A Montgomery Post Office ledger from 1909 to 1917 was donated to the Montgomery Historical Society from the collection of Lonnie and Sonya Clover who both died in 2021.
Photo by Sondra Hernandez
Post office ledger gives glimpse into early Montgomery
Sondra Hernandez, Staff writer
April 5, 2022Updated: April 5, 2022 12:30 p.m.
Historian and retired professor Ann Meador believes history is a perishable commodity and when it’s gone it’s gone forever. As the coordinator for the History Task Force of the Montgomery County Historical Commission, it pleased her greatly when an early registry of money orders from the Montgomery Post Office was donated to the Montgomery Historical Society in order to preserve the record for future generations.
The ledger came from the collection of Lonnie and Sonya Clover, passionate Montgomery historians who both died in 2021. Their daughters donated the ledger to the Montgomery Historical Society.
The historical record begins in August 1909 and continues through March 31, 1917 and paints a very interesting picture of what life was like in early Montgomery. “If you think about how people spent their money as a group, you can tell a whole lot about a place by how the people spent their money,” Meador said.
She explained that lots of people back then didn’t have checking accounts and of course there weren’t any credit cards so using a money order at the post office was the way to pay for things that were coming from far-away locations. The ledger doesn’t reveal what the person purchased, but does show the person’s name, who they were buying from or who they were sending money to and the location the item was coming from.
“I was under the impression that in 1909 Montgomery was a small rural place, but when I look at this book, the residents were doing business all over the country,” she said. “By this account it appears that the people of Montgomery were quite well dressed, very literate and supportive of ministry organizations.”
The Sears and Roebuck Company and Singer Sewing Machine Company were popular entries. She said men seemed to prefer tailors out of Chicago where the ladies purchased their clothing from retailers in New York.
Those listed in the ledger also paid for magazine subscriptions from across the country and subscriptions to the Houston Post and Houston Chronicle with entries of $4 and $6 respectively. One exotic entry was money paid to the Egyptian Drug Company in New York City.
Residents were also sending money to relatives across the country and purchasing equipment and seed for their farms.
Meador said you could tell when it was cotton picking time and when it was planting time by what the people were ordering and from where.
One repeating entry though has her stumped.
There are multiple entries of $100.10 to the Mistrot Brothers store, a retailer located in Galveston. “It’s interesting because that was a lot of money back then and people would buy it more than one time and it was often purchased in the late fall” she said.
She muses if the purchase was for some sort of equipment used in farming.
For genealogists, the donation is significant because it presents a narrative behind a name on a page. “Just knowing a name from 100 years ago doesn’t tell you much, but stuff like this shows you where they were making purchases from and how much they spent,” she said. The records help paint a picture that she hopes will draw in the younger generation to family history.
What marvels Bea Rouse, board member on the Montgomery Historical Society, is the names in the ledger. “It’s so interesting to see the names of the founding families of Montgomery,” she said. “What is so wonderful also is the descendants are still here in Montgomery. It really shows what roots these people have.”
The Montgomery Historical Society hopes to put the record on display at the Nat H. Davis Museum Complex in Montgomery. The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints volunteers have digitized the record to make it available for online browsing at familysearch.org.
Rouse said the Montgomery Historical Society can help families digitize their records if they have something that might be pertinent to Montgomery history or Montgomery County history.
Visit mhs-tx.org or https://www.facebook.com/MontgomeryTexasHistoricalSociety for more information about the Montgomery Historical Society.
[email protected]
Sondra Hernandez, Staff writer
April 5, 2022Updated: April 5, 2022 12:30 p.m.
Historian and retired professor Ann Meador believes history is a perishable commodity and when it’s gone it’s gone forever. As the coordinator for the History Task Force of the Montgomery County Historical Commission, it pleased her greatly when an early registry of money orders from the Montgomery Post Office was donated to the Montgomery Historical Society in order to preserve the record for future generations.
The ledger came from the collection of Lonnie and Sonya Clover, passionate Montgomery historians who both died in 2021. Their daughters donated the ledger to the Montgomery Historical Society.
The historical record begins in August 1909 and continues through March 31, 1917 and paints a very interesting picture of what life was like in early Montgomery. “If you think about how people spent their money as a group, you can tell a whole lot about a place by how the people spent their money,” Meador said.
She explained that lots of people back then didn’t have checking accounts and of course there weren’t any credit cards so using a money order at the post office was the way to pay for things that were coming from far-away locations. The ledger doesn’t reveal what the person purchased, but does show the person’s name, who they were buying from or who they were sending money to and the location the item was coming from.
“I was under the impression that in 1909 Montgomery was a small rural place, but when I look at this book, the residents were doing business all over the country,” she said. “By this account it appears that the people of Montgomery were quite well dressed, very literate and supportive of ministry organizations.”
The Sears and Roebuck Company and Singer Sewing Machine Company were popular entries. She said men seemed to prefer tailors out of Chicago where the ladies purchased their clothing from retailers in New York.
Those listed in the ledger also paid for magazine subscriptions from across the country and subscriptions to the Houston Post and Houston Chronicle with entries of $4 and $6 respectively. One exotic entry was money paid to the Egyptian Drug Company in New York City.
Residents were also sending money to relatives across the country and purchasing equipment and seed for their farms.
Meador said you could tell when it was cotton picking time and when it was planting time by what the people were ordering and from where.
One repeating entry though has her stumped.
There are multiple entries of $100.10 to the Mistrot Brothers store, a retailer located in Galveston. “It’s interesting because that was a lot of money back then and people would buy it more than one time and it was often purchased in the late fall” she said.
She muses if the purchase was for some sort of equipment used in farming.
For genealogists, the donation is significant because it presents a narrative behind a name on a page. “Just knowing a name from 100 years ago doesn’t tell you much, but stuff like this shows you where they were making purchases from and how much they spent,” she said. The records help paint a picture that she hopes will draw in the younger generation to family history.
What marvels Bea Rouse, board member on the Montgomery Historical Society, is the names in the ledger. “It’s so interesting to see the names of the founding families of Montgomery,” she said. “What is so wonderful also is the descendants are still here in Montgomery. It really shows what roots these people have.”
The Montgomery Historical Society hopes to put the record on display at the Nat H. Davis Museum Complex in Montgomery. The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints volunteers have digitized the record to make it available for online browsing at familysearch.org.
Rouse said the Montgomery Historical Society can help families digitize their records if they have something that might be pertinent to Montgomery history or Montgomery County history.
Visit mhs-tx.org or https://www.facebook.com/MontgomeryTexasHistoricalSociety for more information about the Montgomery Historical Society.
[email protected]
