tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-56177451075474338632024-03-17T22:04:10.557-05:00Missouri and Ozarks HistoryInformation and comments about historical people and events of Missouri, the Ozarks region, and surrounding area.Larry Woodhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12024182801689417267noreply@blogger.comBlogger828125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5617745107547433863.post-62371182209123414212024-03-16T10:24:00.000-05:002024-03-16T10:24:25.180-05:00Bloody Benders Again<p><span style="font-size: medium;">I've written on this blog about the Bloody Benders of southeast Kansas at least once before, maybe more than once, but I recently finished reading a new book about the Benders called <i>Hell Comes to Play </i>by Lee Ralph<i>.</i> It's very well researched and contains a lot of previously unknown information about the Benders, especially about their origins.</span></p><p><span style="font-size: medium;">Anyway, reading the book got me to thinking again about the Benders. I believe I first wrote about the Benders in my book <i>Ozarks Gunfights and Other Notorious Incidents</i>, which was released in 2010. Looking back now at the Bender chapter in that book, I'm almost ashamed of it, because it contains some false information.</span></p><p><span style="font-size: medium;">Specifically, in discussing the topic of what ultimately happened to the Benders, I suggested that it was likely they were overtaken and killed by posse members who went in pursuit of them following their heinous murders. I reached this conclusion based on the numerous stories to that effect that were told by supposed members of the posse in the years after the Bender killings. I kept reading stories, some of them deathbed confessions, from men who claimed to have been with the posse that overtook the Benders and dispatched them to hell south of the Kansas border in what was then Indian Territory. And I fell for the canard.</span></p><p><span style="font-size: medium;">I guess everybody is entitled to a mistake now and then; mistakes find their way into print on a somewhat regular basis. But to someone who prides himself on being as accurate as possible, almost any mistake is a cause for embarrassment, and this one was especially embarrassing, because it's a fairly glaring error about a pretty important aspect of the Bender story. I corrected the error in my 2019 book entitled <i>Murder and Mayhem in Southeast Kansas,</i> but that doesn't erase the previous mistake, because the <i>Gunfights</i> book is still out there, too.</span></p><p><span style="font-size: medium;">For the record, it is virtually certain that the Benders escaped unscathed after their heinous murders. Logic alone argues for this conclusion, since the murders were not discovered until a month after the Benders had flown the coop. By this time, they were long gone, not wandering around south of the Kansas border waiting to be overtaken by a vengeful posse. Very likely, they made their way back to Europe, where they had come from. Another reason the stories of the Benders being killed are almost certainly fabricated tales is that authorities who were in the best position to know the circumstances of the case dismissed the stories as falsehoods.</span></p><p><span style="font-size: medium;">Speaking of where the Benders came from, I already knew, based on my research for <i>Murder and Mayhem in SE KS</i>, that the Benders came to Kansas from Illinois, that they had lived in France just prior to coming to America, and that they were originally from Germany. However, Mr. Ralph's book has added a lot of additional information about the family's origins that I did not previously know. </span></p><p><span style="font-size: medium;">And speaking of lies that surround the story of the Benders, the idea that they were overtaken and killed by a posse is just one of many. It's not even the most outlandish. <br /></span></p><p><span style="font-size: medium;">For instance, the stories about Kate Bender being the leading spirit of the family and the stories about her and her older brother supposedly living together in an incestuous relationship, or else not being siblings at all, are sensationalist nonsense. Kate was only 13 or 14 years old when the Benders came to Kansas and was still just 16 when the last of the murders were committed. It's very unlikely a 16-year-old girl was the leading spirit of a family of cold-blooded killers. Kate was almost certainly the most fluent speaker of English in the family, which might have given people who had dealings with the Benders the idea that she was the leading spirit in the family, but just being able to communicate well with her neighbors doesn't make her the driving force behind a mass murder, as some of the more far-fetched stories about the Benders imply.</span></p>Larry Woodhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12024182801689417267noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5617745107547433863.post-11011659491748668252024-03-10T15:09:00.000-05:002024-03-10T15:09:12.414-05:00Joplin's Morals Scandal of 1952<p><span style="font-size: medium;">What one Joplin (MO) newspaper called "an amazing morals case" began on February 15, 1952, when the mother of a juvenile boy called authorities to register a complaint against Joplin physician Guy I. Meredith. After a brief investigation, Dr. Meredith was arrested at his office later that same day and taken to jail to await arraignment on charges of abusing and molesting as many as 31 Joplin High School boys between the ages of 15 and 17. </span></p><p><span style="font-size: medium;">Twelve of the boys were questioned, and all told similar stories. They said they had visited Meredith in his office, taken night trips with him in his car, and been offered money by him to engage in "immoral conduct." Nearly all the boys described being taken to "The Spot," a secluded roadside parking place near some abandoned mines north of Chitwood. Several of the boys said that they resisted Meredith's advances but that they had been attracted to him because he was liberal in buying them food and other items. They said Meredith's abuse had been going on since the start of the school term the previous fall.</span></p><p><span style="font-size: medium;">As more students were questioned the next day, a pattern of "shocking" immorality among Joplin High School students was uncovered, and school administrators, in conjunction with local law enforcement, launched a thorough investigation. The probe also expanded to Carthage.