A little over a year ago I made a visit to the archives belonging to the Missouri History Museum in Forest Park. There I met the archivist Lauren Sallwasser who it turned out is a fellow Maplewoodian.
She showed me their collection of documents and photographs that had been donated by Margaret Sappington Townsend. She was kind enough to provide me with digital copies of two of the photo albums from that collection. It was a mind-blowing experience. I’ve been trying to get back ever since.
Although, I have posted many of the images from those two albums that I consider solid gold nuggets from the rich vein of Maplewood history. There are many more that are worth a look.
I have been displaying the pages from the album ten pages at a time. At first I wondered if I would be exceeding the digital capacity of our interface. But so far, so good.
If you would like to see Part Two, click on this one.
Here are ten more pages from Margaret’s album beginning with page twenty-one.
Page twenty-one. There are no dates or notes with most of these images. They all benefit from enlargement.
Their lives sure were different from ours.
It would be awfully cool to know what train depot they were at.
Page twenty-two. Seems kind of funny that they decided to pose in the corn in that bottom image.
Dressed to the nines.
Those posed in the high corn don’t look very happy about it.
Page twenty-three. They are a fun loving bunch!
How about a cabinet of clowns?
Page twenty four. A hayride. They just need a horse.
Page twenty-five. Something unusual has happened in that middle image. Let’s take a closer look.
Weird. This is the original photo, no AI involved. It is a double exposure which was most likely caused by forgetting to wind the film. There was a dog is what was probably the first image. Wild.
Page twenty-six. The bottom image is pretty blurry. Let’s take a closer look at the half-a-car.
I’m not sure whose car this is. It looks more expensive than a “tin lizzy”” as the Model T Fords were called. I wonder if the home may be Sarah Harrison’s which has been seen many times in my past blogs. I’ll have to hunt up those pictures and compare.
Page twenty-seven.
This is an enlargement of the top image. I don’t know what to make of it.
Page twenty-eight. Finally…some horses.
I don’t know anything about them but they are great images.
Page twenty-nine. Just having fun.
Just having fun in the middle of the road.
Page thirty.
Girls, girls, girls and one towheaded boy.
At this point, regular followers of this space have seen every one of the images on the first thirty pages of Album One which once belonged to Margaret Sappington Townsend. There are fifty pages. I intend to post them all.
My whole purpose in doing so is that I felt like I had gained a bit of knowledge of what life was like for this early resident of Maplewood that my readers were lacking. So if you have any particular insights after viewing all of these images in the order they were pasted in the book, let me know.
This is one of my favorite times of the year. I’m trying to spend as much time outside as I possibly can. I know many of you are doing the same. Spring has been sliding into summer which is fine by me.
Doug Houser April 25, 2026
For some unknown reason I am not able to post a comment at this moment. So I’ll try it this way.
This from family descendant Will Holmes by email: Thanks again for a remarkable collection of images from Ms. Sappington Townsend. You commented that the S-T’s were a fun-loving bunch and indeed that seems to be the case. I am also impressed with how many pictures of this family and in what look like, if not frivolous, are certainly carefree moments.
To me, this implies a few things, primary among them is that they were well-funded, had a lot of time on their hands, were particularly fond of being photographed-which also means they had a camera(s) and all the necessary gear to use them. It would seem that life for them was indeed not like it was for most of the rest of Maplewood at the time. … I’ve thought the same of my relatives in that they were, for a time, well-heeled folks who could loll about with a camera at hand.