Wednesday, December 30, 2020

Wordless Wednesday: Nana and Grandpa, Chicago, Christmastime 1951


Elizabeth Florence Massmann Pape (1902-2000) and Paul Robert Pape Sr. (1896-1970) outside their home at 2093 W. Lunt Avenue, Chicago, Christmastime 1951. 


© Amanda Pape - 2020 - e-mail me!

Sunday, December 27, 2020

Sentimental Sunday: Beete, Fred, and Moe with Their Dad and Lucky, Christmastime 1951


Nine years ago and six years ago, I wrote about some of my Dad's memories of Christmas growing up in Chicago and Evanston, Illinois.  One of those memories was at Christmas in 1951, when he was a navigator cadet at Ellington Air Force Base outside Houston, Texas, and was given some Christmas leave. The Chicago area received tremendous snowfall that December, and getting home was going to be a problem. He said Colonel William L. Lee, the commanding officer of the 3605th Navigator Training Wing, released some planes, and two were going to the Chicago area. Dad managed to get into O'Hare Reserve Station (this was back when it was being used by the Air Force and wasn't the commercial airport it is today) when all other Chicago area airports were closed.

Above are Marilyn (my aunt), Paul (my grandfather), Fred (my dad), and Rosemary (my aunt) Pape, along with the family dog Lucky, outside the Pape family home at 2093 W. Lunt Avenue, Chicago, Christmastime 1951.  As you can see, there is quite a bit of snow on the ground.  My grandmother, Elizabeth Florence Massmann Pape, is not in this picture (but was in others I posted earlier), so I think she took it.


© Amanda Pape - 2020 - e-mail me!

Friday, December 25, 2020

Christmas Hope


No, this picture isn't from last night or today.  It was taken on Christmas Day five years ago, in 2015, at Christmas dinner at my brother's home in Austin, Texas.  I miss being with my family this year, but with the recent development and release of the coronavirus vaccine, I'm hopeful that we can gather together next year.

Blessings and peace this Christmas.


© Amanda Pape - 2020 - e-mail me!

Wednesday, December 23, 2020

Wordless Wednesday: Pape Family Christmas Tree, 1976


In the living room at 8015 Sharpview, Houston, Texas


© Amanda Pape - 2020 - e-mail me!

Sunday, December 20, 2020

Sentimental Sunday: Rho and Mare, Christmas 1953

My first cousins Rosemary "Rho" Streff Grandusky and Marianne "Mare" Streff Gustafson, at either Christmas 1953 or 1951 (Dad was home at 2093 West Lunt Avenue in Chicago, Illinois, on leave from the Air Force, both times).  I think it is 1953, because Mare would have been only 21 months old if it was 1951, and she looks a little older than that in this photo.


© Amanda Pape - 2020 - e-mail me!

Friday, December 18, 2020

Friday's Faces From the Past: Rho, Christmas 1953

My first cousin Rosemary "Rho" Streff Grandusky, most likely at Christmas 1953 or possibly 1951 (Dad was home at 2093 West Lunt Avenue in Chicago, Illinois, on leave from the Air Force, both times).  



© Amanda Pape - 2020 - e-mail me!

Wednesday, December 16, 2020

(Not-So-) Wordless Wednesday: Grandpa and Nana, Christmas 1953


My paternal grandparents, Paul Robert Pape Sr. and Elizabeth Florence Massmann Pape, at either Christmas 1953 or 1951 (Dad was home at 2093 West Lunt Avenue in Chicago, Illinois, on leave from the Air Force, both times).  I think it is 1953, because of other pictures taken the same day.


© Amanda Pape - 2020 - e-mail me!

Sunday, December 13, 2020

Sentimental Sunday: Beety and Moe, Christmas 1953


Two of my paternal-side aunts, Marilyn "Beety" Pape Hedger, and Rose Mary "Moe" Pape Dietz, at either Christmas 1953 or 1951 (Dad was home at 2093 West Lunt Avenue in Chicago, Illinois, on leave from the Air Force, both times).  I think it is 1953, because of other photos obviously taken the same day.


© Amanda Pape - 2020 - e-mail me!

Friday, December 11, 2020

Friday's Faces From the Past: Grandpa and the Girls, Christmas 1953 (1951?)