</span></p><p><span style="font-size: medium;">Under intense questioning, Dr. Meredith admitted that he knew the boys who'd accused him of immoral conduct and that he had indeed met with many of them and even taken several of them to his "spot" at the northwest edge of town. He denied, however, that he had engaged in immoral behavior. Instead, he had merely listened to the boys and counseled them concerning their own immoral behavior. He said all the boys were members of what was known as the "dirty club" at the high school and that his association with the boys stemmed from the fact that he had once been a member of the same fraternity that many of the boys now belonged to. </span></p><p><span style="font-size: medium;">Meredith, who had been a physician in Joplin for 25 years, was released on $16,000 bond on February 16, and on the afternoon of February 18, he shot himself in the head at his office in the Frisco Building in downtown Joplin. He died a few hours later at a local hospital. </span></p><p><span style="font-size: medium;">The next day, February 19, eleven students, nine boys and two girls, were suspended from Joplin High School for unspecified immoral conduct. Ten other students who had not been attending lately were barred from coming back to school. Meanwhile, the investigation continued.</span></p><p><span style="font-size: medium;">On February 22, the <i>Joplin Southwestern</i> ran an editorial on what it called the "sex perversion ring" at the high school. The newspaper said that, while 31 students were directly involved in the "sex cult," at least 300 others knew of its existence. Supposedly, members of the cult wore green on certain days to signify their membership in the group. At least one girl was selling contraceptives at the high school, and at least one boy was selling whiskey. Rumor had it that information about the so-called sex cult was known a year earlier but it was hushed up because several of students involved came from prominent families. </span></p><p><span style="font-size: medium;">The Carthage side of the investigation led to the arrest on February 22 of H. Tiffin Teters, the town's mayor, and he was charged with five counts of molesting minors. Also arrested on similar charges were Max Potter, who was well known in Joplin in amateur theatrical circles; and Morris Shaffer, a Carthage beauty salon operator. At least one other Carthage man was charged in the case but could not be immediately located. Teters, who was released on bond, claimed he was completely innocent of the charges against him, but he asked for a leave of absence from his job as mayor. A hearing to determine whether Shaffer was a "homosexual psychopath" was ordered.</span></p><p><span style="font-size: medium;">A mass meeting was held on February 27 at Joplin's Memorial Hall to organize the Citizens' Moral League of Jasper County. Over the next week or so, however, most of the suspended students were reinstated on probation after they and their parents met with board members and administrators, the morals investigation began to wind down, and the sex scandal of 1952 gradually faded into memory.</span></p><p> </p>Larry Woodhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12024182801689417267noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5617745107547433863.post-21501376990106409932024-03-03T10:02:00.081-06:002024-03-03T16:33:14.747-06:00The Attempted "Rape" of Mrs. Brake<p><span style="font-size: medium;">The September 7, 1904, <i>Springfield (MO) Daily Republican </i>reported that two nights earlier a black man named Jack McCracken had tried to rape Mrs. J. R. (Anna) Brake while her husband, a Springfield policeman, was on duty. Supposedly, McCracken broke into the Brake home late on the night of the 7th while Mrs. Brake was asleep in bed with her baby. She was awakened when the "brute" grabbed her and dragged her out of bed to the floor. However, Anna screamed and fought, frightening McCracken away, as several neighbors rushed to the woman's assistance.</span></p><p><span style="font-size: medium;">Anna recognized McCracken because he had worked at her house on several occasions, and she picked him out as her attacker the next day when he and several other black men were brought before her in a quasi-lineup. McCracken was whisked away to jail and charged with burglary and attempted rape.</span></p><p><span style="font-size: medium;">The supposed attack on Anna Brake "stirred up the people of Springfield," and a mob formed on the night of the 6th and went to the jail, intent of taking McCracken out and lynching him. However, the mob spirit had been building throughout the day, giving officers time to whisk McCracken out of town for safekeeping. "Their appetite for human blood unsatisfied," the mob reluctantly broke up in the wee hours of the morning on the 7th. </span></p><p><span style="font-size: medium;">A month or so later, J. A. "Jesse" Brake began circulating a treatise on the so-called "race problem." The thrust of the virulently racist pamphlet was that black men were responsible for most of the lawlessness in the country. Brake especially decried the "unmentionable crime" of black men attacking white women, which, according to Brake, was unheard of during the days of slavery but had shot up in recent years. If something wasn't done to curb the "fiendish lust" of black men and to reverse the rising tide of crime in general, the people of the United States would have to decide what was the best and quickest way to dispose of all of its citizens "who may be unfortunate enough to have even a taint of African blood in their veins." </span></p><p><span style="font-size: medium;">On the last day November 1904, McCracken, through his lawyer, applied for a change of venue on the grounds that he had not been able to prepare his defense because he was in constant fear for his life and always having to be moved to prevent mob action. He had been taken to Christian County shortly after his arrest because of the threat from a mob that included Jesse Brake dressed in his police uniform. After his return to Greene County, he was still in danger from the mob and removed again. He had recently been brought back again, but now he was in danger from Anna Brake, who was carrying a pistol and had been encouraged by her husband to kill McCracken on sight. The defendant was assigned a new judge to hear his case, but otherwise the request for a change of venue was not granted.</span></p><p><span style="font-size: medium;">McCracken pleaded guilty to both charges against him when his trial came up a few days later. He insisted that he was not guilty of what Mrs. Brake had accused him of, but he knew he would not get a fair trial and that he stood no chance of acquittal on the charge of attacking a white woman. He feared mob violence and figured he was safer in jail than walking the streets of Springfield. He was sentenced to 30 years in the state pen, and he was hauled away to Jefferson City in early February 1905. </span></p><p><span style="font-size: medium;">That's where the case stood until mid-1908 when Mrs. Brake came forward to recant the story she had told at the time of the supposed crime. She and her husband had recently separated, and Brake had resigned from the police force over three years earlier. Mrs. Brake said that McCracken was "no more at fault" than she was. Not only was McCracken not guilty of attacking her, but he was also "a good friend" of hers. She said that for the sake of "the little one" she thought McCracken should be released. She began advocating for his pardon, urging others to do the same, and circulating a petition on his behalf. The "little one" was a reference to her four-year-old mixed-race child, whose father was, in fact, Jack McCracken.