The Scrapbooks
Our grandfather Leon Harman Grayson (1906-1993), a native of Savannah and a 1929 graduate of the upstate University of Georgia (UGA), kept two scrapbooks from about 1922-1932. They are populated mostly by newspaper clippings, supplemented by social invitations, ticket stubs, pamphlets, military mementos, graduation and dinner programs, a few colorful cartoons, and a handful of photographs, one of actress Gloria Swanson, another of a short-haired “flapper girl” of Leon’s acquaintance wearing pants. Shocking!
Football is the central theme of the scrapbooks, followed by Leon’s connections to the Georgia National Guard, the Recruit Officers’ Training Corps at UGA, the Kappa Alpha fraternity, and a literary society.
High School Football
Included are two photos of the 1923 Savannah High School football team and numerous clippings related to it. For many years Savannah High and Benedictine, the local Catholic boys school, played a de facto City Championship on Thanksgiving Day. A clipping from the 1923 contest listed Leon as a 17 year-old, 150 lb. End.
College Football
I recently learned that Leon’s older brother Spence played college football for the legendary Johnny Heisman at Georgia Tech in the early 1920s. Leon strove to make his own university team, and one photo suggests that he was a member of the 1926 “Bullpups,” the freshman squad at UGA. A clipping shows the lineup for the traditional varsity “Red and Black” spring practice game in 1927, in which Leon is listed as right tackle on the Red team. His connection to the National Championship team the following autumn has been detailed elsewhere.
The Page
On the same scrapbook page as the Red and Black game lineup are two photos from his National Guard summer encampment at Camp McLellan, Alabama, and one curious photo of eleven men in dress shirts posed as if to run a football play.
The Photograph
The caption beneath the photo reads “KA Football team – 1926,” referencing the Kappa Alpha fraternity. An arrow points to Leon at the far right. He wrote the names of his KA teammates in blue ink, now somewhat faded. Was there a KA football team? Perhaps. Maybe the fraternities each fielded a team, and they competed in the Pan-Hellenic Games referenced elsewhere in the scrapbook. Or perhaps the photo was taken tongue-in-cheek. I missed it at first, but in addition to the fact that each young man is wearing a necktie and dress shoes each also has a cigarette in his mouth or hand. Was this their idea of a gag?
The 1926 Athens City Directory lists Leon’s address as 130 W. Hancock. A clipping in the scrapbook identifies this as the Kappa Alpha residence, which lay just north of the campus. In the same city directory the Clarke Storage Battery Co., seen in the billboard behind the men, is located “cor Hancock and Lumpkin.” Thus we’re looking west down Hancock Ave. The house itself, and the sidewalk on which they are posed, is depicted in the 1928 UGA yearbook, men seated on the steps and porch. Maybe Leon is one of these young men as well. In the football photo you can make out the pedestal framing the stairs on which their suitcoats have been laid, and the steps to street level near Leon’s left foot. The house has since been torn down, and is now a bank parking lot. The structure behind the men still stands, as does the pillared building catty-corner on the right.
The scrapbook picture is a lighthearted photo of our carefree then-19 year-old grandfather in his college days. We are so glad it has survived.
No Comments