion.” I’ve never forgotten that; and I also remember a softened little girl named

Maud LeClere who was probably kin to Cousin Ruth Salyers’ grandmother of that name in Vevay. We used McGuffey’s Reader (and I wish I had it now!) and speller, and Ray's Arithmetic book one (all of them of detested memory). 

Miss Ella had two grades. She had too many children, it was hard to control them, and this year was not very interesting — no drawing, no handwork[?] games, no stories as the children have them now. We sang some songs, mostly patriotic ones, and learned one or two portions of Scripture to recite in unison. 

Truth compels me to admit, I stayed home on every pretext — bad weather, a slight cold, etc. — where the warmth and light and Mama’s devoted companionship, as well as the current cat (we always had one), plenty to eat, and books to look at, handle and read, were always on tap. Also let truth compel me to add that I led my class, nevertheless, in the report cards, only Jim Webster rivaling mine, with all his studious and faithful ways. What a pity, it seems now, not to have spared me that year, for I could easily have taken the third grade work. It might have changed my life, for I’d have been in the class with Effie, Velma, and Will Rowland, and at Mr. English’s for two years instead of one in High School, but then I would have missed the wonderful year with Lille Howe⁹, which really did a lot for me.


School Year 1892-93 —  Art and Poetry Get Sarah in Trouble!
About this time I had whooping cough, but it was a light case and I was able to make a good start in the 3rd grade with the same teacher, Miss Ella Giltner, who as I said had both grades in the same room. 

Now began the study of geography, much less interesting than is now given to small learners. But it was something I could “get my teeth in.” Also by this time I had flowered into reading. I was beginning to draw, too, and tho after the first poem about the “Two Little Mice” I didn’t attempt further effusions for a time, the germ was still there. 

I got into trouble, too, drawing in school. I made two cartoons (not knowing them by that name) which I considered quite brilliant, playing on the names of Jenne and Mildred; a little red goose, with a girl’s head, labeled “Mildred Red Goose” and a blue bovine, with a girl’s head also, labeled Jenn Cow — no offense was intended, just a pun on their names, for Papa and Mama often made quite a game of puns on all sorts of names, both of people and household objects. Mildred, having a fine sense of humor, giggled and enjoyed it, but Jenne saw no joke in it and got mad. She took the pictures to Miss Ella (also very deficient in humor) who chose to consider them defamatory and reprimanded me — yet, not so much for maligning my subjects as for drawing pictures in school hours instead of studying (and I was making straight A’s!). 

In all my attendance at school, I was never tardy, yet on a few occasions I did hear the second bell at 20 minutes after eight, but I was in my seat when the tardy bell sounded (imagine the rushing that entailed on small fat legs). ...

Books! They were the joy of my secret life, away from school (which I only tolerated), happily curled up in the hammock in summer, which they gave me for my ninth birthday, or before the fire in the winter. Mrs. Harry Winslow had a fine literary taste and bought all the fine children’s books, and was generous in lending them to me. I was nervous that year tho, probably from trying to gorge down too many ideas, and some stories would make me stay awake at night. Strangely enough, one of these was Alice in Wonderland, that classic, with its Blue Caterpillar, Lizard, Frog footman, cross duchesses, and queens, frightened instead of amusing me (the myths of the gorgon and other creatures never did — I wonder why?), and one night when I woke up and almost saw the baby turning into a pig I had such a spell that Mama said indignantly I had no business reading such a book! But I persevered, until the fright passed away, and the charm stole in and has remained ever after.