My paternal grandfather Paul Robert Pape Sr., with my first cousins Marianne Streff Gustafson and Rosemary Streff Grandusky, at either Christmas 1953 or 1951 (Dad was home at 2093 West Lunt Avenue in Chicago, Illinois, on leave from the Air Force, both times).  I think it is 1953, because Mare would have been only 21 months old if it was 1951, and she looks a little older than that in this photo.


© Amanda Pape - 2020 - e-mail me!

Wednesday, December 9, 2020

(Not-So-) Wordless Wednesday: Nana, Mare, Rho, Grandpa - Christmas 1953 (or 1951)


My paternal grandmother Elizabeth Florence Massmann Pape, first cousins Marianne "Mare" Streff Gustafson and Rosemary "Rho" Streff Grandusky, and paternal grandfather Paul Robert Pape Sr., at either Christmas 1953 or 1951 (Dad was home at 2093 West Lunt Avenue in Chicago, Illinois, on leave from the Air Force, both times).  I think it is 1953, because Mare would have been only 21 months old if it was 1951, and she looks a little older than that in this photo.


© Amanda Pape - 2020 - e-mail me!

Sunday, December 6, 2020

Sentimental Sunday: Mare, Bud, Rho - Christmas 1953 or 1951



My first cousin Marianne "Mare" Streff Gustafson, uncle Frank "Bud" Streff, and cousin Rosemary "Rho" Streff Grandusky, at either Christmas 1953 or 1951 (Dad was home at 2093 West Lunt Avenue in Chicago, Illinois, on leave from the Air Force, both times).  I think it is 1953, because Mare would have been only 21 months old if it was 1951, and she looks a little older than that in this photo.



© Amanda Pape - 2020 - e-mail me!

Tuesday, December 1, 2020

Talented Tuesday: Happy 11th Blogiversary to ME!


Eleven Pipers Piping, from the 12 Days of Christmas animated light display at the Moody Gardens Festival of Lights, Galveston, Texas, January 3, 2015.


© Amanda Pape - 2020 - e-mail me!

Monday, November 30, 2020

In Memory of Mom


October 19, 1928 - November 30, 2019


This is one of my favorite pictures of my mother - taken on a 14-day cruise/tour of Alaska that she made with Dad and two of my aunts, Sister Jean Marie Guokas and Rose Mary "Moe" Pape Dietz, in June 1999.  I believe this photo was taken at the Kenai Princess Wilderness Lodge, where they spent two nights.

I miss her.


© Amanda Pape - 2020 - e-mail me!

Sunday, November 29, 2020

Historic Preservation?

I was shocked to walk by this historic house at 501 Counts Alley, which is just a few blocks from my home in Granbury, Texas, and see this today:



This is what the house looked like about a year ago:



The stone arches on the front porch are being demolished.  So far, this whimsical flower is still there, but I have to wonder - for how long?



There's also a diamond and a dragonfly (I think) in the stonework on the chimney on the west side of the house.




I decided to do a little research on this house.  The property it is on was purchased by William "Bill" Harrison Kinson, 1889-1966, and his wife Bessie Drucilla Nash Kinson, 1897-1982, on December 27, 1933.  Bill and Bessie had married in Hood County seven years earlier, on December 28, 1926.  On the 1930 Census, she was a public schoolteacher and he was a trucker, and they were renting a house on nearby Pearl Street.  They had no children.

They may have bought the house for more space.  Sometime after March 29, 1932, the Kinsons took in the three children of Grover Cleveland Oxford (1894-1960) and Maude Ann Davis Oxford (1898-1932).  Maude had died from breast and liver cancer, leaving three young children ages 2-5, Grovina, Bonita, and Derl, and the Kinsons took them in and raised them (according to Grovina's 2015 obituary).  They don't seem to be related, and it's not clear why their father did not want to raise them.  The children are listed as "lodgers" in the Kinson home on the 1940 Census.

Tax records for the house indicate it was built in 1935.  That is likely when the mixed stone exterior walls with beaded mortar were built, as the initials in the front gable, "WK," are those of William Kinson.  The Kinsons owned the home through Bessie's death in December 1982.  Earlier that year, she conveyed the house to her former lodger, Derl Crites Oxford (1930-1989), retaining a life estate for herself.  Derl lived there until his death, and the home passed out of Kinson and Oxford ownership when it was sold by Grovina in the settlement of Derl's estate in March 1991.

