From a biographical sketch Bess wrote of her father:
Robert Henry Palmer's first term of school was the first session held in the then new Barry School Building, erected in 1874. He was graduated from the Barry High School on April 27, 1887 - he and one girl comprising the graduating class and he was valedictorian. He was the second boy to graduate from the Barry High School.
Bess's brother Bruce wrote this about his mother, Ora Stearns Palmer:
Mother & Dad were in the same class but he always made a little higher grades than she, so when a chemistry teacher became ill she dropped a course & graduated the next year so she could be first honor student in the class of 1888. The bracelets she has on each arm in her graduation picture were given to her by friends of her parents, Mr. & Mrs. Blair, I think. On the card which is here someplace was written” “May your life be as free from alloy as the gold contained in these bracelets.” And it was.
The dress she is wearing in this photograph was decorated with flowers painted by a local artist and friend of the family, Ole Emerson. This silk dress was stored in my Bess's bedroom closet in Barry until I was in high school. Grandmother had to throw it out when one of her cats had her kittens on it.
