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.

*************************

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.”
 

**************************

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Family Stories Told in Verse – A Few Revealing Poems Written by Sarah Eva Howe Between 1890 and 1915

The little scrapbook of Sarah's poems

While digging through the piles of scrapbooks this morning, I came across one I hadn't seen before. It is much smaller than the others and has been trapped, maybe for decades, among the larger, thicker books.

"A treasure!" I thought. Sure enough, it was. Sarah Eva Howe Salyers had transcribed into the book some of the poetry she had written between 1890 (when she was 7 years old) to 1915 or so.

To preserve some of the poems for family and for all who care to read them, I am including here a few that tell family stories or offer insight into Sarah's thoughts and observations.

The first poem includes this note, using initials for her own name, Sarah Howe Salyers:

Written the summer S.H.S. was "going on eight" and her first written-down poem.

Her poem includes an asterisk leading to a footnote that refers, I think, to her twin children and their battles over toys.

Mice!

Two little mice ran out to play

One was brown and the other was gray

One had some cheese, but none had the other,

Who tried very hard to get some from his brother.*

But as they played and frolicked about

A little pussycat then came out.

She "shooed" them away from their quiet play

On that beautiful summer day.

* Even at the age of seven, I was prophetic of conditions seen later in [the] Salyers family –- not only cheese.

A few pages later, I learned something about the Howe family I had never heard, nor had my husband, who is Sarah's grandson. (Read the transcription below the image if you prefer not to decipher Sarah's handwriting.)

Sarah's explanation about the inspiration behind "Chalchuite," a poem she wrote at age 10.

Transcription: When S.H.S. was ten, in the 4th grade, her parents talked of going to live in New Mexico, reading much literature concerning it, and especially enjoying the book The Land of the Pueblos by Mrs. Lew Wallace [Susan Arnold Elston Wallace]. This poem was written under the inspiration of much hearing about turquoise mines in the New Mexico side of the Rockies, called "Chalchuite" by the Indians.

Imagine! This family in Carrollton, Kentucky was seriously considering a move to New Mexico. If they had gone, I wouldn't be reading Sarah's scrapbooks today – and I would likely never have met her grandson. (Note: Mrs. Wallace's book is available to read online or download free in electronic format.) An asterisk within the poem leads to a footnote that tells us more about the family.

Chalchuite (pronounced chälchəˈwētē, says Merriam-Webster) is an Anglicized version of the Aztec word for turquoise, the most valued green stones in the Aztec society.

Chalchuite

The cold gray peaks of the Rockies

Look on the peaceful vale

Forming a pathless barrier

Before which the strongest quail.

They guard the chalchuite

In their stern and rocky base

While the stormclouds gather unheeded

Shrouding their tops with lace.

For the beautiful vale, this jewel

Its country's praise has won.

So we call the land "Chalchuite" *

This land of the setting sun.

* That was how we privately spoke of New Mexico, so no one would learn what we were talking about, as the idea of going there was a secret. We didn't go, incidentally.

In 1894, when Sarah was 11, her pet and constant companion Solon disappeared. (I think she pronounced it like "SOLE'-on.") She wrote this poem and likely posted it in her neighborhood and maybe in the window of her father's department store.

Strayed or Stolen

"Strayed or stolen" — a spaniel, Solon!

White breast, white feet — he's fond of meat —

(chicken, however, he likes the most).

He's "brown as a berry" and "warm as toast"

And just think, friends, that he's lost or stolen.

Oh friends, dear friends, let me entreat

That should you meet upon the street

A spaniel by the name of Solon

Oh please remember he's lost or stolen!

And then return this small bow-wow

To the house or store of R. J. Howe

and bring back my poor little Solon!

And now, one of my favorites: a poem Sarah wrote at age 16, casting her father as narrator. She noted in the scrapbook:

This poem was written about 1899, inspired by some of the early art efforts of Leonora. [In the poem, Daddy calls Leonora by the nickname "Elsie."]

Higher Criticism

From all the absorbing study of a book on Ancient Art

Showing on illumined pages master pieces of the ages

I had turned my thoughts and fancies to things present, with a start,

But there lingered still the glory told in picture and in story

Of all the wonders man had wrought since prehistoric days

When the first man, with his hand, drew strange pictures in the sand

While the woman stood beside him to admire and to praise.

But lo! I hear a sudden sound, and as I quickly turn

I see my Elsie standing, an audience demanding.

Within the brown eyes starry bright the fire of genius burns.

In fingers fat and fair, a pencil held with care.

She waves a paper masterpiece before my dazzled sight.

"I've drawn a picture. Look! Daddy, please don't ready your book!

See if you know what this is — all red an' black an' white!"