However, it looks like a structure very similar to the existing house has been on the site since at least January 1905, based on Sanborn maps.  In the next two images, from January 1905 and July 1910, it is the smaller house on the left, with a (then-) house number of 110.  The yellow coloring indicates that it is a wood frame structure.





Now look at the next two images, from the February 1932 and March 1945 Sanborn maps.  The 1945 map notes the stone, and you can also see a small outbuilding has been added, probably what now appears to be storage but was likely the original garage.  It's possible the stone outer wall was added over existing wood frame and siding.

Above:  February 1932.  Below:  March 1945.



This house, described as a High Style Tudor Revival, is a high priority for preservation according to a historic properties survey done by the city in 2001.  It "contributes significantly to local history or broader historical patterns; is an outstanding or unique example of architecture, engineering or crafted design; and retains a significant portion of its original character and architectural integrity."

However, a large part of that uniqueness, character, and integrity is being destroyed.  The house is not in the city's historic preservation district (HPO), so the current owners (who bought the house in January of this year) did not have to submit their plans for the exterior to the Historic Preservation Commission (on which I serve, since February 2020) for approval.

ETA 14 January 2021:  The front door that is parallel to the street has been bricked in (with similar stone), and the planter box in front of the window to the left of the porch has also been demolished.



Also, a discussion with a lifetime Granbury resident and some additional research in old newspapers revealed that Bill Kinson was elected alderman (a City Councilperson) in Granbury in April 1939.  Also, his 1966 obituary stated that the Kinsons had owned the Corner Cafe since 1958.  The Corner Cafe was in the building pictured below, at the northwest corner of Pearl and Houston streets on the Hood County Courthouse square.



Based on an early (but undated) photo of this building, it did not always have the crazy-quilt-pattern mixed stone exterior.  I have to wonder if Kinson added this as well.


© Amanda Pape - 2020 - e-mail me!

Thursday, November 26, 2020

Thankful Thursday Thanksgiving 2020


Thanksgiving in 2019 ended badly, with a phone call that my mother, suffering from frontotemporal degeneration primary progressive aphasianonfluent/agrammatic variant (FTD-nvfPPA), had aspirated part of her (hopefully-)pureed Thanksgiving dinner at her skilled nursing center and had been hospitalized.  We drove in the dark to Austin, and luckily all my siblings and I got to say goodbye to her before she died two days later.

2020 has certainly been quite the year.  It started well, with some day trips to Hico in January for lunch and sightseeing, and a jaunt to Austin on February 1 for my first-cousin-twice-removed Everly's first birthday party.  The baby's grandfather, my cousin Tom, then a pilot with many overseas flights, talked about precautions he was taking against the novel coronavirus.  He mentioned that it was difficult to find N-95 masks, having to drive 50 or so miles to get them.  My youngest brother and sister, Brian and Mary, were also at that party, and that was the last time I've seen them (as well as Everly and Tom and Tom's wife Karen and daughter Katie and son-in-law Jimmy).  

My other brother Mark remarried on March 1, and we were supposed to celebrate his marriage to Nazli later that month with my siblings and nieces and nephews.  But then the lockdown hit.  I also had to reschedule a planned celebration of life for my parents twice (and will almost certainly need to reschedule it at least once more).

Although I didn't get to travel as I'd hoped this year, I am so thankful I am retired and did not have to deal with coronavirus situations at work.  I am thankful that if my husband was going to need various procedures, surgeries, and hospitalizations, they happened this year when we couldn't go anywhere else anyway (and that the hospitalizations were during early June and late September, when COVID was NOT peaking).  

I'm thankful for the radiologist back in mid-April who spotted a suspicious "shadow area" on my spouse's bladder.  It turned out to be cancer, but he caught it early enough.  I'm thankful for the interventional radiologist who persevered and made a second attempt to insert a drainage tube in my husband's abscess in early June.  That likely avoided emergency surgery and shortened the time at home with antibiotics via PICC grenades that I learned how to change.  I'm thankful for ALL the great doctors and nurses and therapists and hospital staff that have helped him this year.  And I am grateful that my sweetheart has recovered from all of this and is feeling MUCH better.