</span></p><p><span style="font-size: medium;">Mrs. Brake said she had lied at the time of her and McCracken's so-called crime because she feared for her life if she told the truth. In making her admission, she asked that it be kept secret until she had time to get out of town, because she feared violence even now. </span></p><p><span style="font-size: medium;">Shortly after making her confession, Mrs. Brake left Springfield. A few days after that, J. R. Brake turned "a four-year-old negro boy" over to the county court, and the child was taken to the county farm. In September 1908, Brake was granted a divorce from his wife. </span></p><p><span style="font-size: medium;">In May 1909, Jack McCracken was released from the state prison by order of the governor after two Springfield lawyers working on his behalf were able to prove beyond doubt that he was not guilty of the charge for which he was serving time. McCracken had not broken into the Brake home and tried to rape Anna at all but had merely called at the home seeking to see his little son. </span></p><p><span style="font-size: medium;">After his release, McCracken came back to Springfield and worked as a chauffeur, but what happened to Mrs. Brake has not been traced. </span></p><p><span style="font-size: medium;">Sources: Various Springfield newspapers, <i>White Man's Heaven </i>by Kimberly Harper.</span></p>Larry Woodhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12024182801689417267noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5617745107547433863.post-72747527131388490102024-02-25T09:56:00.001-06:002024-02-25T09:56:50.710-06:00The Joplin Exposition of 1879 & 1880<p><span style="font-size: medium;">Joplin held its first exposition in 1879. Joplin gambling room operator and former Kansas jayhawker Charles "Doc" Jennison was involved in organizing and promoting the event. It was held at the newly constructed fairgrounds on the edge of town (on the east side of present-day Maiden Lane across from the James River Church). Given Jennison's interest in betting on horse racing, horse racing was, indeed, the main attraction of that first fair. </span></p><p><span style="font-size: medium;">In anticipation of the event, the <i>Springfield Patriot-Advertiser</i> mentioned that about $3,600 would be given out in prizes and that the largest amount, about $800, would be awarded to the top three finishers in "a great trotting race." The winner would get $500, and $300 would be divided between second and third. The large prize money was expected to draw entries from St. Louis, Kansas City, and elsewhere, meaning that "some of the best horses ever seen in this part of the state" would make their appearance. </span></p><p><span style="font-size: medium;">However, when information was later released suggesting that the percentage of prize money going to the races was even greater than the <i>Patriot-Advertiser </i>first thought, the newspaper complained about the inequity. Two-thirds of the total money to be given out at the Joplin fair was earmarked for winners of the horse races, with only one-third left for everything else, including all the agricultural and mechanical categories. "This is no business of ours," opined the Springfield paper, "but it does seem as though there are several other interests in the Southwest quite as worthy of encouragement as the raising of fast horses."</span></p><p><span style="font-size: medium;">Perhaps the organizers of the expo were aware of critics like the Springfield newspaper, because the next year, 1880, Joplin staged a much bigger exposition that included competition in all sorts of categories. In the lead-up to the event, an article in the <i>Joplin Daily Herald</i> expressed the opinion that the Joplin Exposition would be such an overwhelming success that it would "pale into insignificance all other fairs ever held in the West, save perhaps the Kansas City show."</span></p><p><span style="font-size: medium;">A large crowd was expected, with people coming from all over, and the <i>Herald</i> promised that the ground would be "chuck full with almost everything of interest to the people of the Southwest." There would be a large collection of fruits, flowers, and plants, as well as some of the best livestock in the country. There would also be a fine arts hall with many works of art and other curiosities. Since Joplin was the center of the mining district, there would naturally be a huge display of minerals. The "speed ring" would still be one of the main attractions, though. "Some of the most noted flyers in the West will be here."</span></p><p><span style="font-size: medium;">The 1880 Joplin Exposition started on September 28 and lasted into early October. Although I could not find an estimate of attendance, the <i>Herald</i> deemed the event a huge success, with an "admiring multitude" in attendance. </span></p><p><br /></p>Larry Woodhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12024182801689417267noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5617745107547433863.post-56134909329079790832024-02-18T14:01:00.001-06:002024-02-18T14:01:21.809-06:00Kennedy Dedicates Greer's Ferry Dam<p><span style="font-size: medium;">Several years ago, I briefly mentioned on this blog President Truman's dedication of Norfork Dam and his same-day dedication of Bull Shoals Dam in 1952, and I might write more extensively about those events in the near future, but Truman's dedication of those two dams was not the only time a sitting president visited the Ozarks to dedicate a dam. On October 3, 1963, President Kennedy dedicated the Greers Ferry Dam at Heber Springs, Arkansas, on the southern edge of the Ozarks, just a month and a half before he was killed by an assassin's bullet in Dallas. </span></p><p><span style="font-size: medium;">Kennedy was scheduled to speak at 11:00 a.m. on October 3, but several thousand people had already gathered at the site of the new dam two hours before that time. A few were protestors carrying sings, but most of those present were there to witness history.</span></p><p><span style="font-size: medium;">Some officials estimated that as many as 25,000 people might turn out for the event. Although attendance probably didn't reach that figure, the crowd that did show up was likely the largest ever gathered in the history of Heber Springs, the town adjacent to the dam.</span></p><p><span style="font-size: medium;">In his address, Kennedy praised those who helped fund and construct the dam. He vowed that America would continue to develop its resources, build its "strength and greatness," and "move ahead." He pointed out that the dam project would expand employment opportunities and stimulate the economy in the Heber Springs area and would be a benefit to the whole country that would eventually more than pay for itself. </span></p><p><span style="font-size: medium;">In an ironic aside, at least one newspaper ran a brief article along with its reporting on Kennedy's dam dedication that said that military officials and the White House had issued a statement saying that things were going well in Viet Nam and that they expected they would be able to withdraw all US personnel from Southeast Asia within a couple of years. I can tell you from personal experience that that most certainly did not happen.