Still musing on my book, I gaze, and answer dreamily

"Great Heredity art thou! On these pictured pages now

I behold each circling age since Art was in its infancy –-

Thru these hieroglyphs are told stories that are centuries old;

Thus, perhaps the wise Egyptian wrought within his pyramid;

Carved in ebony or jade some Chinese-like monster made

While these lines and curves are like the work the great Assyrians did.

Ah, this gorgeous Art — Byzantine its origin, no doubt

While the frescoes in the tombs of the gloomy catacombs

Find a parallel achievement in these skulls the lie about;

Youthful Michaelagelo — "

"Daddy, stop! Oh no, no no!" 

My Elsie's lip is trembling, and a frown is on her brow.

Quick tears have filled her eyes and stormily she cries,

"You just don't understand at all!

Why Daddy, that's a cow!

A poem ends with Sarah's little sister's frustration over Daddy's highbrow interpretation of her simple artwork.

Continuing through the scrapbook: What fun to find a 3-stanza poem Sarah wrote as a 25th birthday gift to William Levi Salyers (the man she would marry two years later, in 1905). As noted in the blog posts of Sept. 25 and 29, 2016, William (often called Will) was known as "girl crazy" in his teens. This poem lets us know that Sarah was well aware of his popularity among young women. Sarah included Will's girlfriends by first name in her poem, and in her scrapbook she added a footnote to provide their surnames, just in case future generations wanted to know!

To "Billy"

Morning

When Billy was a baby, in the long long years ago

(With big blue eyes, and dimpled cheeks, and golden curls, you know),

He looked about and wondered what this strange queer world could be,

He wasn't altogether pleased with everything, not he!

The great big sun was far too bright, the moon too far away;

And cats scratched when you played with them, and puppy dogs would bite.

But when he saw a little girl, he smiled a dimpled smile.

She suited him exactly his spare moments to beguile.

The years have passed, but strange to say (you'll think I'm joking, maybe),

He likes the little girls as well as when he was a baby! 

Noon

The years have passed, a score or more o'er Billy's curly head

He's fluttered like the butterfly from flower to flower, 'tis said;

Cupid, how could you be so mean, you wicked little sprite! —

To take a good and honest heart and leave it such a sight!

For here your arrows left a scar, and here 'twas but a scratch,

With here and there a gaping wound where Billy met his match!

In many a state and city has your cruel work been done,

and each a chip or splinter as a souvenir has won.

You have brought him many pleasures and perhaps a little pain

And not even Father Time can make his scarred heart whole again. 

Night

And when a "jolly bachelor" he sits before his fire in days to come

and sees the ruddy flames leap higher and higher,

Methinks I see in fancy wondrous pictures thronging fast

In drifting smoke, in glowing coals, sweet memories of the past.

There's little Peggy — his first love — and Nellie, young and true.

There's Ella with the golden hair and sprightly Jennie, too.

Three Mabels (one with birdlike voice) and Mary fair and tall;

"Sweet Emily with dreamy eyes," he sees them one and all.

There's Sallie, too (the little scold!) and fair-haired Harriet,

There's Anna with the merry smile and many another yet!

He smiles, then sighs, then turns around, contentedly, to pat

The comrade of advancing years, his old and faithful CAT. 

Peggy Wilkins
Nellie Hafford
Ella Hamilton
Jennie Stringfellow
Mabel Taylor (who lived in Madison, Indiana)
Mabel Burke (who lived in Louisville)
Mabel Myers
Mary Butts
Emily (name illegible; possibly Soos)
Sallie Howe (Sarah herself)
Harriet Smith
Anna Milton

From Sarah's poem "To 'Billy,'" a list of girls dated by William L. Salyers before Sarah and Will became "an item."

The book holds many more of Sarah's writings: lullabies she wrote and sang to her little sister (who, as you may recall from previous posts, was 13 years younger); a verse about a stray cat; poems she wrote as school assignments; poems she wrote after her marriage. I'll hold those for other posts. For now, I will just marvel at the creativity of this girl, who was writing complicated rhymes before her age hit double digits.

Mam-maw and Aunt No-No Write Home from the Sanitorium

In January 1912, our scrapbooker Sarah Eva Howe Salyers was a busy woman. She was caring for her family of five (including husband William Levi "Will" Salyers, 5-year-old Robert King Salyers, and twins James Richard and Mary Alice, who were a few months shy of 2 years old). Apparently, Sarah also was caring for two ailing relatives: her mother Alice Ada Cost Howe and 15-year-old sister Leonora Alice Howe. In the scrapbooks are references to Alice and Leonora having rooms upstairs at the Salyers house. At first I thought they were staying there because they were ill and needed Sarah's care, but various notes in the scrapbooks make me think they lived there with Sarah and her family.