I am thankful for all the teachers and medical professionals and other essential workers, especially those in my family, and particularly those who have to put up with the stupidity of people who won't wear masks and avoid crowds.  I am SO thankful the smart people in this country rallied and voted in a new president who will not be a super callous fragile racist sexist Nazi POTUS (nor a science-denying liar).

I'm thankful for technology like Zoom, which allowed me to attend various genealogy meetings, my 45th high school reunion, virtual tours of historic homes in the Rogers Park neighborhood of Chicago (where Dad grew up) and in Houston (where Mom grew up), and THREE book clubs, including my old group in the Seattle area.  We started meeting in 2001, when our kids - now in their early 30s - started high school!  I talk to my 90-year-old aunt at least once a week on Google Duo.

I can't sew masks, but I am thankful I could use my librarian skills to work on an international project to index medical device service manuals to make them freely available to biotechs during the spring surge of the pandemic.  I'm also thankful for all the free time that let me work on some crowd-sourced Lithuanian genealogy projects on Geni (via a Facebook group I co-administer).  I'm grateful for good weather that's allowed lots of biking and walking outdoors to keep me sane.

I have to say that I am thankful my mother passed away when she did, both because the quality of her life had greatly diminished due to FTD-nvfPPA, and because I would be worried sick not being able to see her most of this year in her skilled nursing center (wheelchair bound, on the second floor, and unable to talk).   I'm thankful that my son just happened to be with his father in Oregon when the fires were so bad there in August, and that he was able to help them evacuate their rural home (which survived) and pay for their hotel.  And I'm thankful for the daughter who made us some masks, and, many years ago, made the cute little handprint turkey above.

© Amanda Pape - 2020 - e-mail me!

Wednesday, November 11, 2020

(Almost-)Wordless Wednesday for Veterans Day

While looking for something else in the National Archives Catalog, I stumbled upon these Award Cards for the Distinguished Flying Cross and the Air Medal (with two Oak Leaf Clusters) awarded to my father, Frederick Henry Pape (1929-2017), during his service with the Air Force in Korea in 1952 and 1953:






The Award Cards collection spans the years 1942 to 1963.  The cards were transferred by the Air Force (and its World War II predecessor, the Army Air Forces) to the National Archives and Records Service in 1973 to be used to help recreate official military personnel files that had been destroyed by fire.


© Amanda Pape - 2020 - e-mail me!

Monday, November 9, 2020

Military Monday: WWI Honor Roll, Glen Rock, New Jersey

In honor of the upcoming Veterans Day and for The Honor Roll Project, I decided to transcribe the World War I Honor Roll plaque in Glen Rock, New Jersey.  The roll lists all the Glen Rock Borough men who served during World War I.  The first five names on the list (those with asterisks in front of them) lost their lives in the conflict.


Above:  Glen Rock Honor Roll [with Memorial Day wreaths from the American Legion and the Veterans of Foreign Wars, 10 June 2007, cropped] / Beatrice Murch / CC BY-SA 2.0

Below:  Glen Rock Honor Roll, Glen Rock, NJ [20 April 2003, cropped] / birdphone / CC BY-NC-SA 2.0



Glen Rock Honor Roll
They Fought the Good Fight, They Finished the Course, They Kept the Faith

* Peter Ebbert
* Frederick Jensen
* Mortimer Kerr
* Jacob E. Phillips
* Frank Squires
-------------------
John Ackerman | Roland Banister | Theodore Bauma | Leo W. Bolte | Frank A. Blum | Frank Buycher | John Christopher | Maurice Clark | Benjamin A. Conklin | Joseph Conklin | Max R. Cramer | Ralph S. Cramer | Carl W. Daines | Frank Daley | George Stanley Dart | David C. De Ferrari | Ellory De Groat |

