Letter to Mrs. Sam Barker, addressed envelope to Mrs. J. P. Walker, and Asheville newspaper clipping 'School Days Are Over' (Montford School faculty group photograph)
Book 1, Page 183
Transcription
The page is mounted with several items in a loose grid. Pencilled annotations in the compiler’s hand identify some items.
Upper left — small folded note with annotation
A pencilled annotation written across the back of a folded note in the compiler’s hand:
Letter to Mrs. Sam Barker & her / daughter Mary — from Mrs. Barker’s / sister-in-law — Mrs. Thomas Porcher
[Mrs. Thomas Porcher is Ellen Milliken Barker, daughter of Joseph Sanford Barker; she was the elder sister of Susan Milliken Barker (Mrs. Dr. Christopher FitzSimons 3rd) and Samuel Gaillard Barker, hence the “sister-in-law” tie if Mrs. Sam Barker is Sam G. Barker’s wife.]
Upper right — addressed envelope
A small envelope with a Columbia postmark and two purple postage stamps at upper right. Return address in ink at upper left:
Mrs. C. F. Martin
3219 Heyward St
Columbia S. C.
Addressed to:
Mrs. J. P. Walker
Hendersonville,
N. C.
Route 2
Center left — folded typed letter
A folded sheet of typescript (oriented sideways relative to the page). The visible portion reads:
When The Jockey Club sold The William Washington Race Course to the city, Major Theodore G. Barker, their officer, told its members, who wished for his advice as to its disposition, of The Charleston Library Society’s desperate need of a fund for the buying and binding of books, and they gave this fund for that specific purpose which enabled The Charleston Library Society to replace valuable [books destroyed by floods] and wars as well as [time].
For years befor[e then The Charles]ton Library Society, [had no funds for its] collection. (Except [the small endowments] for books that he ha[d secured…])
With The Jockey [Club fund and the] collaboration of The[odore Barker, the Society] has preserved and bu[ilt up…]
[Letter continues onto the unseen panels; remainder obscured by fold.]
Lower left — small folded paper
A small folded paper, the front pencilled in cursive:
Barker Coat of Arms
Lower right — newspaper clipping with group photograph
A newspaper clipping showing a group photograph of eight women in late-Victorian dress, posed in two rows. Caption beneath the photograph reads:
SCHOOL DAYS ARE OVER, but many Asheville residents may remember the eight teachers who constituted the faculty of Montford School in 1894. Posing for the photographer that year were (L to R: seated) Miss Susan Yeatman, third grade; Miss Susan Dukes, fifth grade; Miss Mary Kimberly, advanced first grade; Miss Minnie Johnson, sixth grade. Standing, Miss Grace Scott (later Mrs. Hugh Brown), first grade; Miss Ellen Barker, fourth grade; Miss Jennie B. Gray, seventh grade and principal; and Miss Edith Randolph (later Mrs. Carl Reynolds), second grade. Only Miss Dukes, Miss Kimberly and Mrs. Minnie Johnson Pickens survive today. Miss Yeatman, Miss Kimberly and Miss Dukes were members of the faculty of the Academy Street School in 1888. Asheville’s first public white school, which later became Montford School and is now Wil[liam] Randolph Elementary School. The original photograph of the group above belonged to the late Miss Barker. At the suggestion of Mrs. Eugene Glenn, executor of Miss Barker’s estate, it has been given to Pack Memorial Public Library.
AI Notes
An album page mounted with several items: at upper left, a small folded note with a pencilled annotation in the compiler’s hand identifying the contents as a letter to Mrs. Sam Barker and her daughter Mary, from Mrs. Barker’s sister-in-law Mrs. Thomas Porcher (i.e. Ellen Milliken Barker, who married Thomas Porcher); at upper right, an addressed envelope from Mrs. C. F. Martin (3219 Heyward St., Columbia, S.C.) to Mrs. J. P. Walker (Hendersonville, N.C., Route 2) with a Columbia postmark and two purple stamps; at center left, a folded typed letter recounting how Major Theodore G. Barker arranged for the Jockey Club’s sale of the William Washington Race Course to fund the Charleston Library Society; at lower left, a small folded paper labelled ‘Barker Coat of Arms’; at lower right, a newspaper clipping headed ‘School Days Are Over’ showing a group photograph of eight women — the faculty of the Montford School (Asheville, NC) in 1894 — with caption identifying each woman; the original photograph was given to Pack Memorial Public Library, Asheville.
The clipping was clearly saved because Miss Ellen Barker of the faculty was a Barker — almost certainly the same Ellen Barker named elsewhere in the album. The original photograph was bequeathed via the Eugene Glenn estate to Pack Memorial Public Library, Asheville.