Beatrice’s Life, $10

I’m still in Vermont, and while we’ve been here, no matter where we go, my sister seems to want to stop at every antique shop, barn and garage sale along the way. I must confess there’s usually nothing of interest for me, but much that would suit her Victorian-era house. In particular she’s been looking for some extra chairs for her dining room as well as frames for some old maps she’s acquired. Yesterday we went to a large estate sale and had an unexpected find, something even I was enamored with! It was a small pile labeled “Beatrice’s Life, $10” and included 3 large, framed diplomas, several photographs of Beatrice, and what looked like a school workbook. While my sister examined the frames, I idly picked up the book — and out fell a folded piece of paper and a small leather pouch. The workbook, with the title page “History of Vermont, ’26,” was full of beautiful handwriting and hand-drawn maps of Vermont. The folded piece of paper turned out to be a series of maps of Vermont.

As my sister pulled out the tape measure to check the frame sizes, I opened the little pouch. It measures 2×1-1/2″ and contains tiny calling cards (1-5/8×7/8″) with just a name on them.

The frames were just what my sister was looking for, so off we went with the whole package. Once we got back home, I examined the workbook in detail. At the bottom of the large map, it says “The Sheet and County of State Maps for blackboard exercises, taken from the NEW VERMONT HISTORICAL READER furnished free with every copy of the book… Every pupil should have one. The sheets can be mounted on cardboard or enlarged by the scholar. The teacher can require villages, mountains, roads, etc., to be marked in each town, so as to get the pupil familiar with his own locality county and state.” The workbook, dated 1926, was the result of these blackboard exercises. The New York Public Library has digitized the 1903 version of The Vermont Historical Reader And Lessons on the Geography of Vermont, with Notes on Civil Government.
Of the diplomas in the frames — one was for finishing an advanced course of the Palmer Method of Business Writing, where she was awarded a “Certificate for Superior Ability in Rapid Muscular Movement Commercial Penmanship.”