</span></p><p><br /></p>Larry Woodhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12024182801689417267noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5617745107547433863.post-62595459154603786472024-02-11T15:43:00.003-06:002024-02-11T15:46:19.077-06:00A Gay Picnic<p><span style="font-size: medium;">I</span><span style="font-size: medium;"> ran onto an article recently in a Springfield (MO) newspaper about a gay picnic, and the descriptor had nothing to do with anybody's sexual orientation. Of course, the article was published in 1877, back when "gay" had a completely different connotation than it does nowadays. These picnickers were just happy and lighthearted. </span></p><p><span style="font-size: medium;">I found the article interesting because it sheds light on what fashionable young people of Springfield did for entertainment in the 1870s. On a Friday evening in mid-August about sixty "representatives of the youth, beauty and fashion of Springfield" left town around dark in a procession of omnibuses, carriages, and buggies, most of them "filled to their utmost capacity." Their destination was a social gathering hosted at the Rountree farm about two miles west of town. </span></p><p><span style="font-size: medium;">Upon their arrival, the "gay picnicers found the grounds brilliantly illuminated by torches, the poles being driven into the ground, giving the lights the appearance of lamp-posts placed at regular intervals, making the scene resemble a camp-meeting after nightfall, or a gorgeous French fete-champetre." </span></p><p><span style="font-size: medium;">A platform was set up for dancing, and a string band played "bewitching strains of music, inviting attendees to participate in the "poetry of motion." For those who did not want to dance, several croquet courses were laid out in the well-lit grove. Those who neither danced nor played croquet contented themselves to sit in the omnibuses and "hold hands." </span></p><p><span style="font-size: medium;">Later, refreshments, including ice cream, cake, lemonade, and other delicacies, were served. After the table had been cleared, the "dancing, croquet playing, and flirting were resumed." The party broke up some time after midnight, and the group returned to Springfield "heartily tired but full of pleasant memories of a delightful evening." </span></p>Larry Woodhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12024182801689417267noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5617745107547433863.post-15491098892059628602024-02-04T10:08:00.000-06:002024-02-04T10:08:15.678-06:00Bicycling<p><span style="font-size: medium;">Bicycling mainly started in the 1860s as competitive racing, but shortly afterwards people began riding bicycles as a recreational activity. By the late 1880s, bicycling had become extremely popular, and the craze continued throughout the 1890s and into the very early 1900s.</span></p><p><span style="font-size: medium;">Bicycling as an organized sport or organized leisure activity came to Missouri at least as early as 1887, when the St. Louis Cycling Club was formed. That club is still going today and is the oldest cycling club in the United States still in existence.</span></p><p><span style="font-size: medium;">During the late 1800s and early 1900s, though, cycling wasn't confined just to St. Louis. For instance, efforts to organize a cycling club in Springfield were underway in July of 1903, and it's clear from a report about the effort that appeared in a Springfield newspaper that cycling had been popular in Springfield for a long time. </span></p><p><span style="font-size: medium;">The newspaper said that the announcement that a cycling club was forming would be "gladly read by the numerous followers of the wheelman's art in this vicinity." </span></p><p><span style="font-size: medium;">The paper went on to say that "many expert riders" resided in Springfield and that several years earlier Springfield had been considered "the bicycle racing headquarters of the west." In recent years, however, "interest had been allowed to slacken" and had "almost died out." </span></p><p><span style="font-size: medium;">The purpose of the new club would be to host races, both road races and track races, and to sponsor "long rides over the country."</span></p><p><br /></p>Larry Woodhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12024182801689417267noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5617745107547433863.post-85649034451839899902024-01-28T16:19:00.000-06:002024-01-28T16:19:43.972-06:00Fort Ancient or the Old Spanish Fort<p><span style="font-size: medium;">I'm not sure whether I've ever mentioned the old fortification located in Lawrence County (MO) on this blog, but if so, I'm pretty sure I've never previously gone into much detail about it. So, I thought I'd write about it today.</span></p><p><span style="font-size: medium;">The place is located about two miles southeast of the village of Hoberg or about four to five miles almost due south of Mount Vernon. The original fortification consisted of a ditch or moat surrounding about an acre of flat land with a wall of earthworks just inside the moat. The wall is estimated to have originally been about five feet high but has been worn away by time. It is presumed the ancient builders of the fort chose the site partially because Spring River runs along one side, and its bluff is so steep that, according to a 1904 correspondent to a St. Louis newspaper, even a trained mountain climber could not scale it. The flat land in the other directions was treeless when the first white settlers arrived in the area and is presumed to have been so when the fort was built, giving occupants of the earthworks a clear view of any approaching enemies.</span></p><p><span style="font-size: medium;">The first white settlers theorized that the fort had been constructed by early Spanish explorers, and, thus, they named the place the Old Spanish Fort. However, archeological and geological study during the early 1900s suggested that the fortification was very likely built by the same Native American tribe who built the similar but much larger Fort Ancient in Ohio. The old fortification in Lawrence County was, therefore, redesignated as Fort Ancient, although it is still known locally as Spanish Fort. The Mound Builders who constructed the fort predated the Osage Indians, who lived in Missouri during the 1600s, 1700s, and early 1800s. </span></p><p><span style="font-size: medium;">Around 1880, a cemetery was laid out on the flat land that had once been part of the fort, and many early settlers of Lawrence County are buried there. In 1930, a historic marker commemorating Fort Ancient was placed at the cemetery site and dedicated in a ceremony held on October 12 of that year. </span></p>Larry Woodhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12024182801689417267noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5617745107547433863.post-64311148059387940552024-01-20T13:24:00.001-06:002024-01-20T13:24:45.388-06:00Entertaining the Soldier Boys<p><span style="font-size: medium;">I've heard local lore about how soldiers from Camp Crowder in Neosho would trek to Joplin on weekends during World War II to patronize prostitutes. I've never found much about this in written documents, but the local lore is so prevalent that I'm pretty sure it was true.