A great help in this was that on Christmas one of the books Grandma Cost sent me was

John Tenniel [Public domain], via Wikimedia Commons

The Nursery Alice (with a foreward, which Grandma didn’t read, saying it was for tots from nought to five, in words of one syllable! This to me, who knew all about “the helmet of invisibility”!). What Grandma had bought it for was the large colored pictures, and indeed they were wonderful, authentic “Tenniels” in color, just like the little black and white ones in the real book. After looking at them and hearing me explain in a vastly superior manner the real scenes so coyly dehydrated to one syllable for “0 to 5,” Mama actually began to enjoy the Mad Tea Party, the croquet match, the Eat Me & Drink Me sequences, and became quite a convert to Alice herself. Mama loved to read aloud (never got over it!) and together we enjoyed the Alcott books about this time, the more advanced ones, tho I never got over loving the “Under the Lilacs,” but now we read Little Women and Little Men, Jo’s Boys, Rose in Bloom, and Eight Cousins — then oh joy! Mrs. Winslow lent me Jack and Jill, which should really have come along about Under the Lilacs, but I loved it just the same.

So the last day of school came, and with it another damper to my artistic zeal — or poetic, rather. It was a perfect morning, so sunny, so full of promise that I was filled with “the spirit” in all directions. I got to school early and had brought some roses and other flowers, so arranged them on Miss Ella’s desk. (I even felt a surge of affection for her, tho I never liked her at all till years after, when I found she was a shy, fine person, really) (she is Lyter Donaldson’s cousin, you know, and Giltner Salyers’ own aunt). I made what I considered a really tricky arrangement, a bunch at each corner and roses carelessly scattered between as if just dropped there. And then I felt a poem coming on and wrote on the board:
“The sun is shining brightly
And sweetly sings the bird
To make the sweetest music
That ever we have heard
And merrily are leaping
The fishes in the pool
All things are trying their best to make
A happy day of school.”

(Not a masterpiece, but not bad either for a child of nine in the 3rd grade, on the spur of the moment.)

I imagined Miss Ella coming in and saying “Why, who has done all this?” But no, with her usual nervous intensity she immediately swept the flowers from the desk into the wastebasket, and taking an eraser, cleaned the board — she never even saw the poem! But the desk and board were now neat for the rest of the day. Then I realized the truth (dimly) that between the neat and the artistic temperaments there was “a great gulf fixed.”
 

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Interested in reading more about Carrollton, Kentucky school days in the 1890s? Take a look at these posts:

Schoolhouse Revolution of 1896-1897 

Sarah's Bovine Encounter

War Ends, Romances Blossom, Hearts Break – Autumn 1899

Carrollton Seminary Roster, 1896 – Names, Names, Names!

The Evolution of Carrollton High School, 1880s-1890s (segment 3 in a general post)

The Lost Is Found! The Story of Carrollton School Continues

ENDNOTES
¹ Sarah's first cousin, daughter of her father's brother William Ficklin Howe (1846-1916) and Louisiana Winslow Howe (1852-1944)
² George B. Winslow, brother of Jenn's father William F. Howe; grandson of William Beverly Winslow (1814-1883) and Martha Jane Woolfork (1826-1905)
³ Sallie Goslee (1858-1934), likely a daughter of Levin E. Goslee and Elizabeth Welles
⁴ Sarah's paternal uncle Joseph Brown Howe (1857-1929); husband of Sallie Goslee
⁵ William Levi Salyers (1878-1944), who became Sarah's husband in 1905
⁶ Charles Kipping would later marry Sarah's sister, Leonora Alice Howe (1896-1967)
⁷ Ruth Salyers, older sister of Sarah's paternal grandfather Charles David Salyers (abt 1812-1874)
⁸ Sarah's first cousin John Junior Howe (1879-1939), son of William Ficklin Howe and Louisiana Winslow Howe
⁹ Lille M. Howe, daughter of William Ficklin Howe and Louisiana Winslow Howe
¹⁰ Sarah Varena "Sallie" Howe Froman (1862-1950), sister of Sarah's father Robert James Howe (1855-1910); wife of Carrollton businessman Herman M. "Mack" Froman (dates unknown)
¹¹ Likely a relative of Susie Giltner, who in 1886 in Carrollton married the first William Levi Salyers, son of Charles D. Salyers and paternal uncle of Sarah's husband of the same name

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!