Edo De Young | Charles W. Duffin, Jr. | Stanley Elsworth Elwood | John F. Erlenback | Gerald Faber | Carlos Fajardo | Raymond J. Fisher | Frederick Freestone | Harding U. Greene | Prentice Hencevelt | George C. Henriques | Everett L. Hoffmire | George C. Hubschmitt | John R. Humma | Arthur J. Kidd | Samuel King | Tunis King | Harold W. Lampe | Cornelius Lont | Humphrey Lloyd | Joseph C. Loughery | Gordon Duvar MacDougall | Eugene McCoy |

Peter McDonald | Richard H. Mann | Louis Marron | Hudson May | LeRoy May | Walter Meyer | Gordon Miesse | Arthur H. Miller | Howard V. Miller | John E. Miller | George Monro | William Monro | John Morey | John J. Mulqueen | John Nally | Walter Nally | Jesse Louis Nunn | George T. Parker | Cornelius R. Peckart | Edgar Peter | Henry E. Post | Nicholas Postma | Harold Rasmussen |

Edward H. Riopel | Lester Robertson | Donald Ryder | Philip Schuyler | Willet B. Sherwood | John Frederick Simonson | John T. Sinclair | Garret Sinkway | Joseph I. Smith | John B. Smith | Floyd Snyder | Herbert Spendlove | Herbert C. Stubbs | John Tourse | J. Olen Van Blarcom | Barney Van De Weert | Ralph Van Orden | Louis Van Winkle | John F. Walter, Jr. | Leslie White | James Wilkie | George Winter | William H. Winter | Lester Zabriskie


© Amanda Pape - 2020 - e-mail me!

Friday, November 6, 2020

Friday's Faces From the Past: It's Been Three Years




This image is from a Kodachrome slide I found, among others from Korea (1952-53) and of Pape family in Chicago (1953-1956), in a paper bag in my parents' study after he died rather suddenly three years ago today.  There are no markings on the slide to indicate place or date.  I'm posting it mostly because I like his smile.

I think it may have been taken in Houston, possibly somewhere near Ellington Air Force Base, based on the background, and on the fact that other pictures definitely taken the same day feature a lot of men.  One of the men looks like Major Lloyd Dale Herman Jr. (1927-2019), who was a groomsman in my parents' wedding.  However, there's another photo of him with a woman and baby, and I'm pretty sure his first child was not born until March 1957 (although this photo could have been taken in 1958, after my parents moved back to Texas).


Above:  Dad with three other men - the one on the left might be Lloyd Herman.
Below:  The man who I think is Lloyd Herman with a woman I assume is his wife (Betty Ruth Hall Griffin, married in November 1955 in Houston) and a baby (perhaps his daughter born in Harris County on March 1, 1957).  If that is true, it would date these photos to early 1958 at the earliest.



I wish I'd found these slides sooner, so I could have asked Mom and Dad about them.


© Amanda Pape - 2020 - e-mail me!

Monday, October 19, 2020

Matrilineal Monday: Happy Birthday to My Mom in Heaven!


Geraldine Margaret Guokas Pape (1928-2019) on the porch of the home of her mother, Sara Melzina Wolfe Guokas Archibald (1907-1997), 4632 Norhill in Houston, Texas, about 1954.


© Amanda Pape - 2020 - e-mail me!

Friday, October 16, 2020

Friday's Faces from the Past: Happy Birthday to My Baby Sister!


My youngest sister Mary, sometime before or during October 1965.  This photo was taken at the home of our maternal grandmother, Sara Melzina Wolfe Guokas Archibald (1907-1997).


© Amanda Pape - 2020 - e-mail me!

Friday, September 18, 2020

Friday's Faces from the Past: Jessie Alison Sayers, 1859-1939

Jessie Alison Sayers (1859-1939) was the aunt of my great uncle Philip Edgar Sayers Sr. (1901-1972), and half-sister of Texas Governor Joseph Draper Sayers (1841-1929).  She is a fascinating person in her own right.

Jessie was born February 2, 1859, in Bastrop, Texas, the oldest child of Dr. David Sayers (1811-1886) and his second wife Inda Scott Sayers (1828-1877).  She attended Bastrop public schools and graduated from the Virginia Female Institute (now Stuart Hall School).

She taught in the primary department at Austin High School and at West Austin Public School from at least 1885 to at least 1890, along with her older sister Lillie (Elizabeth Scott Sayers Sayers, 1863-1918).  A June 12, 1884 article in the Austin Weekly Statesman indicates Jessie taught in Austin public schools in 1883 and 1884 as well.  In 1888, she taught grade 6 at West Austin. 

