Serving Clovis, Portales and the Surrounding Communities

Hoping someone can shed light on a mystery

I have a mystery on my hands, and one that I hope a reader might help solve.

A year or so ago, my friend Patricia Rogers mailed me a photo album that she had bought at an estate sale sometime in the last few years in Albuquerque.

"I love old photos and always look for albums and stacks of photos at sales," she told me. "The minute I opened this album and saw 'Clovis 1929,' I knew it had to be yours."

She had planned to hand-deliver the album, but COVID got in the way, so she eventually mailed it.

Rogers is an estate sale regular in the Rio Grande valley. She doesn't remember the name of the estate from which this was purchased, except she did ask (as she always does) and learned that the folks doing the sale "knew nothing about the family."

"I try to get what info I can," Rogers said, "but often things have to speak for themselves. There are stories to be found in these pages."

Indeed, there are, and I'm counting on finding someone who may know some of those stories.

It's a standard old photo album almost a century old. Most of the black and white photos are attached to the crumbling black construction paper pages with corner paper triangles. A few are glued in place.

As is often the case with old albums, identification is minimal, but this one has a few clues that I hope will help someone else crack this case. (My own searches through online resources and old obituaries have yet to prove fruitful.)

The opening page of the album says, in faded white pencil, "Clovis, New Mexico 1929." Another small section is identified as "Rumble Seat Picnic 1929 - Scenes from Santa Rosa." Inscriptions under the Santa Rosa pictures include the names Shorty, Carl, Doris, Jay, and - always - "Mother."

There are several aviation-related photos, including one of a hangar with "TAT," from Clovis' early and well-documented affiliation with Transcontinental Air Transport, a network founded in 1928 to help span the United States with a combination of plane and train travel.

Other photos show TWA (Trans-World Airlines) planes and hangars. One model is the TWA NC233Y, a plane that Douglas Aircraft introduced in 1933. Two photos showed a wrecked plane, the cockpit crushed and one of the twin engines resting on the ground.

One portrait of a dapper gentleman in a pinstripe suit posed on the edge of what could be the Grand Canyon is intriguingly labeled "The 'Big Bug' in the business world ... Carlie Willie Smithie."

There are multiple angles of a classic car completely covered with flowers, probably for a parade, with different individuals posing with a sign that says, "N. Mex."

The only image of Main Street Clovis was taken around Fifth Street looking south, the sign for the Lyceum Theater easily visible on the left side of the wide and largely deserted street.

The best clues (although they continue to stump me) may be on the two pages near the back of the album with a still-in-its-double-envelope invitation to commencement exercises for the Clovis High School class of 1930.

The 10 senior class member name cards pasted on these pages include Grace Oleta Davis, Auburn H. Fisher, Joyce Henderson, Harold Holland, Doris Durham Hughes, Velma Lane, Althea Lowe, Lou Jane Parmain, Alice Ponder, and Aleatha Smith.

One final clue - and one of my favorite photos - is a lineup of three women with vintage cars. In faded writing on the border of the photo, it says, "Blanche & Chevy, Mother & Plymouth, Doris Stude (Studebaker)."

If any of these names is ringing a far-off bell in your memory, or perched on a distant branch of your family tree, I would love to hear from you.

This treasure needs to find its home. Until it does, I'll keep it safe.

Betty Williamson is eager to hear your stories. Reach her at:

[email protected]