</span></p><p><span style="font-size: medium;">Springfield, too, apparently served as a sexual resort for soldiers during WW II. In fact, there's more written evidence of this in the case of Springfield than that of Joplin. In Springfield's case, though, the soldiers mainly came from Fort Leonard Wood. </span></p><p><span style="font-size: medium;">For example, a 45-year-old woman named Jessie Dixon Wilson was charged in July 1942 with operating a bawdy house under the guise of a legitimate business, and her preliminary hearing on the 17th turned into "an exciting and dramatic" affair when eight soldiers, five from Fort Leonard Wood and three from the O'Reilly Hospital in Springfield, testified for the prosecution.</span></p><p><span style="font-size: medium;">The procedure got off to a sensational start when the attorney for the defense brought a woman who looked a lot like the defendant into the room and succeeded in tricking one of the first soldiers who testified into identifying the look-alike as the woman who'd provided a "date" for him at the Van Nuys Hotel instead of Mrs. Wilson, the actual proprietor of the Van Nuys. </span></p><p><span style="font-size: medium;">When order was restored and the real defendant was brought into the room, the same soldier and seven additional soldiers all identified Mrs. Wilson as the person who had set them up with "dates" at her hotel between April 3 and June 28. She had charged them $2 each, and all of them had contracted venereal disease as a result of their "dates." </span></p><p><span style="font-size: medium;">Jessie Wilson was bound over for trial, but the defense lawyer did succeed in getting the charge against her husband and co-defendant, Hubert Wilson, dismissed by showing that Jessie had full ownership and management of the hotel and that Hubert only lived there. Originally charged with a felony, Jesse later pleaded guilty to a reduced charge in a plea-bargain deal and got off with only a fine of $200.</span></p><p><br /></p>Larry Woodhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12024182801689417267noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5617745107547433863.post-84790237457428619752024-01-13T16:42:00.004-06:002024-01-13T16:44:11.738-06:00Nathaniel Borders<p><span style="font-size: medium;">In early June 1898, Nathaniel Borders, a crosstie rafter from Big Piney (MO), suffered a "fearful accident" when a charge of dynamite exploded near him, bursting his right eye and tearing off one of his arms. The <i>Rolla Herald</i> reported that the injury was very severe and that Borders's chances of recovery were "discouraging." </span></p><p><span style="font-size: medium;">A month later, though, the same newspaper reported that, although Borders had to have part of one of his feet amputated, he was now making a rapid recovery. In fact, Borders went on to live a number of years after the accident, long enough to kill a man and be charged with murder. </span></p><p><span style="font-size: medium;">Borders and his wife divorced in 1900, and apparently he became a rather disreputable character after that, if he had not already been so. In early 1903, he was charged in Pulaski County with "camping on highway with female." He was convicted of "camping for sexual intercourse" and sentenced to two years in prison. He was released after a year and half under the three-fourths rule. </span></p><p><span style="font-size: medium;">By 1916, Borders had remarried (to the woman he camped on the highway with, do you suppose??) and was living in northern Texas County. On the night of August 16 of that year, Borders was hosting a party at his place when Ike Heflin showed up looking for trouble with Borders, according to the <i>Houston Herald</i>. Borders's wife tried to warn Heflin away, but he insulted and slapped her. Borders got his shotgun and fired a shot, and some of the pellets struck Heflin. This only served to infuriate him, and he advanced toward Borders, who then retrieved a revolver and fired several shots into Heflin's body, killing him almost instantly. </span></p><p><span style="font-size: medium;">The <i>Herald</i> said that both men had bad reputations for being quarrelsome and getting into trouble and that too much alcohol no doubt played a part in the tragedy. A coroner's jury initially ruled the shooting justifiable, but Borders was nonetheless placed in jail to await investigation by a grand jury. </span></p><p><span style="font-size: medium;">The grand jury apparently disagreed with the coroner's jury, because Borders was charged with second-degree murder and found guilty at the November term of the Texas County Circuit Court. He was sentenced to ten years in prison but served only about six before having the sentence commuted by the governor. </span></p><p><br /></p>Larry Woodhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12024182801689417267noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5617745107547433863.post-43541539585098019032024-01-06T11:36:00.000-06:002024-01-06T11:36:16.257-06:00Phelps County School Consolidation<p><span style="font-size: medium;">In late October and early November, I wrote three different posts about school consolidation in Greene County, but the school consolidation movement in Missouri of the 1940s and 1950s was not limited to just one county or even a few counties. It was a statewide phenomenon.</span></p><p><span style="font-size: medium;">For instance, the Phelps County School Board proposed a consolidation plan in August of 1951 to reorganize seventy-eight rural school districts into eight large administrative units. The only districts not affected by the proposed plan would be Rolla, Newburg, and St. James, which were the only three districts in the county that had high schools. A similar proposal had been soundly defeated by voters in 1949, but educators wanted to try again, because they felt there were numerous advantages to the consolidation.