Family Milestones Galore – Yet the Scrapbooks Make Us Speculate About the Salyers Family's Time in Richmond

In the fall of 1927, for the first time in their lives, the three younger Salyers children registered for school somewhere other than their hometown of Carrollton, Kentucky. They had moved with their parents to Richmond, where their big brother Bob was attending Eastern Kentucky State Teachers College. Twins Mary Alice and Jim entered Madison High for their senior year, and little brother David entered seventh grade in the school's junior high division.

Based on its place in a scrapbook, the photo below may have been taken soon after the move from Carrollton to Richmond. The Salyers brothers are standing in front of a large sign or billboard. All I can make out in the sign is a string of pearls. Knowing this bunch, I'm sure there's a joke involved.

As they did in Carrollton, the boys were involved in sports. This article includes David as a member of the winning Smith-Ballard community baseball team. Other clippings tell us he played basketball on the junior high school Freshmen Mountain Lions.

Here we learn of David's involvement with the school newspaper. All four of the Salyers siblings were journalists in high school and college.

I am surprised that the scrapbooks for this period don't include much about Mary Alice or Jim and their senior year activities, not even graduation pictures. Because the twins were new in the community and the school, knowing they would be moving on to college the following fall, did they not get involved in school activities? It's hard to imagine them just going through the motions, but I've found nothing about their high school senior year.

While the family lived in Richmond, Mary Alice apparently visited Cumberland Falls. A high school field trip? A senior trip? A church group get-away? There are no hints in the scrapbook. Her mother, Sarah, wrote above the picture only her daughter's initials and the location.

In the fall of 1928, Mary Alice and Jim enrolled at Eastern. The scrapbooks include little about their freshman year, but a bit of research turned up this image of the masthead in the college newspaper published on Feb. 2, 1929. Mary Alice is listed as the paper's feature editor – pretty good for a freshman! Her big brother Bob is the paper's editor in chief.

 Eastern Kentucky University, "Eastern Progress - 2 Feb 1929" (1929). Eastern Progress 1928-1929. 8.

At the end of that school year, Bob received his diploma from Eastern and soon joined the full-time work force. He got a job with Moore Stove Company (where his dad worked) and moved to the company's home office in Joliet, Illinois. He soon became the company's advertising manager.

Robert King Salyers in Richmond, Ky., on college graduation day 1928

The Salyers family lived in Richmond for two years. During that time, they experienced many of life's traditional milestones: David going to junior high; Mary Alice and Jim's senior year of high school and their first year of college; Bob's graduation from Eastern. Yet the scrapbooks yield little information about that time – and nothing about parents Sarah and Will. The opposite is true of their time in Lexington. Multiple scrapbooks include pictures, letters, clippings, and hand-written comments. Future posts will share stories about the whole family during the Lexington years, when David was a student at Henry Clay High and Mary Alice and Jim were at the University of Kentucky.

Bits & Pieces: Humor, Mission Work, and Insight into the Gregarious Salyers Brothers

Hello again. I'm back from vacation with just enough time to develop a blog post in time to publish at the usual Sunday morning time. Today we'll look at some bits and pieces from scrapbooks Sarah Eva Howe Salyers compiled in the early 1930s. Some of these items take us back in time, but several seem relevant now, almost 90 years later.

The Howe-Salyers family named every car they owned or used over the years. The car below is "Old Bouci." A discovery elsewhere in another scrapbook hints that "Bouci" could be based on a character Sarah played in a community theater production in Lexington in the 1930s. On the other hand, the three Salyers brothers, all readers and thinkers, may have named the car after reading about a 1300s French knight known as Boucicaut. The knight was quite popular with the ladies. That sounds like a reference these young men would have enjoyed, whether they were bragging or poking fun at themselves.

We'll also never know for sure why this next item was in the scrapbooks. I'd love to know which person found this cartoon worthy of keeping and what it meant to them. (Of course, I could be overthinking this. Maybe it was just funny to somebody!)