In 1892 and 1893, Jessie was back in Bastrop teaching.  In April 1894, she was too ill to read her own paper on "Language" at the Middle Texas Teachers Association meeting, in which she essentially was a early proponent of integrating reading and writing across the curriculum.

By 1897, she was back at the West Austin School.  She apparently took courses at the University of Texas in Austin in 1898 and 1900.  In 1900, she was teaching arithmetic at Austin High School. 

Jessie appears in the 1900 Census living in the Texas Governor's mansion with her half brother and his second wife, Lena Walton Sayers.  An article about the governor on page 3 of the March 3, 1900 Galveston Tribune stated:

"A pretty pink and white 'den' just across the hall from their apartments is occupied by the governor’s sister, Miss Jessie Sayers, who makes her home at the mansion. Well known as one of Austin’s most intellectual women, she holds a position of trust in the public school."

In 1903, Jessie was appointed first assistant in mathematics at the Southwest Texas Normal Institute in San Marcos.  She remained there for the next 25+ years.





Above:  Jessie Sayers' photo on page 11, 1907 Pedagogue yearbook, Southwest Texas State Normal School.

Below:  Jessie Sayers' photo on page 12, 1912 Pedagogue yearbook, Southwest Texas State Normal School.




Jessie appears to have been a rather popular instructor.  In the 1906 yearbook, she is listed as an honorary member of the Gypsies girls basketball team.  In 1917, she served on the advisory board of the campus YWCA.  She also wrote the original words to the school song, the Alma Mater.  The November 11, 1911 issue of The Normal Star, the school newspaper, had this quote on page 3:  

"Some teachers can teach nine subjects very well, but when it comes to explaining 'Mathematics Miss Jessie Sayers has other teachers skinned a country block. A Freshman."

The General Register of the Students and Former Students of the University of Texas published in 1917 lists her as a student in the College of Arts in 1911, but not earning a degree there.  On June 7, 1916, Jessie was awarded a bachelor of science degree in education from Columbia University in New York City, as well as a teacher's college diploma there as a teacher of mathematics.  The alumni directory lists her as a member of the class of 1915, though, and she apparently did some graduate work there as well.



Above:  Jessie Sayers' photo on page 13, 1914 Pedagogue yearbook, Southwest Texas State Normal School.

Below:  Jessie Sayers' photo on page 23, 1920 Pedagogue yearbook, Southwest Texas State Normal School.



It's not clear when Jessie retired.  One source says 1933, another says 1937.  She is last mentioned as faculty in the 1928 yearbook (the year she turned age 69), but is still mentioned in The Normal Star as involved in college-related activities through 1934.  A girls dormitory, built in 1936, was named for her.

Jessie died at age 80 on March 25, 1939, at 326 West Hopkins in San Marcos (which still stands and is an inn), the same house she'd been boarding in since at least the 1920 Census (although numbered 338 then).  She is buried in the Dr. David Sayers family plot in Section E(B) at Fairview Cemetery in Bastrop.


Above:  Jessie's death certificate, from "Texas Deaths, 1890-1976," database with images, FamilySearch (https://familysearch.org/ark:/61903/3:1:33SQ-GB9F-S4ZV?cc=1983324&wc=9THK-L23%3A263835801%2C268207301%2C268210101 : 22 July 2014), Death certificates > 1939 > Vol 028, certificates 013501-014000, Mar, Harris-Jefferson counties > image 136 of 554; State Registrar Office, Austin.

Below:  Sayers Hall in the 1945 Pedagog yearbook of Southwest Texas State Teachers College.




Above:  Sayers Hall on page 18, 1954 Pedagog yearbook, Southwest Texas State Teachers College.

Below:  The new Sayers Hall (on the left) opened in 2014.



The original Sayers Hall, which cost $125,000 to build, was demolished in 1975 to make way for the Education Building.  A new Sayers Hall opened in the Fall of 2014.