(from left) Mary Alice, Bob, and Jim Salyers, 1911-1912

The children were sad when Daddy and big brother Bob took Alice (called both "Mam-maw" and "Grandma") and Leonora ("Aunt No-No") to the Carrollton depot to board a train bound for Louisville. From letters Sarah pasted or transcribed into her scrapbooks, we learn that the two women went to a sanitorium. References to "Dr. Pope" suggest that they checked in at the Pope Sanitorium, established in 1890 by Dr. Curran Pope on Chestnut Street in downtown Louisville. According to Louisville Encyclopedia by John E. Kleber (University Press of Kentucky, 2001), Page 785, "sanitoriums were popular in those days for treatment of chronic diseases and disorders such as tuberculosis and nervous/mental disorders." I have not yet discovered the ailment that sent them there.

Letters from Alice and Leonora to Sarah in Carrollton, and letters Sarah sent to them in response, offer insights into social customs, medical care, and transportation trials and tribulations of that time. There's also an amusing story or two.

 February 1 (Letter from Leonora to Sarah)
Dear Sister,
It is snowing "like pitchforks" here.  . . . We received your letter just a few minutes ago and were certainly glad to hear from you. I got the letter down at the office in the back of the building. Mr. Thruston Pope is just as fat as ever. [This statement makes me think that the Pope family had Carrollton ties and that the Howe and Salyers families were acquainted with them.] I had a pleasant time on the train coming up except that the train was too warm and I got the headache. When we got here, it still ached so I lay down and slept about two hours. About that time Dr. Pope sent for me. He looks about the same but his hair is a little grayer. Dr. Pope did not keep us so very long. I do not know anything about how long I shall have to stay.

February 1 (Letter from Alice to her daughter Sarah)
"We are rapidly getting acquainted and find the crowed very friendly and agreeable. One lady, Miss Tillie Baer of Owensboro, is one of the lively ones. She knew "Harry" McGinnis and knew "Artee" Griffith . . .  Haven't drunk cocoa but have had milk every meal. Doctor questioned us both closely yesterday, and I took the "mestatic" yesterday but Leonora's headache was so bad, she did not. . . . [I have searched for the term "mestatic" but have not found a meaning or explanation.]

February 2 (Letter from Alice to her daughter Sarah)
Dr. Pope says for us to take a morning walk for 20 minutes before our treatments, so we have just come in from our "braces" which felt very "tonic" as it was colder than I thought. Please send me 1 black silk waist [which I think is a blouse or under-blouse], 1 pr gray kid gloves no. 6, one gingham apron.

February 28 [Letter from Sarah to her sister Leonora]
. . . As for Madge [the Salyers family horse], we can't drive her yet on account of the terrible roads _ the hundreds – I was about to say thousands – of tobacco wagons that are constantly criss-crossing the streets into a hollow checkerboard of mud (if you can take in such a figure). The last time I had her out it was almost impossible for her to drag the

Sarah's transcription of her letter to Leonora. The scrapbooks contain some actual letters but many transcriptions of letters, possibly so the originals could be returned to the people who received them.

surrey through the streets, light as her load was (your humble servant was the sole passenger).  . . . Will said he had a fine time on his visit to you and a mighty good dinner at Doctor Pope's and could see a lot of improvement in "our" two patients. I must tell you the joke –– Bob wanted to go down with his daddy, and I suggested that maybe he could go and stay with you all while Will attended to business, as you did have two beds, and he could sleep with Grandma. Will said, "I wonder if I could stay one night at the Sanatorium, too," and Bob said readily, "Why yes, Daddy, you could sleep with Aunt No-No while I sleep with Grandma!" But his daddy blushed and said he was "afraid Aunt No-no would object!"

Several observations about this excerpt:

• The Salyers family of Carrollton was still using a horse and buggy for transportation in 1912. A previous post reports that only five automobiles were registered in Carrollton in 1910-1911.  
• Sarah's reference to dinner at Dr. Pope's reinforces my thinking that the Salyers family was connected at least socially with that family. 
• Little Bob's innocent suggestion that his daddy sleep with his mother's sister made his daddy blush, which I find endearing. Other scrapbook passages mention that Will stayed at the Seelbach hotel when he traveled to Louisville on business or to visit his mother-in-law and sister-in law. The hotel would have been within a few blocks of the sanitorium at 115 W. Chestnut Street.

March 25 [Letter from Leonora to Sarah]

Leonora Alice Howe without her glasses, circa 1918

By March 25, it appears, Leonora's health has improved. In a letter to Sarah, she speaks of going to
places beyond the sanitorium grounds:
I am going to see Girl of My Dreams [a play] Saturday with Miss June Walker at Macauley's. This morning we went downtown. We went to the New York Store and then to Dr. Ledeman's. . . . I just wanted to see if my glasses were all right. I wish you could see the doctor. He is attractive. He has a keen sense of humor and is fascinating because he is so funny. He is a man of almost thirty years, I suppose. Now you will think I am talking a great deal about him, but I assure you he is perfectly harmless and besides he is Hebrew and is married "already yet."

