Friday, July 22, 2016

Beulah Vee's Cedar Chest (5)

To recap: in a series of five posts I'm exploring the contents of a cedar chest belonging to my aunt Beulah Vee Wright, who died in 1939 at the age of 18. Background on her and this project can be found in part 1.

Part 2 is here, part 3 here, and part 4 here





Here's the title page from Beulah Vee's high school yearbook for her senior year. I've included several pages below where she appears in various organizational photos. 



She was the business manager for the yearbook that year. Her pose on the left of this photo was seen in the previous post, extracted and framed. 










In this montage Beulah Vee is at the very top right of the "K".






Here's the cover of the Etowah High School yearbook for 1939.



They had colorful lunch tins in the 1930's. 



The case for Beulah Vee's glasses give us the name of her Gadsden optometrist. Taylor was President of the Alabama Optometrists Association in 1914-16. 








Her cedar chest was made by the Cavalier Corporation in Chattanooga, Tennessee. In addition to these cedar hope chests, they made various exclusive products for Coca Cola. After many corporate changes, the firm closed in 2000. Many examples of their hope chests are available on eBay





Here's that famous "Keepsafe Dial Lock".



The chest contained a number of valentines from elementary school in the late 1920's. Daughter Becca framed some of them to hang on the wall of the Beulah Vee Guest Room in Oklahoma. 



The chest holds some fascinating family items. These typed invitations are to Beulah Vee's parents' wedding on December 19, 1915. My grandmother Rosa Mae turned 16 the following month. 







This label is on the back of the mirror seen in the photo below. I presume the entire bedroom suite came from this company in Georgia, and my grandparents bought it at Ross Granling Furniture Company in Gadsden. 



Here's the bedroom at my daughter's house in Oklahoma where Beulah Vee's cedar chest and bedroom furniture are now located. A nightstand to the right of the bed is not visible. You can see the framed valentines hanging on the wall. 

The cedar chest contains many other remnants of Beulah Vee's life not shown in these blog posts. I feel I've come to know her, a woman who died over 12 years before I was born, better than many people I've actually met in my life.

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