"The First Seventeen: The Story of the 1903 Faculty," on pages 29-30 of Fifty Years of Teacher Education, 1901-1951:  The Story of Southwest Texas State Teachers College, had this to say about Jessie Alison Sayers:

"None of her students will forget Miss Jessie A. Sayers, witty, keen, alert, exhibiting a thoroughness in scholarship and expecting in return perfect recitations."


© Amanda Pape - 2020 - e-mail me!

Tuesday, September 15, 2020

Tombstone Tuesday: Sayers Siblings



The David Sayers plot in Section E(B) at the Fairview Cemetery in Bastrop (photo above courtesy Gerry Beathard) has the graves for two more of the children of David and Inda Scott Sayers.  One of those children is the youngest, Sam Scott Sayers (1867-1935, photo below courtesy Gerry Beathard).  Sam served in the Texas General Land Office (GLO) in Austin from 1900 through 1935, and as its Chief Clerk from September 12, 1929 until his death.  Prior to his work with GLO, he was deputy county clerk in Bastrop County.



Below is a tribute to Sam Scott Sayers printed in the Report of the Commissioner
of the General Land Office 1934-36It notes that in his first 28 years as an abstract clerk, he compiled 28 volumes of "Abstracts of Texas Land Titles," which are the base for the GLO's land grant database today.




Below is Sam's death certificate.


"Texas Deaths, 1890-1976," database with images, FamilySearch (https://familysearch.org/ark:/61903/3:1:33S7-9B9H-SRHJ?cc=1983324&wc=9TH6-L29%3A263835801%2C267974101%2C268026101 : 22 July 2014), Death certificates > 1935 > Vol 062, certificates 030501-031000, Jun, Taylor-Wichita counties > image 174 of 527; State Registrar Office, Austin.




Buried next to Sam is his wife, Nora Buchanan "Dot" McLavy, 1877-1901.  Sadly she died less than two years after their marriage (on February 27, 1900, in Bastrop County).  They had no children and Sam never remarried.  He moved to Austin shortly after her death.  (Photo courtesy Gerry Beathard and used with his permission.)



Finally, on the other side of Sam is his sister (who outlived all her siblings), Jessie Alison Sayers (1859-1939), who never married nor had children.  More on this interesting woman in a future post.  (Photo courtesy Gerry Beathard and used with his permission.)




The plot map below shows where Sam, Dot, and Jessie are buried in the David Sayers fenced area, marked by the green box.  Their half-brother, Governor Joseph D. Sayers, and those in his fenced area (marked in purple below) were discussed in a previous post.




Two of the children of Dr. David Sayers and second wife Inda Scott Sayers are not buried in this plot.  One is son Thomas Green Sayers, buried in Houston and discussed in an earlier post.  The other is daughter Elizabeth ("Lizzie" or "Lilly") Scott Sayers Sayers, 1863-1918.  She attended the Colorado Institute in Bastrop, earning a certificate of proficiency in mathematics in 1879, and taught there in 1883.  She attended the Sam Houston Normal Institute (teacher training) in Huntsville in 1882 and 1886.  She taught in the primary department at Austin High School and at West Austin Public School from 1884 to 1890, along with her older sister Jessie.  In 1888, she taught grade 5 at West Austin. 

On October 20, 1890, in Bastrop County, Texas, she married her first cousin, widower Nicholas Albert Sayers (1845-1912) of Wythe County, Virginia.  However, in the 1900 and 1910 censuses, they are in Pulaski, Virginia.  After Nicholas' death in 1912, Lizzie apparently moved back to Texas and in with her sister Jessie in San Marcos.  She died there in 1918, but is buried next to her husband in the Oakwood Cemetery in Pulaski.  They had no children.  Here are their grave markers:


photos above and below courtesy Cindy Akers at FindAGrave.




Here is Lizzie's death certificate:


"Texas Deaths, 1890-1976," database with images, FamilySearch (https://familysearch.org/ark:/61903/3:1:33S7-9B9C-SV29?cc=1983324&wc=9THV-SP6%3A263835801%2C265476901%2C265538501 : 22 July 2014), Death certificates > 1918 > Vol 053-059, certificates 026285-029350, Jun-Jul, San Augustine-McLennan counties > image 2781 of 3385; State Registrar Office, Austin.


© Amanda Pape - 2020 - e-mail me!