I've seen in the scrapbooks several letters from politicians, actors, singers, and other well-known people. The Salyers children apparently liked to write letters to public figures and receive responses.  Here is one example: In early 1932, Sarah's youngest child, 16-year-old David, wrote to Morton Downey, a popular singer whose son is credited (blamed?) for pioneering the "trash TV" talk show format in the 1980s). David asked the star to include specific songs on his nightly radio program, "Camel Quarter Hour." David received this response dated Feb. 15, 1932. No word on whether or not the singer fulfilled David's request, and no idea why David's brother Jim wrote his initials and an undecipherable word on the letter. (If you knew Jim, though, you'd know that he wrote his initials and undecipherable messages on a lot of things!)

David also saved these next bits of paper related to his days at Lexington's Henry Clay High School, where he received his diploma in 1933. The montage includes a football game ticket, a construction paper "Blue Devil" school mascot, and a cartoon, probably from 1932. I suppose the issue of sponsors in athletics may have been up for discussion even then. When I saw the cartoon, my first thought was of this decade's debates about allowing thoroughbred racing jockeys to display sponsors' names or insignia on their riding silks.

Another curious clipping is this ad for Ballyhoo, an irreverant humor magazine published by Dell from 1931 until 1939. It featured cartoons, jokes, parodies of major newspapers, and barbed comments about advertising, politicians, cultural trends, and life in general. It's easy to imagine the Howe-Salyers family subscribing and appreciating this publication. This ad for Ballyhoo parodies the ad industry's penchant for overblown claims by making overblown claims itself. I think damage to the paper erased two letters from the headline, which apparently was the quirkly term "LAPSE FOBIA."

 While we're on the topic of ads, here's one that I include just because I find it whimsical and charming. 

In a scrapbook filled with 1930s items is this piece from the 1920s. Various committees and organizations throughout the U.S., including the women's missions of the Methodist Episcopal Church, sold "China Life-Saving Stamps" to raise funds to provide food for the people of China. Each stamp cost 3 cents, which was said to buy enough food to feed one person for one day. (An online inflation calculator says that 3 cents would now equate to 42 cents or so.) Buyers pledged to increase awareness of China's plight by placing a stamp on the back of every piece of mail they sent. Sarah was an active member of the Carrollton Methodist Episcopal Church and was involved in organizing the church's Chinese Famine Fund.

Next, a nostalgic look at what came to be Morton Junior High in Lexington, built at the corner of Short and Walnut streets, the site of the city's first public school. This is how that corner looked circa 1930, when Sarah and her family moved to the city from Richmond. Son David attended this school before he enrolled at Henry Clay High. He was in the school's "senior" class (ninth grade) of 1930. I know Short Street is still there, but I think development may have erased Walnut Street.

The same scrapbook included this composite of the school faculty: N. Isabel Schmidt (principal), Tomie Bronston, Anna Louise Connor, Fan Lee Dalzell, Catherine Dunne, Laura Harp, Elizabeth Henry, Lena O. Johnson, Elizabeth Morris, Marylark Nichols, Laura Parrish, Martha Payne, Florence B. Ralston, Katherine Rankin, and Katherine Walker.

This list of the teaching staff (below) includes these educators who are not included in the composite: Coleman Alford, Paul Averitt, Ruth Bartlett, G.R. Griffith, Marcia Lamport, Ernestine Ligon, Maude McInteer, Theresa Newhoff, Mary K. Stoner, Phoebe B. Worth, Sarah Walker, and Wallace Williams.

To end this "Bits & Pieces" post on a light note, I include a paragraph published circa 1933, probably clipped from a University of Kentucky fraternity newspaper by one of the Salyers brothers.

With that, I bid you a fond farewell for another week. I'm eager to see what I'll find to share with you next. I hope you'll stay tuned.

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 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.

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.