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.

Go, Wildcats! UK Football Memorabilia From the Early 1930s

While neither William L. Salyers or his wife Sarah Eva Howe Salyers had college degrees, all four of their children attended the University of Kentucky.

• Robert King Salyers II, The eldest, apparently attended UK for two years before transferring to Eastern Kentucky State College and receiving his diploma there in 1929. He later worked as a research assistant to UK President Frank McVey.
• James Richard attended UK and, like his three brothers, was active in Kappa Sigma fraternity. He earned bachelor's and master's degrees there.
• Mary Alice was a UK graduate and was a member of Kappa Delta social sorority and several honorary and leadership societies.
• David Hillis II spent his years at UK participating in various choral and drama groups. He got his diploma in 1937.

No wonder I find so much UK-related items in Sarah's scrapbooks! Here are a few of the pieces that surfaced today, all related to UK sports. While I've found no evidence that any of Sarah's children played varsity sports, we know that at least one of the boys played football and basketball at Carrollton High, and the youngest played tennis for Henry Clay High after the family moved to Lexington.

The following picture of the UK marching band, probably clipped from the UK student newspaper The Kernal, has a caption that by today's standards is a little flowery. Note the comments about the female sponsor of the band.

The next clipping includes a photo of the band sponsor in a later year. (As you may remember from previous posts, Sarah too often neglected to put dates on items in her scrapbooks.) Note under the photo on the far right that only male students had a vote in naming the prom queen.

UK Sophomore Harrison Elliott composed a march for the UK band titled "Our Sponsor March," dedicated to band sponsor Elizabeth Jones (on far left in the clipping above). Elliott gained a fair degree of acclaim for his music. In Creating Country Music: Fabricating Authenticity, a book by Richard A Peterson, a promoter refers to 19-year-old Elliott as a "French-Huguenot-Scottish-Irish Kentucky mountaineer, [and] authentic mountain composer [of] America's first folk opera, "The Call of the Cumberlands." Newsweek reported that the opera was performed over the NBC radio network in August 1935.

The scrapbooks are full of tickets to football and basketball events. Below are a few samples. The first photo (which may also appear in a previous post) shows student ticket books for both semesters of 1932-1933. Below that is an image of a supplementary pass into the cheering section. Apparently, getting into a game didn't automatically include the right to sit in the cheering section.

Note the prices for reserved seats at UK football games in those days. For comparison: The 1932 dollar is comparable to $16.89.

People who know UK will recognize some familiar names in this 1930s clipping about the university's Athletic Council. Various campus facilities and programs still bear their names today.

People with Carrollton, Kentucky roots may recognize at least one of these players. Kipping was a prominent name there starting in the late 1800s – and perhaps still is. Sarah Eva Howe's sister Leonora Alice Howe married Charles Kipping.

 Also in the scrapbooks, many game programs. This is one of the more colorful. In spite of the listing of Kentucky first on the program (usually the visiting team is listed first) this was a UK homecoming game played at McLean Stadium in Lexington. UK lost the game 19-0, and Alabama continued on to post a perfect 10-0 season and win SEC and national championships.

While this image isn't specific to UK, it illustrates the public's enthusiasm for football in the 1930s. Notice that everyone wore their Sunday best to the games. I remember dressing up for athletic events when I was in college way back in the 1960s. I think today's sports fans take a more casual approach.

I include this image because it is part of a sports-focused scrapbook. Smoking was popular – even "stylish" – in the 1930s. I knew the Salyers men to be pipe smokers, but maybe they smoked cigarettes in those days. I can't even imagine Sarah or Mary Alice smoking! Maybe they just liked the dress in this ad, which probably appeared in a magazine or maybe in a football program.

The scrapbooks contain so many items related to UK sports that I could probably create a blog just on that topic. I'll include a few more in future posts. Let me know if you'd like me to watch for specific kinds of images or information about UK athletics in the 1930s. We have stacks of scrapbooks yet unexplored.




For UK football memories from the early 1890s, see the post dated Sept. 3, 2016: "Get Ready for Some Football! Sarah Remembers the Wildcats of 1893."

