Pub. 1 Issue 3

VIRGINIA AUTO DEALER www.vada.com 18 I n June 2019, the Greenbrier Resort hosted an auto dealer convention that included a themed party on Sunday, June 23, 2019. Attendees were to dress in 1920s-style out ts. Betty Hughes was there with her husband at the convention. Betty had only a week or two to come up with something to wear. e dress was relatively easy. She found a slip with a mesh overdress, bought some lace, and altered the dress into a 1920s style. As an accessory, she also had the perfect choice: a purse that was le to her in 1996, when she was a teenager, by a woman she called “Grandma Scott.” Betty had never used the purse, but when she looked for vintage purses online, she saw a picture of a similar purse that had been made in the 1920s and realized that her purse was very similar. She thinks Grandma Scott probably bought and used the purse during the 1920s. Grandma Scott’s full name was Prudence Polk McGowan Scott, the great-grand- niece of President James K. Polk. She was a tiny woman who measured four feet 10 inches, but she was spunky. She worked as a librarian and wrote children’s books. James K. Polk was the 11th president of the U.S. and served from 1845 until 1849 during a di cult period in U.S. history. President Polk is considered to be the last strong president until President Lincoln’s election. His presidency was at a time when the U.S. was expanding rapidly. He had to deal with hostility within the country over the growing problem with the expansion of slavery, aggression from Mexico, and the risk of war against Great Britain, which wanted Oregon. He died in June 1849, and his biography on the White House website claims he essentially died from hard work. Grandma Scott, who was born in Ten- nessee in 1907, had a quieter life, but she also had two romances in her life. Her second husband, W. Bryson Scott, had dated her in college and planned to marry her. His best friend at the time, William McGowan, met her, fell in love with her, and married her before that could happen. He died in 1976. When Grandma Scott found out that W. Bryson Scott’s wife had died within a year or so of William’s death, she got in a car, drove to where her college boyfriend lived, reconnected with him, and married him. Betty wore her 1920s dress and carried Grandma Scott’s purse, for the rst time, to the themed party. It was a memorable evening. e hotel sold gloves, cigarette holders, and headbands decorated with a feather, and the setting was one where President Polk and Grandma Scott both would have been quite at home. The Story of the Purse