Recently SCHS employee Candis Lively was entering information in our museum software from a donation I made to the Archives of a 1915 Alcalde yearbook of Tyler High School. I had bought it at the antique mall in the Fair Foundation Bldg also know as the old Sears store location. When I bought it I found four portraits and a full length head to toe picture that was photographed by Denison”s Studios, Tyler Texas. What I did not find was the following letter that Candis found when she inspected the yearbook. Surprise!
The first and third pages are 5-1/8th inches long by 7-3/8ths inches wide and the 2nd page is 10-1/4th inches by 7-3/8ths inches wide. The transcription and notes were done by me.
[1st page]Dear girl Last night it was my
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[start page 2]morally as to produce a well
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[Page 3]you and to add: “Be noble, and the nobleness
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The 1907 Sanborn Map showing the location of 210 South Vine St. were Alma Woldert Spence’s “little kindergarten.”
Alma Woldert Spence is well known to most of those who work in the Archives but none of us had heard of the “…little kindergarten school…” she mentioned. It is listed on page 258 of the Southern Directory Company’s Tyler, Texas, City Directory. Vol. 1. 1904. “Woldert Kindergarten Mrs Alma Woldert princ 216 S Vine”. Two lines above is “Woldert Alma M tchr private school res 520 W Fan”. Alma Mary Woldert is the daughter of William Albert Woldert and his wife, Loulie Ellen Pace Woldert.
Alma M. Woldert married Richard R. McLeroy on 1st June 1905 as shown on their marriage certificate which was recorded in Volume 16, Page 415 of the Marriage Records of Smith County, Texas. They had one child, Richard Ransom McLeroy, Jr. who was born 23 June 1909. Richard R. McLeroy (Sr.) died on 6 May 1910 at El Paso, Texas.
Alma Mary McLeoy married Robert Spence on the 4th June 1912 as shown on their marriage certificate which was recorded in Volume 19, Page 576 of the Marriage Records of Smith County, Texas. They had two children, Elizabeth Margaret Spence born 1913 and Robert William Spence born 1918. Alma died 21 March 1955 at Tyler Texas.
“22 Mar 1955
Tyler, Smith County, Texas
“Mrs. Spence Dies”
TYLER (AP)—Mrs. Alma Woldert Spence, 70, wife of City Commission Robert Spence, died Monday. Voted Tyler’s Woman of the Year in 1954. Mrs. Spence was widely known as a poet and an organizer of the East Texas Tuberculosis Assn.”
ALMA WOLDERT
McLEROY SPENCE
May 20, 1884 Mar. 21, 1955
