Wednesday, September 10, 2008

Singing School At or Near Tremont ca. 1902

Mona Robinson Mills of Oxford has shared with the society a collection of wonderful photographs from the Tremont area. Most of the photographs were found in her great-grandmother’s trunk. Her great-grandmother was Arthusa “Thusie” Parneshia Evans who married Gideon Casibay Robinson. Most of the photographs in the collection are of various Robinson families and photographs of Thusie Evans Robinson’s siblings’ families. Thusie was the daughter of John Thomas Evans of Tremont and granddaughter of William M. Evans.

The above photograph had the following written on the back “Lily Evans” and “singing school” in addition to “July 2” which may “be July 02.”

The society would like to thank Mona Robinson Mills for sharing these photographs with the society. A special 4-page feature article about the Robinson family of eastern Itawamba County along with several of the photographs she shared will be published in the Fall 2008 issue of Itawamba Settlers magazine, scheduled to be mailed later this month.
 

4 comments:

Miriam Robbins said...

Laura Ingalls and her fiance' Almanzo Wilder attended a singing school while they were courting in DeSmet, South Dakota. She wrote about this in the eighth of her "Little House" books, These Happy Golden Years. You may be able to find the text (Chapter 22: Singing School) on Google Books.

Bob Franks said...

Thanks for commenting Miriam. I've been abstracting local newspapers from the 1900 to 1912 era and it seems such schools were really popular here during those times. The schools would be held at rural churches and would continue for one to two weeks. Young folks from all over the area would attend and would seek lodging in farm homes of the surrounding countryside.

Anonymous said...

Well, haven't I learned something new! Thanks for posting the picture and especially the information about singing schools. I've learned so much about my heritage from this site.

Anonymous said...

I don't know where that photo was taken, but when I first looked at it I thought of the old Oakland school. It really looks like the old school building before it was worked on. Jan Holley