Bits & Pieces: Sports, Politics, Advertising, Groundhog Day – More Scrapbook Ephemera from the 1930s

As we would expect, the scrapbooks Sarah Eva Howe Salyers put together in the 1930s reflect her family's activities and interests. The Howe-Salyers clan was interested in just about everything, so the scrapbooks are full of bits and pieces about this and that.

Sports

The Salyers males participated in sports, all of them as fans and some of them as players. (I found proof in the letters they wrote to each other and in these bits of memorabilia in the scrapbooks.

Students used books of tickets to attend UK athletic events. 

One ticket from the first-semester student admission book

Fans who were not students could use this form to apply for reserved seats at home football games. They would have paid a whopping $9.90 per person, plus the 20-cent fee, to attend all five games.

In the fall of 1932, the Henry Clay Blue Devils traveled to Louisville to meet opponent Male High.  The Lexington Herald ran this story:

I've heard family stories about Sarah's son Jim playing football and basketball and son David playing tennis, but I'm still looking for verification in the scrapbooks.

Politics

If you've read posts about Sarah's childhood, you know that she, her parents, and her extended family paid close attention to political issues. Several of her relatives in Carrollton ran for public office. Her children continued the interest in local, state, and national politics. I rarely turn more than 10 pages in most scrapbooks before I come across a mention of political campaigns, platforms, speeches, or elections. 

These two items are from 1932. The first appears to be a clipping from a magazine (not identified in the scrapbook). I think the second is a leaflet.

Advertising

Sarah saved many ads. I don't know why she did that, but I'm glad she did. They provide insight into her life and times. 

Sarah did the household shopping, and I can picture her checking the grocery ads before venturing to the store. These prices seem low to us, of course, but consider that the average annual salary for those lucky enough to have jobs in Depression-era 1933 was (according to various online resources) about $1,370. Renting a 3-bedroom apartment cost $15 a month, on average. A gallon of gas cost about a dime. Also remember that in 1932-33 Sarah was buying groceries to feed a family of 3 adults, 2 college students, and one teen-age boy.

Notice the half-cent prices. The only references I've found to a U.S. half-penny say the coin was minted from 1793 to 1857. Maybe the half-cent amounts were totaled at the cash register and consolidated into the final price. Apparently, there was no half-penny coin, so I don't know how the clerk handled a single purchase priced with a half-cent amount. 

 This is one of several ads for retailers marketing to high school boys and college men. In the 1930s (and until not so long ago), men wore suits to athletic events. The Kaufman's store in Lexington ran an ad in the early fall of 1932, offering a Hart Schaffner & Marx suit for $25. 

Sarah's husband William Levi Salyers and her son Robert King Salyers worked for the Moore company. Will's job was to find retailers who would display and sell Moore products in their stores. This ad is a sample he showed to prospective sellers. Note the "Your Name and Address Here" near the bottom, with a space for a retailer to promote his own store.

The item at left was on the same scrapbook page as several others advertising an event at the Kentucky Theatre in Lexington. The event brought several nationally-known radio stars to town to perform for a live audience. The event may have been broadcast live to the nation, but I'm hazy on that detail. 

The person in this ad appeared in small parts in a few Hollywood movies before he became a radio star at NBC. Jimmy Wallington  was the announcer or master of ceremonies for several popular radio shows in the 1930s through the 1950s. The Salyers clan no doubt found radio programs both entertaining and informative. Sarah probably kept this clipping because she often heard Wallington's voice – and possibly because he was part of that event at the Kentucky Theatre.

I speculate that Sarah saved the ad below not because of the product – I don't think she or her daughter ever smoked cigarettes and I saw her sons smoke only pipes and cigars – but because she liked the dress. Ultimate 1930s!

Last but not least, this tribute to Groundhog Day. The item below is a newspaper article clipped from a newspaper, probably published in an afternoon paper, the Lexington Leader, on Feb. 2, 1932. 

Based on current weather predictions, I'd say a groundhog who leaves his burrow in Lexington this Friday, Feb. 2, probably won't see his shadow. Will that mean the end of Winter 2018? We can only hope!

 

Get Ready for Some Football! Sarah Remembers the Wildcats of 1893

Today marks the kick-off and the first home game of the 2016 University of Kentucky football season – the perfect day to share Sarah Eva Howe's perspective on the sport and this wonderful picture pasted into one of her scrapbooks.

