Showing posts with label Pelham. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Pelham. Show all posts

Monday, August 26, 2024

A Goodwill Book Store in Pelham

A few months ago I visited the Goodwill donation site near our home in Pelham for the first time and found myself in a bookstore. Needless to say I have returned a few times since, usually finding some  books to purchase. I'm supposed to be downsizing my book collection, and I have done so. More books are going out than coming in these days!

You can see a few photos below. I've also included some of an old school book I found on one visit, but did not purchase. The next time I returned it was gone....

This small used bookstore is worth a visit if you are in the area. Bring some donations, too. The location opened in July 2020 in a former A&W Root Beer location. Pelham has had a few other bookstores over the years, but the only one currently operating is Goodwill. 

Over the years I've written a number of posts about Alabama used bookstores. One item described a recent visit my brother and I made to Branch Books in Hartselle. Another piece in 2017 was devoted to the late, lamented Books, Etc., also in Pelham, and a successor to Betty's Books. 









The small retail space does offer some items besides books. 








Several of the Laidlaw Basic Readers can be found on the Internet Archive.



This text was provided by the state of Alabama to schools in Franklin County. The copy seems to have been well used!






This book was copyrighted in 1940. Laidlaw Brothers of Illinois began in 1919 and was acquired by Doubleday in 1964. At one point Doubleday was the largest publisher in the U.S.














A lot of these old school books have some neat illustrations.






More about Betty's Books here. 


Saturday, April 13, 2024

Pelham Doctors in 1900

I've written a number of posts on this blog related to medical history in Alabama, especially Birmingham; and also many on the history of Pelham, where we live. You can find a list of some of the Magic City medical history items here. A list of Pelham postings is here. Both lists were completed in 2017, so both need updating--maybe someday. This piece examines a bit of Pelham's medical history. 

As I sometimes do on a cold winter evening, I recently dipped into the 1900 volume of the Transactions of the Medical Association of the State of Alabama. In addition to administrative materials and papers presented at the annual meeting, this publication included each year a county-by-county listing of the doctors in Alabama. Each listing was divided into those who were members of the medical society and those who were not. Thus the Transactions, which were published from the 1850s into the 1920s are something of a snapshot each year of the state's medical profession. 

Below you can see a page from the 1900 volume that gives doctors for Shelby County. Listed first are the officers of the county society, then the members and finally doctors who had not joined. Each entry often includes medical college and year of graduation as well as the year of certification to practice in Alabama. 

In that listing are three doctors in Pelham in 1900. Here I've included what I found about these men. 

Garland Henry Smith

Smith was born on July 10, 1860, and graduated from the Medical College of Alabama in 1889. Wayne Flynt's University of Alabama Medical Alumni Association 1859-2003 lists him in class of 1890 & being from the community of Kennedy in Lamar County. At the time the medical school was in Mobile, and operated there from 1859 until 1920 when it was moved to Tuscaloosa and then Birmingham in 1945. According to the Transactions he was certified by the Shelby County medical board in 1890. 

He apparently moved around the county. The 1890 and 1896 Transactions put him in Siluria. The 1900 volume puts him in Pelham. The 1902 publication has him living in Ganadarque, which had a post office from 1895 until 1903, the name having been changed from Newala in 1895. Finally, the  American Medical Association's Directory of Deceased Physicians 1804-1929 lists him in Saginaw at the time of his death on September 2, 1905. He seems to have been a member of the medical society during his career in Shelby County. 

In 2015 I did a blog post on the Pelham Cemetery; several physicians who practiced in the town are buried there. That includes Smith; you can see his marker via Find-A-Grave below. The photo there was better than mine! Pearl Denson wife of of Dr. G.H. Smith is also buried in the Pelham Cemetery; a photo of her grave is also in the blog post. She died in 1935. Since her maiden name was Denson, is she related to the next Pelham physician on our 1900 list? 



Dr. Smith is buried in the Pelham Cemetery. 

Source: Find-A-Grave


Eli Forest Denson

Denson was born on February 15, 1853, and graduated from Vanderbilt medical school in 1879. He was certified by the Shelby County board in that same year. He appears in various volumes of the Transactions through 1902, never as a member of the society. Denson does not appear in Shelby County in the 1907 volume, so he may have moved out of Pelham at some point. He died on July 14, 1910, age 57 and is buried in the Pelham Cemetery.  His wife Emma lived until 1937 and is also buried there. 



Dr. Denson is buried in the Pelham Cemetery. 

Source: Find-A-Grave 


Joseph Madison Johnson

Johnson was also a Vanderbilt graduate, finishing in 1883. He was certified by the Shelby County board in that same years. In addition to 1900, I found him in the 1896 Transactions but not in 1902 in Pelham. I did not find him via U.S. Census records, Find-A-Grave or the AMA directory of deceased physicians. He was not a society member in those years. Otherwise, Johnson is a mystery.

A William Rufus King Johnson, 1880 graduate of Atlanta Medical College, and certified by the county board in that year, shows up in Pelham in the 1889 and 1890 Transactions  and is not a society member. He does not appear in the city in the 1896 or 1898 Transactions.

The American Medical Association's Directory of Deceased Physicians 1804-1929 has a listing for him. with some additional and different information. He was born May 12, 1854, in Highland, Alabama. Johnson graduated from the Atlanta Medical College in 1878 and certified in Alabama that same year. He was certified to practice in Texas in 1907, and lived in several places in that state until his death in Mt. Pleasant of a cerebral hemorrhage on October 30, 1928. Was he related to Joseph Madison Johnson? 

