It's interesting what books you can find on the shelves of your grandparents, or if you are lucky to know them your great grandparents. A very long time ago my great grandmother lived with us for the last seven years of her life. She had a lot of very old books and as a youngster I enjoyed reading through her collection.

After She Died I Inherited Many of These Books Including An Old Spelling Book From 1908

The Elementary Spelling book is one of my great grandmother's old books. She was born in 1909. This book was published in 1908. I don't know if it was her school book or if it belonged to a relative or someone who lived in her town. I know sometimes mothers passed on their school books to their children so some books were used by families for many years. She grew up in Butler, TN which was a very small and isolated town back in the early 1900s. In the 1948 the population was around 600 people so I image earlier in time the population was smaller.

The Front Cover Has Seen Better Days

Old Writing In The Book (Maybe A Child Died?)

J.P. Vanderventer Aug 24th 1930
JP Vanderventer Dide May The 201 27 1933

This one page is very curious. Back in my great grandmother's day it was common to write down birth and death dates in Bibles. My family even has an old Bible from the early 1900s with birth, death, and marriage dates in the cover. I wonder who J.P. Vanderventer was and if he died very young? I wonder if it was a child who wrote this in their school book and they did it because they were sad and were copying the tradition of writing birth/death dates in an important book? My dad knows the history of the town very well so next time I see him I'll have to ask if he recognizes the name.

One Of The Few Illustrations

Spelling and Definitions

The Back Cover Is Pretty Discolored

It's interesting to be able to look at book that is around 109 years old to see how school children were taught spelling. From a little research this particular book was written by Noah Webster who authored Webster's Dictionary.

An Important Book In Educating Children In The Late 1800s and Early 1900s

This one book had over 385 editions in Webster's life and changed names a few times until it became The Elementary Spelling Book. This book was one of the most popular spelling books used for over 100 years. This book was responsible for teaching children spelling in the United States for the nations first century. The money Webster made from this one book helped support him in writing many other books and helped in the creation of contests like Spelling Bees.

So Much History In One Little Spelling Book!

Do you own any old books?

---

***