This series documents the history of Covert and Van Buren County, Michigan and the activities of the Sarno – Hendricks family. Most of the photographs are not dated. These depict Covert student groups and clearly document the racially integrated makeup of the classrooms. Box 17 includes panoramic and rolled photographs of Covert school students for the years 1927-1935. Other photographs include portraits of unidentified individuals and depictions of Covert houses and Bale’s peach orchard. Photographs depicting Hendricks family members and the Van Buren County Historical Society Museum are filed within this series.
Most postcards depict scenes of Covert and other Southwest Michigan towns. There are street scenes, a photo of a Benton Harbor farmer’s market and images of individual buildings, including post offices, schools, hospitals, banks and stores.
Pearl Sarno served on the Covert Bicentennial Committee and her collection reflects 1976 Bicentennial events: outdoor movies, parades, Chautauquas, exhibits and school essay contests, among others. A related folder documents the Covert Library Historical marker, which was placed by the Michigan History Division (Michigan Department of State) in 1976.
Sarno was also active in the Van Buren County Historical Society. Historical Society materials (1965-1992) include a copy its constitution, meeting minutes, correspondence, membership lists, grant applications, newspaper clippings and news bulletins. The items provide information on local history and document Society activities: elections, building preservation and restoration projects, museum operations and events such as picnics and yard sales. The photographs depict Society buildings and exhibits.
The “Hendricks Family” file (1904-1905) contains family documents of Pearl Hendricks Sarno. These include postcards and other correspondence, a motor vehicle certificate, business cards, cradle roll certificates and floor plans for an unidentified building that appears to be a house or some other form of residence. Some photographs of individuals are not identified. The correspondence covers several topics, including deaths, family reunions and vacations.
The collection contains a couple unpublished Covert histories. An unknown author wrote one of these at an undetermined date. However, Pearl Sarno’s introduction to A Look at Covert’s Heritage (Pearl Sarno, Editor. Covert, Michigan: Covert Bicentennial Committee, 1976) references a 1952 unpublished history by Covert resident John R. Spelman. Spelman’s history would seem to be the unidentified one. The work discusses Covert businesses, Native Americans, railroads, early roads and some early residents. The second unpublished history is a copy of Anna-Lisa Cox’s 2002 thesis, submitted to the Graduate College of the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign. Cox focuses on Covert’s history of racial integration. This research formed the basis of her 2006 book, A Stronger Kinship (New York: Little, Brown and Company).
The documentation includes seven highway maps and four plats. One of the highway maps is hand drawn on the back of a railroad bond and labeled “Highway Map of Deerfield Township,” (circa 1870s?). It provides some land ownership information. Three other highway maps depict a grid of the township. They are undated and also provide some land ownership information. Lastly, the series includes three highway maps dating from the last half the Twentieth Century, a photocopy of a land ownership plat (1873), a 1963 land ownership plat and two undated hand-drawn plats that show some land owner names, but are not complete.
