John Shearer: Story Of Early Tivoli Manager Emmett Rogers’ Only Daughter Learned

One lesson I have learned from more than 35 years of writing newspaper feature stories, particularly those that lean toward local history, is that one story can often lead to another.
 
In connection with this year’s 100th anniversary of the opening of the Tivoli Theatre, I recently wrote about the longtime early Tivoli manager Emmett Rogers and his unique professional marketing efforts that made him well known in industry circles and, of course, in Chattanooga.
 
I also referenced some scrapbooks he had that were given to the Chattanooga Public Library by his daughter in 2008.
 
Reader Debbie King was made aware of that story and contacted me regarding eight of Mr. Rogers’ other scrapbooks she acquired along with some other Tivoli mementoes, and she has decided to donate the materials to the library.
 
In my story, I also mentioned that I could not locate whatever happened to Mr. Rogers’ daughter and only child after a minimal online search.
 
Well, that must have been received as a challenge to Kim Kinsey, as she emailed me not long after my second story ran saying that she had found an obituary from 2011 for Gwen Rogers, who had lived her later years in faraway Arizona and led an interesting life.
 
Ms. Kinsey, who works at the local 9-1-1 Center and chairs the Genealogical Research Committee of the Judge David Campbell Chapter of the Daughters of the American Revolution, said she was able to find it through Ancestry.com and its Social Security Death Index.
 
She learned that her full name was Virginia Gwendolyn Rogers, and that helped in the efforts, as she was then able to locate her obituary online through the Verde Valley Independent and Camp Verde Bugle newspaper.
 
The problem for me was that I had typed in Gwen Rogers in the search box, and quite a few Gwen Rogers names from all over the country popped up. But when I typed in Virginia Gwendolyn Rogers after getting the email from Ms. Kinsey, her obituary link was at the top.
 
Other newspaper references had apparently and incorrectly called her Gwendolyn Virginia Rogers.
 
The death notice said she was born in Chattanooga to Emmett and Sadie Rogers on Jan. 20, 1918, during the height of World War I.
 
It also said she went to Girls Preparatory School. Through a school alumnae directory from 1986 I purchased in recent years at an estate sale, I learned she had graduated in 1936 at a time when the classes were much smaller. 
 
I contacted GPS and, although they do have a 1936 annual, they are in the process of doing some work on their archives and could not locate it that day. The Chattanooga Public Library did have one from 1933, and I found her in the ninth grade/freshmen class photo.
 
The somewhat thin GPS annuals from that era mainly highlighted the seniors, so more knowledge could likely be learned about her youth years if a 1936 one can be located.
 
The GPS annuals over the years have been called the Kaleidoscope.
 
Her obituary did say she won numerous awards in equestrian dressage and jumping events in this sport that was highlighted in last summer’s Tokyo Olympics. That must have been about the time she was at GPS or shortly after, based on its placement in the obituary.
 
During the 1930s while she would have been at GPS, the Rogers family had lived at 358 Glenwood Drive near the foot of Missionary Ridge.
 
Her obituary, while short, still seems to give good insight into her accomplished life, and it said that after her schooling, she had worked as a photographer for several newspapers in the East. This apparently included the Chattanooga News-Free Press during the World War II era, when women could get such jobs easier due to so many men being in the service.
 
At some point in her young life, she was known as Mrs. Harry T. Olmstead. About the time her father died in 1960, her last name was listed as Hafer and she had been living in Alaska. 
 
The obituary also said that this woman who went by Gwen was also a ham radio operator and built and flew radio-controlled model airplanes. It said she was active with the Central Arizona Modelers Club from 1983-89. 
 
Her hometown in the 1986 GPS alumnae directory was listed as being Sedona, Arizona.
 
She evidently had no children.
 
When she died on June 2, 2011, at the age of 93 while living in the Arizona town of Cottonwood, the obituary said there was no service due to her wishes. The cemetery location of any burial was not given.
 
The arrangements were handled by Westcott Funeral Home.
 
She must have been close to 90 when she donated her father’s scrapbooks to the Chattanooga Public Library, and it would probably be interesting to hear the story of how that came about. Did she bring them by herself, mail them, or forward them to perhaps a cousin or friend from Chattanooga? 
 
But thanks to Ms. Kinsey and the modern marvel of online information, those of a later generation do know a little more the overall story of her and her unique Chattanooga family.
 
* * *
 
To read the first story on Emmett Rogers and his family, read here.
(https://www.chattanoogan.com/2021/10/15/436729/John-Shearer-A-Look-At-Pioneering.aspx)
 
To read the second story on Emmett Rogers and some additional scrapbooks found, read here.
(https://www.chattanoogan.com/2021/11/5/437962/John-Shearer-More-Emmett.aspx)
 
* * *
 
Jcshearer2@comcast.net