How typical of a 15-year-old girl to write home about her social engagements and the handsome doctor. Less typical, perhaps, is her frequent request that Sarah send butter:
Do tell me if you find any fresh butter, for you know my weakness for that article. Dr. Pope has good butter, but it is not quite so fresh as I like. I like the fresh country butter.

Sarah's letters from Carrollton reply that she was unable to get fresh butter at an affordable price. Research on why that was so will have to wait for another day.

The pages and papers in this scrapbook are loose and not in consecutive order. A look through the whole book failed to turn up evidence of how long Sarah's mother and sister stayed at Pope Sanitorium. We know they recovered from their ailments, because both lived decades beyond 1912.

Five Years Later, It's Twins Again – and Mourning Again

In May 1915, Sarah Eva Howe Salyers of Carrollton, Kentucky, was the busy mother of three children: 8-year-old Bob and 5-year-old twins Jim and Mary Alice. Her husband William Levi Salyers was busy, too, most likely working with his father at the local C.D. Salyers Tin and Stove store.

The Salyers household was about to get even busier. Sarah was due to deliver their next child at any time. In 1915 she had no way of knowing if the child would be a boy or a girl. Did she know she was carrying twins? I'm not sure if physicians of that day could tell if a mother was carrying more than one child, but I suspect a stethoscope would surely detect multiple heartbeats. Even without an official diagnosis, Sarah may have suspected twins based on her previous pregnancy.

On May 14, Sarah gave birth to twin boys. The first-born twin was healthy. They named him David Hillis Salyers II, after his father's grandfather.

The second twin was stillborn. They named him John Howe Salyers, after his mother's grandfather. On the day he was born, John was buried near his ancestors in the IOOF Cemetery in Carrollton.

David H. Salyers II, circa 1936

Sarah and Will had to celebrate a birth and mourn a death at the same time. I can't imagine that wrenching struggle between sadness and joy.

David was what is known today as a "twinless twin." Psychologists tell us that a surviving twin feels a sense of loss throughout life. I wish he was still here to talk with me about that.

David was the baby of the family and was, I'm told, spoiled by his sister and teased by his brothers. Like many Howe and Salyers relatives, he loved reading, singing, acting, and playing the piano. He never had a piano lesson, but he was a natural – he just sat down and played.

He went to school with his neighbors and cousins in Carrollton until his family moved to Richmond
in 1927, when David was 12. After a few years, they moved to Lexington, where he graduated from Henry Clay High School (1933) and the University of Kentucky (1937).

In July 1942, David joined the U.S. Army. He served first as a clerk typist, then in ordinance, then –
when his commanding officer discovered he could play a portable field organ – as a chaplain's assistant. During his 29 months as a soldier, he traveled throughout central Europe. He wrote many letters home, including one describing what he saw when he helped liberate the prisoners at one of Hitler's death camps. (Maybe those letters will be blog posts someday.)

David H. Salyers II, circa 1943

Before he went off to war, he married his Arkansas-born sweetheart, Eurelia Maehew Kennedy. Mae settled in Louisville, where David had been living in an apartment with his mother. While he was away, their son (my future husband) was born. A daughter was born a few years later but died shortly after birth.

In the late 1940s, David and Mae bought a big Victorian house in what was to become fashionable Old Louisville. It wasn't so fashionable then, just affordable. They became active in neighborhood restoration and were major forces in saving the historic area from decay and demolition. They were leaders in many civic organizations and projects, including the Kentucky Derby Festival, Shakespeare in Central Park, St. James Court Art Show, and others. Following the footsteps of David's Howe ancestors, they were also were active in the United Methodist Church. They lived in Old Louisville until they died.

David worked at the Kentucky Department of Revenue's downtown Louisville office for many years. He was an outgoing man who had the gift of gab, and he enjoyed nothing more than engaging people – friends or strangers – in conversation.

On 25 September 1981, he lost a 10-year fight against a kidney disorder. Honoring his wishes, his wife donated his body to the University of Louisville medical school. In death, as in life, David helped others.

David with wife Mae and son David III, Christmas 1945

David H. Salyers II, early 1916

David H. Salyers II in 1958, visiting the Carrollton, Kentucky house where he was born in 1915. This was the home of his parents, William Levi and Sarah Eva Howe Salyers.

David H. Salyers II, enjoying time at the piano, circa 1960. He never learned to read music but could play any song he heard, frequently entertaining others at church events, family gatherings, and parties. He also was known for his baritone voice and was a soloist in college, performing in Broadway musicals and operas. Keeping a promise to his mother, he sang Ave Maria at her funeral in 1955.