Several other doctors are known to have practiced in Pelham in the early 20th century. Pelham was not incorporated at the time, but population figures for the Pelham "precinct" can be found in the Alabama Official and Statistical Register 1919. In 1900 602 people lived there and 1100 in 1910.

I've written a blog post about John Payne, who is also buried in the Pelham Cemetery. Although a physician who grew up in Shelby County, and was certified by that county's board, his practice before his untimely death seems to have been in Birmingham. 

Young & Company's Business and Professional Directory of Alabama 1910-1911 lists an A.W. Horton as a physician in Pelham. Dr Andrew W. Horton died in 1910 at the age of 37 and is buried in the Pelham Cemetery.

The American Medical Directory for 1916 has a doctor listed in Pelham, Braxton Bragg Pugh. He died in Uniontown in Perry County in 1938, so he may not have been in Pelham long. 

The American Medical Directory for the years 1912, 1914, 1918 have no doctors in Pelham. 



Source:

Transactions of the Medical Association of the State of Alabama, 1900 via the Internet Archive 


Thursday, May 25, 2023

In these Days of Modern Times (2)

Sometimes I just want to do something silly on this blog, so here we are. Again.

Back in October 2021 I posted some photographs of our front porch. Here's what I said then:

We seem to have had a lot of Amazon orders delivered lately [for some mysterious reason!], and many of them come with an email and a photograph of the item(s) on our porch. I present some here for the general amusement of the  readers to show the endless variety of Amazon delivery placement on this porch. The [Halloween] pumpkins are keeping watch. 

A tip of the hat to all the anonymous Amazon drivers and photographers out there.

So now I'm back with a whole new set. These are from April and May 2022. 

To be continued, I'm sure...




1 April 2022 

Some of these can be rather artistic. 




2 April 2022




6 April 2022 



20 April 2022



24 April 2022



26 April 2022




30 April 2022




2 May 2022




5 May 2022



11 May 2022













Thursday, December 23, 2021

Some Pelham Christmas Ornaments

In the late 1990's and early 2000's when the kids were in secondary school, Dianne, Amos, Becca & I attended several Christmas tree lightings held at the Pelham Civic Complex. These events typically had performances by middle school and high school choirs [in which both children sang], performances of students at the ice skating school, an appearance by Santa driving the Zamboni out on the ice, and the lighting of a large Christmas tree.

Audience members who arrived early enough were given an ornament commemorating the event. I'm not sure when this tradition started, but the earliest one we have is from 1998 and the latest is 2003. Maybe we didn't attend the 2002 one; after 2003 our youngest Becca was no longer in high school, and we haven't returned in subsequent years. 

The event continued in 2021, although changes have been made. For the first time, a parade on U.S. 31 was held. You can see the 2021 tournament below. 

I wonder if anyone has a complete collection. And do other cities create these sorts of trinkets?

















Source: PelhamStrong Facebook page


Friday, October 29, 2021

Halloween Back in the Day

I've written a piece on this blog about past Halloweens around Alabama, and in this one I'm looking at a few from my own family for which we have the photo evidence. I'm sure there are more around here somewhere, so perhaps I'll do another such post in the future. 

Most of these photos date from the early & mid-1990's....



That's a motley crew. Amos is Batman and Becca is a mini-clown. We still have those big plastic pumpkins.




Amos and Becca on another Halloween




Back in the day Dianne and Becca did some pumpkin carving; here are a few from one year. 



Always good to have some creeping cats around at Halloween. 




Aren't cats endlessly entertaining?





Now for some of Dianne's Halloween creations: a hanging decorative ball, an "All Hallow's Eve" tree of life necklace, a spooky gingerbread house and a scarecrow. She's done a lot of such craft and jewelry work; you can see some on ArtFire and Etsy.








For several years Dianne and the kids would make and decorate a spooky gingerbread house. 



One year there was a scarecrow.












Wednesday, June 9, 2021

Drinking Beer in Elementary School

How's that for a clickbait title?

I've written a couple of blog posts in the past about Valley Elementary School in Pelham, which both our kids Amos and Becca attended back in the 1990's. The first one posted in 2015 looked at a postcard and some other memorabilia related to Valley. The second posting in February 2020 included many photos and a bit of history. The school opened in 1964 and closed as a main school when the new Pelham Oaks Elementary opened in 2015. Long a part of Shelby County Schools, the facility was used in its final years by Pelham City Schools. 

The school system sold the campus to a developer planning to duplicate the sort of retail and entertainment complex already completed in an elementary school in Huntsville. That second post includes photos taken in August and December 2019 showing before and after views as the facility transitioned from one use to another. 

Below are some photos taken in early May when Dianne, Becca and I visited the daughter's alma mater one beautiful Saturday afternoon. Not much is open yet except the Beer Hog, which was very busy. A hair salon, The Guy's Place, is also operating; you can guess which one we gravitated toward. This Campus 124 development is expected to include other retail, office and residential spaces. 

Some further comments about the visit are below. Most of the photos were taken by daughter Becca Leon. Our son Amos is anxiously awaiting his opportunity to visit. 





The facade of the building has changed, but is still recognizable to those of us who knew it as a school for so many years. Yes, that's Dianne and I making our way inside. 











A chili cookoff was in progress, but we had to resist checking it out. We were saving our appetite for a visit to one of our favorite local eating places, 





















The place was hopping that Saturday afternoon. The Beer Hog is located in what used to be the school library. As a retired librarian and craft beer lover, I can appreciate the transition. 








That corner door past the drinking fountain is for the women's restroom. Becca said she and several friends would gather there, turn off the lights and call for Bloody Mary in the mirrors. Good thing they didn't try to summon Candyman







We ended up trying three flights with 12 different Alabama craft beers. Dianne seems happy with the selections.