</span></p><p><span style="font-size: medium;">Among the advantages cited by proponents of the plan were better buildings, more qualified teachers, better library facilities, and better instructional equipment that would be available to students by consolidating into fewer schools. </span></p><p><span style="font-size: medium;">The consolidation plan was put to a vote of patrons in mid-September, and it, like the previous proposal, was voted down overwhelmingly. Countywide, the margin of defeat was approximately nine no votes to every yes vote, and in many of the smaller districts the vote was even more lopsided. In a few districts, not a single "yes" vote was cast. In the Clinton Bank district, for instance, the tally was 65 votes against the proposal and zero votes for it. </span></p><p><span style="font-size: medium;">Many, if not most, of these rural school districts were eventually consolidated into larger districts, but as this vote in Phelps County in September of 1951 illustrates, the consolidation movement in Missouri usually had to overcome a lot of initial opposition from voters. </span></p>Larry Woodhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12024182801689417267noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5617745107547433863.post-22686440336170537262023-12-30T14:20:00.000-06:002023-12-30T14:20:30.557-06:00Halloween Party on Commercial Street<p><span style="font-size: medium;">When I was a kid growing up in Fair Grove in the 1950s, most residents of the town and those from the outlying areas bought groceries and other essentials in Fair Grove, at least until the large supermarkets in Springfield started taking that business away in the latter part of the decade. Even in the early and mid-fifties, though, Fair Grove residents did most of their shopping in Springfield for bigger items like home furnishing and appliances. Most also did their Christmas shopping in Springfield.</span></p><p><span style="font-size: medium;">There were basically two main business districts in Springfield: the public square and the Commercial Street district. There was still something of a competition between the two districts, which was likely a holdover from the 1870s and 1880s when North Springfield (i.e. the Commercial Street district) was its own separate town.</span></p><p><span style="font-size: medium;">Many, if not most, Fair Grove residents did their Springfield shopping at the Commercial Street district. I know that my parents tended to go there quite a bit. The popularity of Commercial Street as a destination for Fair Grove folks might partly have been simply a result of the fact that it was slightly closer to Fair Grove than the square, but I think the loyalty to Commercial Street was more than just a matter of convenience. </span></p><p><span style="font-size: medium;">At any rate, Commerical Street and the surrounding area was a thriving business district in the 1950s and into the 1960s when I lived at Fair Grove. It went downhill for a while after that, but it has since rebounded to a large extent, designated as a historic district.</span></p><p><span style="font-size: medium;">Prior to the 1950s, I think Commercial Street was an even more flourishing district than it was when I remember it. For instance, for a few years in the late 1930s and early 1940s, the Commercial Street Business Club hosted a street party on Halloween evening that was apparently quite a big deal, However, it lasted only a few years, cut short no doubt by the beginning of World War II.</span></p><p><span style="font-size: medium;">The first Commercial Street Halloween Party was held in 1939. In the lead-up to the event, the <i>Springfield Leader and Press </i>announced that "a huge jack-o'-lantern will leer from every lamp post on Commercial Street from Boonville to Jefferson, and the whole street for those two blocks will be roped off for one of hte biggest Halloween parties ever given hereabouts." </span></p><p><span style="font-size: medium;">People were invited to come to the event dressed up, ready to "frolic in the carnival grand parade" and "dance in the street afterwards." There were to be prizes for the best costumes in several categories, including men women, children, and couples. Prizes for the best square dance couple and the best jitterbugger were also going to be offered. A seven-piece orchestra was scheduled to play in the Community Building with the music broadcast on the street by loudspeakers for the benefit of the dancers. Bill Ring, whom I recall as a radio personality in Springfield two to three decades later, was going to be master of ceremonies of the event.</span></p><p><span style="font-size: medium;">The day after the event, the <i>Daily News </i>reported that thousands of people had attended the street dance, and there was much laughing, singing, and dancing among young and old alike. The crowd was so large that "spectators were forced to find refuge in doorways of store buildings."</span></p><p><span style="font-size: medium;">The following year, 1940, organizers were expecting a crowd of up to 15,000 people to attend the Halloween street dance on Commercial Street. The length of the parade was lengthened so that it started at Washington Avenue and marched to Boonville, and Commercial was blocked off from Benton to Boonville. As it turned out, only about 5,000 people showed up, but it was still considered a great success. </span></p><p><span style="font-size: medium;">The next year, 1941, cold weather put a damper on activity in Springfield on Halloween night, including the Commercial Street party. The event was not well attended, and the <i>Daily News</i> commented the next day that even Bill Ring and his orchestra "had to be jitterbugs to keep warm." </span></p><p><span style="font-size: medium;">I can find no mention of the Halloween party in succeeding years; so I assume that the U.S.'s entry into World War II put an end to the celebration. </span></p>Larry Woodhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12024182801689417267noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5617745107547433863.post-29825361630037194312023-12-23T13:46:00.001-06:002023-12-23T13:46:10.684-06:00A Greene County Bigamist<p><span style="font-size: medium;"></span></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: medium;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiFGiCqHljBApYomg2A6snA9HAAljZwTlnoXLEzj4yunpbHtVzc33tmf2gO5NU_fQmyq3Z3eGiw-XcCtt0EUknPVgb0fJ5RaNozWyhEAbL-kQ_9e8i4PS6oPE8CQm5knt_v7UlPHXjXmh9ne2OakGxhQSdBbymXCV8Pw3WWk2khyphenhyphen6ZlbLOJ3YdQBCk1M_k0/s7632/Springfield_Leader_and_Press_Thu__Feb_22__1951_.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="7632" data-original-width="4561" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiFGiCqHljBApYomg2A6snA9HAAljZwTlnoXLEzj4yunpbHtVzc33tmf2gO5NU_fQmyq3Z3eGiw-XcCtt0EUknPVgb0fJ5RaNozWyhEAbL-kQ_9e8i4PS6oPE8CQm5knt_v7UlPHXjXmh9ne2OakGxhQSdBbymXCV8Pw3WWk2khyphenhyphen6ZlbLOJ3YdQBCk1M_k0/s320/Springfield_Leader_and_Press_Thu__Feb_22__1951_.jpg" width="191" /></a></span></div><span style="font-size: medium;"><br />Sometime around January or early February 1951, a woman filed a complaint with the Greene County (MO) prosecutor claiming that her sister's husband, Jack Wilson, was also married to another woman under the name Coy Burney. Apparently, Wilson and his wife, Eula Mae, had recently traveled from Springfield to Nichols Junction to visit another sister, and a friend of the other sister recognized Jack Wilson as Coy Burney. The woman said Burney lived at Bois D'Arc and that he had a wife named Alma. The sister did not believe her friend until the two women started comparing pictures and realized that Jack Wilson and Coy Burney were one and the same.