Early Yalecrest Preservationists

You can call this group "early Yalecrest preservationists" because historic preservation is really about people and building community.  It’s people coming together to learn, honor and celebrate our past and present... and working together on our shared future.  That’s what I see in this picture of the Yale Camp Daughters of Utah Pioneers.

This May 1933 Yalecrest photo, taken in front of Blanche Bower’s home at 1097 S. 15th East, shows the gals participating in a “Silver Tea” (an older fancy term for fundraiser).

Over the years, lots of Yalecrest women were active participants in Daughters of Utah Pioneers.  Meetings were held in various homes in our neighborhood.  Yale Camp's first official meeting was held at “Daughter” Cecil Besley’s house, 955 S. 1300 East, in 1924.  At that meeting “Captain” Elizabeth Liddle made a plea for the preservation of historical material and relics… kind of like K.E.E.P. today.

This is by no means an exhaustive list, but here are some of the neighborhood women that hosted meetings in the 1920’s:

Mary Ellen Rockwood @ 1317 Gilmer Ethel Scalley @ 1327 Yale Amy Pratt Romney @ 1337 Gilmer Ida Kirkham @ 1345 Normandie Circle Rose Hall @ 1432 Gilmer Bernice Rogers @1452 Gilmer Odelia Tebbs @ 1515 Laird Flora Collett @ 1515 Princeton Margaret Eccles @ 1521 Harvard Ida Miller @ 1527 Michigan Laura Silver @ 1539 Harvard Zelpha Yates @ 948 Greenwood Terrace Mildred Jenkins @ 1646 Yale

Sources: “Yale Camp” by Daughters of Utah Pioneers, 1933. Salt Lake Telegram

--Kelly Marinan