LEAGUE CITY, Texas — Workers ripping up the floorboards of an old school building in a Houston suburb found a slice of history from more than six decades ago.
A missing purse, found under the stage of the League City School in Galveston County, dates to 1959, the Houston Chronicle reported. Now, officials with the Clear Creek Independent School District are hoping to find the owner of the purse -- or her family.
“There was a mini calendar and the dates and entries stopped in April 1959 so we assume it was lost in April 1959,” Erika Fernandez, the school district’s communications specialist, told the newspaper.
The old building, which was last used by students in 2018 when it was known as League City Elementary, was being razed during the summer of 2021 to create a new community center, KHOU-TV reported.
The purse contained childhood photos, notes and memories.
“The purse was full of what looked like a wallet and it turned out to be a diary,” Richard Lewis, vice president of the League City Historical Society, said in a statement. “Picture it as today’s Facebook: you’re putting everything down. She wrote about her love life, who she broke up with.”
So, who was this mystery girl?
After viewing the wallet’s contents, Clear Creek officials believe they know who owned it.
“We presume from some of the photos that the owner of the wallet is Beverly Williams and she was born in 1946,” Fernandez told the Chronicle. “So that would put her at 76 years old.”
“I started looking through it myself, being careful, and I found a lot of old pictures in it,” Sarah Osborne, director of communications and community engagement for League City, told the newspaper. “I also found a calendar, pencils, a handkerchief, a nail file set and a note that said ‘Please let my daughter Beverly Williams ride the bus home,’ signed Mrs. Frank Williams.”
THREAD: While ripping up the floorboards of an old Texas school building to create a new community center, contractors uncovered a purse filled with memories and mementos dating back to 1959. 👜https://t.co/eHosFz2Vzq
— Houston Chronicle (@HoustonChron) October 8, 2022
A photograph from Clear Creek High School in 1963 shows a Beverly Williams as a member of the school’s debating team, according to Ancestry.com. Texas online birth records show an Andrea Beverly Williams, who was born Oct. 5, 1945, in neighboring Harris County, according to Ancestry.com. Her parents are listed as Frank Rogers Williams and Lala Elaine Rawley.
The League City School is the oldest building in the Clear Creek district, the Chronicle reported. It opened in 1938 and has housed students since before the district was consolidated in 1948.
So far, district and city officials have been unable to find any record of Beverly Williams or her family, KPRC-TV reported.
“Do you know Beverly?” the school district wrote in a Facebook post. “Dating back to 1959, the name ‘Beverly Williams’ is listed on many of the items inside the wallet.”
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