d/o P.G. and Mary Ann Curtis Garrison

Married Spencer Montague Ainsworth on December 26, 1866 in Carroll County, Georgia.

One of Austin's Earliest Musicians Remembers Past Good and Forgets the Bad

Half a century plus two years seems a long time to live in one place, but that is just how long Mrs. Sallie M. Ainsworth has lived at her home at 1306 Rio Grande. Last Monday she celebrated her eighty-ninth birthday, and it was more like a debutante's coming out party than a birthday party.

Telegrams, flowers, and gifts were sent, and there were two decorated birthday cakes. Close friends called during the day and were received by Mr. E. E. Kuehne, granddaughter, who lives with Mrs. Ainsworth.

In 1882 Mrs. Ainsworth was living in Athens, Ala., when her husband, Spencer M. Ainsworth, died, leaving her with six small children. Her brother, Dr. George Garrison, who was the first head of the history department at the University of Texas and for whom Garrison Hall was named, was living there. He wrote her to come to Austin, as it was the center of culture and refinement and the people here would appreciate a graduate of the Cincinnatti Conservatory of Music."

Mrs. Ainsworth did come to Austin and became one of the pioneer piano teachers of the city, as well as one of the earliest members of the First Methodist church. She continued her piano classes until she was 82 years old.

Dr. Ainsworth, her husband, is classified as one of the highest honor graduates ever to finish Madison University in New York. At the time of his death he was a professor at Athens Female College in Athens, Ala.

Of the six children who came to Texas with Mrs. Ainsworth, four are still living. They are Mrs. J. L. Rundell of Austin, N. R. Ainsworth of Houston, E. E. Ainsworth of Marshall, and Mrs. W. M. Douglas of Sulphur, Okla.

For years Mrs. Ainsworth has been known to members of her family and to all her friends and neighbors as "Bam," the word having originated from one of the grandchildren trying to say "grandma." She is looked on as an authority on early Austin history and remembers all the names and faces: she still quotes poetry and the Bible fluently, and she says that the only things that she forgets are the unpleasant things about people or that happen to them.

Her philosophy for living, which she says she wishes to leave as a heritage with her children, is taken from the sixth chapter of Micah, eighth verse: "Do justly, love mercy, and walk humbly with thy God."

The children themselves have affectionately added through the years, "And don't do anything Bam wouldn't do."
(Austin, Texas, Newspaper, 1934)