Sarah wrote these comments:
 
We knew very little about football in the early ‘90s in Carrollton, even baseball was seldom played by the “elite” till a team was formed about 1897 of some boys from CHS [Carrollton High School] . . . 

I do wish we had the names of these boys. I feel sure we knew some of their children, perhaps grandchildren! Boys were older in college then, especially football boys who had to be really tough. ... There was a poem appeared around this time called “Eliakim.”¹ I enjoyed it so much as it always reminded me of Brother Rowland and Will² — he and Vachel³ afterwards played on the “amateur team” that played in the “old college” yard.  

Why do the jerseys in the picture say KSC? Until 1913, the University of Kentucky was known as Kentucky State College. The Wildcat mascot and team nickname came about before that, in 1909. By considering the history and the caption on the photo in Sarah's scrapbook, we know she clipped it from a newspaper or magazine published after 1909. (As I've bemoaned in previous posts, Sarah was a marvelous storyteller and keeper of ephemera, but not at all good about dating the items she kept.)

Sarah's reference to knowing descendants of the men in the Wildcats team photo was written much later than 1893 and rings true. She moved with her husband and children (then in their teens and early 20s) to Lexington in 1929. Descendants of the players of 1893 might well have lived in Lexington.

Sarah, of course, wrote the words of the poem in her scrapbook.

I’m a college man, my friend, and sixty was my year,
But as a Christian minister you’d scarcely think it fit
That I should view a football game as I am doing here.
But I’ve a son who’s in the game, and that quite alters it!
See, that is he at tackle there — I see they’ve stopped the play
To put a new man opposite and bear the first away.
I sometimes feel my son pursues the sport with too much vim,
For no one ever lasts a half against Eliakim!
A sober youth, Eliakim, he’s studying to be a parson like his father.
He is meek and slow to wrath,
A very proper type of humble minded piety.
But when he bucks the center, sir, he always clears a path!
What’s that you say — three minutes left?
The score is tied, the game is near its close?
They’ll surely send Eliakim. Yes, bless him! There he goes!
He’s through! The game is ended! We have won and all through him!
Rah!! Whoop her up for Sixty and my son Eliakim!

Now for some Wildcat football history from sources other than Sarah's scrapbooks. This information comes from a Wikipedia entry titled Kentucky-Tennessee Rivalry. Note that the rivalry began the year the photo was taken: 1893. Kentucky won that first game 56-0!

Tennessee and Kentucky have faced off on the gridiron since 1893, making it one of the oldest rivalries in major college football. It was close in the early years, with Kentucky holding a series lead after the first 22 match-ups. But since the early 1930s, Tennessee has dominated the cross-border rivalry. . . . Both schools were charter members of the Southeastern Conference when it was established in 1932. Since that season, Tennessee has a 53–14–3 record against Kentucky, including a streak of 26 straight victories from 1985 to 2010, which is one of the longest such streaks in NCAA history. The Wildcats did not win any games against the Volunteers during the 1940s, 1990s, or 2000s. The only decade of the SEC era in which UK posted a winning record against Tennessee was the 1950s, when they went 6–3–1. The series was not without disappointment even during that period for Kentucky fans, however, as the Vols dealt Bear Bryant's 1950 Wildcat squad their only defeat during their school-best 11–1 season.

Unfortunately, in games played from 1893 through 2015, Tennessee leads the series 78 to 24 with 9 ties. Let's hope UK boosts its wins to 25 when they play Tennessee on Nov. 12.

Are you a descendant of a Wildcat football player in the photo? If so, please send me his name and his position in the photo – plus any other info you want to share – so I can add it to the post.



ENDNOTES
¹ A Biblical name meaning "whom God will raise up." Source: Biblestudytools.com
² W.T. Rowland, the pastor of Carrollton Methodist Episcopal Church of Carrollton, Kentucky. Will was his son. The Howe family attended and supported this church.
³ Vachel Rowland, likely the brother of Will Rowland and son of the pastor. Will was a bit older than Sarah, and Vachel was her classmate. Both are mentioned in other posts.