</span><p></p><p><span style="font-size: medium;">Shortly afterwards, the first sister filed her complaint with the prosecutor, who undertook an investigation. It revealed that the man's real name was Coy Burney and that he had married Alma Leigh at Fort Scott, Kansas, in 1944, shortly after getting divorced from his first wife. He had a child by his first wife and had been arrested about the same time as his marriage to Alma for nonsupport of the child. But that didn't keep him from having two more children with Alma. </span></p><p><span style="font-size: medium;">In January of 1950, Burney, under the alias Jack Wilson, married Eula Mae Rowden at Berryville, Arkansas, while still married to Alma. Jack and Eula Mae took up residence on North National in Springfield, while Coy continued to live off-and-on with Alma at Bois D'Arc, only about ten miles away. Wilson was a truck driver, and he managed to pull off the balancing act by telling each woman that he was away on an over-the-road trip when he was really with the other wife. </span></p><p><span style="font-size: medium;">The 25-year-old Burney was arrested on February 21, 1951. He denied his double life at first, but, when he was brought into the prosecutor's office as Eula Mae was leaving, he admitted that she was "one of my wives." He said, "I was in love with Eula Mae and did not want to hurt Alma at the same time." He was charged with bigamy and jailed in lieu of $2,500 bond. </span></p><p><span style="font-size: medium;">In June of 1951, Burney pleaded guilty to bigamy and was released on $2,500 bond to await sentencing. I have not found the final disposition of the bigamy case, except I know that Alma was granted a divorce from Burney in October 1951 and given custody of their two children. </span></p><p><span style="font-size: medium;">Note: photo of Burney, alias Wilson, above is from the <i>Springfield Leader and Press</i>, as is most of the info for this post.</span></p>Larry Woodhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12024182801689417267noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5617745107547433863.post-75247421422904774752023-12-17T13:48:00.004-06:002023-12-17T13:48:59.481-06:00Rural Vs. Urban<p><span style="font-size: medium;">When political observers and other national media types talk about a rural-urban divide, they are normally talking about the difference between the way people in Podunk, Arkansas, for instance, see things compared to residents of New York City or Los Angeles. However, Susan Croce Kelly, in her recent book about legendary Springfield newspaperwoman Lucile Morris Upton, which I'm currently reading, makes the point that there was, at least during Lucile's time, a rural-urban divide even within the Ozarks.</span></p><p><span style="font-size: medium;">And she's not talking about a divide just between country folk and people living in the larger towns or cities like Springfield. Ms. Kelly says that while many of Lucile's contemporaries during her youth and young adulthood identified more with the hills and valleys and woods and streams of their own farms than they did with the community down the road, Lucile strongly identified with the small town of Dadeville where she grew up. </span></p><p><span style="font-size: medium;">This observation made an impression on me because I realized that the same was true for me when I was growing up. I think many of my classmates at Fair Grove Schools, those who lived on farms, identified much more strongly with the land they and their families lived on than I did with the small plot of land in the town of Fair Grove where I and my family lived when I was growing up. </span></p><p><span style="font-size: medium;">The majority of my classmates were farm kids. Most of them did farm chores either before school, after school, or both. Many of the boys took agriculture classes and were active in FFA, while I was involved in those two pursuits only during my freshman year and only because taking ag was such a given in Fair Grove that nothing else was offered for me to take during the particular time slot that ag was offered. </span></p><p><span style="font-size: medium;">Don't get me wrong. I had nothing at all against agriculture or farming. In fact, I sometimes felt left out because I often didn't know what my classmates were talking about when they'd start talking about certain animals, or certain crops, or certain farming techniques. </span></p><p><span style="font-size: medium;">It's just that farming wasn't something I was really interested in and was not something I identified with. I was a town kid. Most of my best friends were boys who, like me, lived in the town of Fair Grove rather than classmates or people I met at school, although at least a couple were both pals from town and classmates.</span></p><p><span style="font-size: medium;">During my childhood, from the time I was six or seven years old, my friends and I largely had the run of the town. The whole town, although initially it was just the south side, was our playground, from the feed room at the MFA Store to the little stream than ran by the old mill. I came to know not just all the kids in Fair Grove who were anywhere near my own age but also most of the adults, particularly the old-timers who used to sit on benches in front of the stores whittling, telling tall tales, and passing the time. </span></p><p><span style="font-size: medium;">As I got a little older and had more freedom to go wherever I wanted to, I got to know the town even better. This was especially true after I got to be about junior high age and started delivering newspapers and mowing lawns in Fair Grove. There were few people in Fair Grove whose yard I didn't mow or whose paper I didn't deliver, one or the other if not both.</span></p><p><span style="font-size: medium;">So, I grew up strongly identifying with Fair Grove. Fair Grove the town, not Fair Grove the school. Oh, I identified with the school, too, but the town came first. It was the town first, then the school, and then my own home place, in that order. For many of my classmates, I suspect the order may have been exactly reversed. </span></p><p><span style="font-size: medium;">That's a revelation I really hadn't given much thought to until I read Ms. Kelly's statement about Lucile's attachment to Dadeville. </span></p>Larry Woodhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12024182801689417267noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5617745107547433863.post-91539854746634075152023-12-10T14:29:00.001-06:002023-12-10T14:29:05.903-06:00Outlaw Dick Adams<p><span style="font-size: medium;">I'm currently working on my next book, which will likely be called <i>Murder and Mayhem in Northeast Oklahoma,</i> since it is scheduled to be part of the Murder and Mayhem series published by The History Press. One of the desperadoes I considered including in the book was Dick Adams, a notorious thief and whiskey peddler who operated mainly in the Spavinaw region during the 1890s; however, I've pretty much decided not to include him, since he really wasn't all that desperate or infamous. So, I'm going to write about him here.</span></p><p><span style="font-size: medium;">Adams was first heard from on the criminal front in the spring of 1895 when several officers went out southeast of Vinita across the Grand River to try to capture him and other outlaws said to be terrorizing that neighborhood. The mission proved unsuccessful.