Namesake of Wm Tally House at York Mall
Last month I presented my talk “Tips in Applying Family Research Skills to Public History” to a group of family history writers in Wilmington, Delaware. Their projector quit near the beginning of my talk and while the projector owner went back home to get a replacement bulb, I asked the group to spend a little time going through my YorksPast Blogs to find posts that might benefit from the application of family research skills to answer the question “Why?” This turned out to be such a neat exercise, it will be included as part of future presentations.
As an example, after seeing my post on the Wm Tally House cafeteria at the York Mall, Helen Williams asked; “Why was the cafeteria named Wm Tally House; was it a made up name or was Wm Tally a real person?”
Several in the group quickly had the answer via the combined use of Ancestry.com and Google searches. Wm Tally was a real person. Wm Tally House cafeterias and restaurants were originated by J. J. Newberry Company and named after William Franklin Tally. Wm Tally was vice-president in charge of real estate and construction for the J. J. Newberry Company. When McCrory’s purchased J. J. Newberry Company, the Wm Tally House chain was included with the purchase.
William F. Tally was born November 13, 1912, in Maskagee, Oklahoma. He attended the University of Tulsa and Worcester Polytechnic Institute. It was his obituary that positively stated J. J. Newberry’s chain of Wm. Tally House cafeterias and restaurants bear his name. William’s yearbook picture is from the yearbooks collection within Ancestry.com and the Wm Tally House logo photo was submitted by Joan Lutz for my previous Wm Tally House post.
The York Mall ad header is from the year the mall opened; i.e. 1968. Click on this LINK for a yorkblog.com Full View of the original photos in this post if details are cut off in the cropping of photos, or if they have been removed from the ydr.com site.
Links to related posts include:
- Where I’ll be Speaking & Topics Available
- York Mall; Remembering the Early Years
- Funderland at York Mall & The Utter Place
- Wm Tally House cafeteria at York Mall
