| How can she, Susan Goodman Sides, be listed
in Arcadia Publishing’s 1999 fall catalog of more than 900 titles as an
“author”? No,
she’d argue, never, no matter what it says.
A historian?
Not that either.
She’s a busy mother, a
grandmother, an office manager and optical specialist for local ophthalmologist Dr. John
Robert Crawford.
And this book, well, all she
really did was get fascinated by old postcards, especially those printed from pictures
taken by a Prussian immigrant named Theo Buerbaum, who owned a book store in Salisbury
around the turn of the 20th century, which is about to breathe its last.
She got fascinated and started to
collect his and added others and now her collection is voluminous, including more than 500
Buerbaum cards, and hundreds of other Rowan cards.
And on March 10, 1999 — her
50th birthday — she signed a contract with Arcadia Publishing to do its first
postcard book on Salisbury and Rowan and discovered that having a book is a lot like
having a baby. It takes a long time. It’s hard work.
“And,” she says,
“it’s exciting!”
All of it — holding it in her
hands, looking at its blue and white cover that pictures the Haden Holmes’ Meat
Market card, looking again at all 229 picture postcards inside the book as though
she’s never seen them before, reading what she wrote about them, remembering all the
stories, and the stories behind the stories.
Like that picture of
Salisbury’s original railroad station and the little shanty facing it. Charlie
Peacock told her a watchman stayed in there all day, and every time a train came he went
out and held up a sign to stop the traffic on Council Street.
And about trading a
“spectacular” card from the Norwood area with fellow collector Wayne Chapman for
the Holmes Meat Market card.
And about Theo Buerbaum himself,
who led a double life. Not a hidden double life. A very public double life.
In the first, he was that Prussian
immigrant, highly respected businessman with a fine bookstore on South Main. But when
business was bad and the light was good — and on Sunday afternoons — he took
pictures of the way things were in Salisbury and Rowan County and had them put on
postcards, which he sold in his store.
And so his second life is here and
now when the pictures he took then show us what we looked like and how we lived and who we
were a century ago and find their way into a book.
Susan got together with the
publisher at a paper collectible show in Florida last January.
Arcadia is the American branch of
Tempus Publishing, started by Alan Sutton after the phenomenal success of a similar
company that put out photographic histories in the United Kingdom. Based in Charleston,
S.C., it started publishing small soft cover photographic histories of towns and counties
and particular interests in some towns, like Beaufort’s Old Burying Ground and Civil
War Soldiers and Families in North Carolina’s Piedmont, bringing to life the people,
places and events that defined those communities through pictures and captions.
Since then, the company has become
the country’s largest traditional publisher of local and regional history. It added
postcard collections in 1997 as well as specialized collections on railroads, the Civil
War, aviation and sports.
The late 1800s through the early
1900s, the period during which Buerbaum was having his cards printed, is considered the
golden age of postcards and has historic significance, says Stephen Lynn, a representative
of Arcadia who brought books to Salisbury this week.
“People like to see things
that aren’t around now,” he says, and the postcard collection is popular.
The first postcard collection was
published in South Carolina, and the company has now published them from Maine to
California.
Susan got interested in publishing
the book when she got a collection of Buerbaum cards he’d mailed to a nephew, Carl
Buerbaum, in Dallas, Texas. Many had messages. Like the very first card in the book.
It’s a picture of P.W. Brown’s home at 201 S. Church. He owned the White
Elephant Saloon at 120 E. Inniss (now spelled Innes) St., and at one time, Susan writes,
his ad said, “All Nations Welcome, except Carrie.”
On the card Buerbaum wrote,
“Just a nice Salisbury home if the owner is a ... ” The rest of it,
unfortunately, is in German and illegible.
Some cards other than
Buerbaum’s are included, and all of them opened a new window on Susan Sides’
world.
She made new friends, especially
Buerbaum’s granddaughter, Frances Winch of Bedford, N.H.
And she had a wonderful time
selecting the cards to be used, researching the captions and putting it all together.
And at times, she admits, “I
just felt overwhelmed.”
But she had a lot of help. Local
artist Clyde Overcash, who has put out three postcard books himself, encouraged her to do
it.
Routinely, she took cards to work
with her and then slipped out the back door to find preservationist-historian Ed Clement
eating breakfast at Marie’s Country Kitchen and stuck a card under his nose, begging,
“Now tell me about this.” He always did.
She went to Paul Bernhardt when
she wanted to know about the circus coming to town and to Charlie Peacock and Don Wooten
and Phyllis Galloway and Mike Baranski and so many others. Her daughter, Lori, worked the
computer daily, and Kevin Cherry, head of the Rowan Public Library’s history room,
was always there to help with everything.
But with all the help, she often
wondered just what she’d gotten herself into.
“Truly, I worked just about
every night and every weekend,” she says, admitting she baby sat with her
grandchildren much less than she wanted to.
“And my children thought I
had lost it.”
But she’s so satisfied.
And Stephen Lynn says people were
“excited with it and exciting to talk to.”
The company printed 2,000 copies.
“And I bet they’ll move
fast,” he added. “We’re hoping the book will carry through Christmas. Then
we’re probably looking at a reprint.”
n
Books have a list price of $18.99
and are available from the Historic Salisbury Foundation, Queens Gift Shop, Rowan Museum,
the N.C. Transportation Museum in Spencer, Clyde Overcash at The Salisbury Emporium, The
Stitchin’ Post, Bookland, Bookmasters, where Susan Sides will do a signing on Nov.
13, Salisbury Square Antiques and Collectibles, and Marie’s Friendly Kitchen. |
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