[Photo Album]: My Memory Book

Ohio and Michigan: 1913-1936.

Price: $1,500.00

Hardcover. Oblong quarto. Measuring 13" x 10". String-tied black cloth photo album with "My Memory Book" stamped in gilt on the front board. A collection of 382 black and white or sepia toned photographs measuring between 2.5" x 3.5" and 9" x 12" affixed to stiff black paper, along with related ephemera. A very good or better photo album with some chips and tears and with near fine photographs.

The photo album and scrapbook belonging to Ohio native, Miriam Custis chronicling her life from her adolescence to life shortly after her college graduation. The album begins with childhood snapshots of Miriam, born September 5, 1913, in Finley, Ohio to the Reverend Dwight Lyman and Nettie Belle Hughes Custis. Sixteen photos show Miriam with a group of girls at what appears to be a summer camp for girls, swimming, playing the ukulele, and posing for silly photos. Custis attended Toronto High School (in Toronto, Ohio in Jefferson County, on the eastern edge of the state) and was accepted to Muskingum College in New Concord, Ohio in 1930 where she obtained a teaching certificate after two years, and then transferred to Adrian College in Michigan. She kept a detailed account of her college life with programs from events and photographs with her college girlfriends. While she was at Adrian she was the president of the college's chapter of Delta Delta Delta with invitations, telegrams, photos of the Tri-Delta's car in the homecoming parade, and other sorority related ephemera. Custis documented Adrian's "Rejuvenation Party" which was a student celebration the week of homecoming which involved the men of her class drinking from bottles in what appear to be giant diapers. While at Adrian, Miriam met her future husband, Reverend Dr. Robert Harlan Cairns, who can be seen as her date throughout the album as well a photo of him preaching at the campus chapel. Custis graduated in 1934 with a degree in English and Latin and went on to teach in Ohio. There are photos of her graduation along with an alumni trip in 1936. According to her obituary, after college she "was involved in Christian education programs for children, mission work, and summer camps for troubled youth."

A comprehensive look at a young woman's life, with an emphasis on her education, dating between 1913 until 1936.


Item #396898

item image

Item #396898 [Photo Album]: My Memory Book. Miriam CUSTIS.
[Photo Album]: My Memory Book
[Photo Album]: My Memory Book
[Photo Album]: My Memory Book
[Photo Album]: My Memory Book
[Photo Album]: My Memory Book
[Photo Album]: My Memory Book
[Photo Album]: My Memory Book
[Photo Album]: My Memory Book
[Photo Album]: My Memory Book
[Photo Album]: My Memory Book
[Photo Album]: My Memory Book
[Photo Album]: My Memory Book
[Photo Album]: My Memory Book
[Photo Album]: My Memory Book
[Photo Album]: My Memory Book
[Photo Album]: My Memory Book
[Photo Album]: My Memory Book
[Photo Album]: My Memory Book
[Photo Album]: My Memory Book
[Photo Album]: My Memory Book
[Photo Album]: My Memory Book
[Photo Album]: My Memory Book
[Photo Album]: My Memory Book
[Photo Album]: My Memory Book
[Photo Album]: My Memory Book