Family is floored by uncovering of old purse
Beverly Williams’ daughter cried after learning about her mother’s purse, which is over half a century old, being unearthed during renovations at the oldest school building in the Clear Creek Independent School District.
“She was blown away with what we told her,” Richard Lewis, vice president of the League City Historical Society, told the Chronicle in an email Friday night.
Andrea Beverly Williams was born in 1945 in Harris County to Frank Roger Williams and Lala Elaine Rawley, according to Lewis. She is the youngest of four sisters, he said.
Mementos, notes and childhood photos found inside the purse placed Williams at the League City School in 1959, making her 14 or 15 when the bag was misplaced.
The purse would have remained lost in the school’s gymnasium, but contractors reno
vating the building for the League City Community Center in summer 2021 found the piece of history under floorboards originally placed down when the facility first opened in 1938.
“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 Chronicle last week. “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.”
Williams’ purse provides a glimpse of what times were like for teenage girls in the 1950s. The Texas native grew up, had a family and got married during her lifetime.
After marrying William Augusta Paul in 1963, he and Williams had nine children who all live in Texas and California, according to Lewis.
Williams died in September 2016 at either 70 or 71 years old, but her purse holds early memories for her family and historians to observe for decades to come.
If Williams’ family was never found, the purse would’ve been put on display and put in the archives of the League City Historical Society museum, Lewis said.