IOWA TEENAGE GIRL LOVE SPORTS & WRITING OBITUARIES SCRAPBOOK PHOTO ALBUM 1938-1944 ish

Item #895

This 12 1/4” x 8 15/16” x 2 1/4” keepsake album, jammed pack with about 45 photos, clippings and memorabilia, was compiled by Ms. Lois Ann Conover, b. Iowa 1925- d. Colorado 2001

Athletics seemed to be her main interest - Yachting, baseball, football, basketball, sailing, golf, tennis, swimming - all are featured in the large quantity of clippings and photos, both loose and pasted-in.

Ms. Conover was herself an avid sailor and an able skipper, on her boat ‘Peck-Away’; she belonged to the Clear Lake Yacht Club and many of the brief clippings document races she sailed in. She placed respectably and clearly relished single-handed sailing.

From 1943, we find graduation invitations, enlistment notices, engagement notices, wedding invitations, dance invitations, and a high-school basketball tournament official program. Conover’s report cards abound. In 1942, at seventeen, she began to write obituaries of deceased famous people for the local papers - Alice Hegan Rice, Albert Payson Terhune - these are included in this volume. She was also involved in local theater productions - her name appears in one of the programs within.

Stuffed inside the front of the album are additional clippings and numerous photographs - likely enough to fill another, if smaller, volume - some of these date from the 1960s, and some of the photos tucked into the rear of the album also date from 1970.

The album itself runs from March 1940 through mid-1942 - the last pages are undated, but the penultimate page contains an obituary for a young Iowan killed at the battle of Midway (June 1942). The last page is blank.

It remains in very good condition, though a couple of items are missing from the page - the wooden cover was built to last, and the pages themselves are bolstered by copper girding. All is held together by suede lacing. Some scratching and general wear on rear cover, much less on the front, which has a nice carved-in profile of a long-haired pointer standing in high grass.

Locations mentioned include Des Moines, Clear Lake, Mason City.

Price: $200.00