</span></p><p><span style="font-size: medium;">According to a later report, Adams had first come to Oklahoma (Indian Territory at the time) from Missouri several years prior to his run-in with the law. He was an upstanding farmer at first who was considered very industrious. It was said he would work from sunup to sundown. </span></p><p><span style="font-size: medium;">Not finding farming profitable enough, however, he turned to whiskey running. He would travel to Arkansas by day and return at night with a load of whiskey, which he reportedly sold mainly to the black population along the Grand River. When law officers got on to his scheme, he began to steal cattle. </span></p><p><span style="font-size: medium;">In February of 1896, Adams and some of his cohorts clashed with a posse led by US marshal Heck Bruner. The two sides exchanged gunfire, but no one on either side was seriously injured.</span></p><p><span style="font-size: medium;">In November of the same year, lawmen made a raid on a band of cattle thieves on Mustang Creek about ten miles from Vinita. In the ensuing gunfight, Adams was wounded with a shotgun blast to the gut, and one of his sidekicks was killed. </span></p><p><span style="font-size: medium;">Then, about the first of December, four black men were arrested near Bolen's Ferry on Grand River for stealing a steer from a man living at the ferry and butchering it. Adams was also implicated in the crime, but he evaded arrest. </span></p><p><span style="font-size: medium;">About the first of September 1897, Adams was arrested at Sapulpa. At first there was some doubt as to his identity, but it was finally confirmed that he was indeed Adams and he admitted participating in the shootout on Mustang Creek. In late September, Adams passed through Vinita in the custody of lawmen who were taking him to jail at Muskogee. Quite a crowd turned out to watch the notorious outlaw pass through town.</span></p><p><span style="font-size: medium;">Adams pled guilty to cattle theft and was sentenced to four years in prison. Some observers thought he got off with a very light sentence, considering that he was under indictment on three other charges at the time and those charges were dropped. Among the critics was a Vinita newspaperman, who said that Adams "never shot a man in his life and was a notorious coward, always running away when an attempt was made to capture him." </span></p>Larry Woodhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12024182801689417267noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5617745107547433863.post-79216419049058482812023-12-04T15:26:00.000-06:002023-12-04T15:26:46.935-06:00Surgery<p>I said a couple of weeks ago, when my wife had a health crisis, that the concerns of everyday life sometimes supersede writing about history, and I guess today is going to be another example of that, because today I'm going to write about my own health issue. </p><p>On Friday morning I had double hernia surgery. Not a life-threatening crisis the way my wife's pulmonary embolisms were, by any means, but it was the first time I'd ever had surgery of any kind. So, it was a little scary, but it seems to have gone pretty well and I'm not feeling too bad. The weekend brought some pain, but it's eased up today, and I think I'm on the road to recovery. </p><p>Still, I don't really feel up to researching and writing about Ozarks history. I hope to be back close to normal by next week so that I can resume diving into regional history, whatever topic I might come up with.</p>Larry Woodhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12024182801689417267noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5617745107547433863.post-47811487999571345342023-11-26T16:24:00.001-06:002023-11-26T16:24:52.165-06:00Murder of Lieutenant Miller <p><span style="font-size: medium;">After Confederate forces were driven from Missouri in early 1862, the Civil War in the state quickly devolved mainly into a vicious brand of guerrilla warfare marked by robbery, sabotage, and murder. Atrocities were committed by both sides, but bands of Confederate-allied guerrillas, in particular, roamed the countryside. The bands sometimes preyed on civilians, but they especially targeted Union soldiers who happened to be separated from their units or former Union soldiers who'd returned to their homes. </span></p><p><span style="font-size: medium;">One unfortunate Union lieutenant named Miller found this out the hard way when he took a Sunday leave on April 28, 1862, to court a young woman in Barry County. The officer was spotted by noted guerrilla Hugh McBride and a companion named Smith Crim. The two men watched as Miller hitched his horse outside the girl's home, and then they crept up to the dwelling, When the two burst inside, McBride covered the officer with a shotgun and took him prisoner.</span></p><p><span style="font-size: medium;">The two guerrillas took Miller some distance into the woods before McBride decided that he had to die. McBride ordered Crim to shoot the lieutenant, but Crim refused. An angry McBride then unloaded one of the barrels of his gun into Miller.</span></p><p><span style="font-size: medium;">Crim, though, not McBride, was the one who suffered the consequences. He was arrested not long afterwards by Union forces and tried by military commission at Springfield in late September 1862. Found guilty of murder and violating the laws of war, Crim was sentenced to die by firing squad. </span></p><p><span style="font-size: medium;">The sentence, however, was not carried out, at least not immediately. In early 1863, Crim was transported to St. Louis and lodged in the Gratiot Street Prison.</span></p><p><span style="font-size: medium;">Sources: <i>St. Louis Daily Missouri Republican</i>; Matthew Stith, <i>Extreme Civil War.</i></span></p>Larry Woodhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12024182801689417267noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5617745107547433863.post-91804841719149831282023-11-19T17:06:00.005-06:002023-11-19T17:17:34.084-06:00The Spook Light Again<p><span style="font-size: medium;">Back in September, I attended the annual conference of the Missouri Writers' Guild in Columbia, where Sandy Selby, editor of <i>Missouri Life Magazine</i>, was one of the speakers. I talked briefly with her before her presentation, and I remarked that my very first article for <i>Missouri Life</i> was published many years ago, 1977 to be exact, and that it was about the Tri-State Spook Light. She said that maybe it was time for an update, but I haven't followed through on the suggestion, because I haven't decided how to approach such an article or whether I even want to try. </span></p><p><span style="font-size: medium;">My latest book, published in January of this year, was about the Spook Light, and I'm not sure I have much more to say about it at this time. I guess my main hesitation is just that, as I discuss in the book, the Spook Light is no longer the attraction it once was. </span></p><p><span style="font-size: medium;">Oh, there are still a steady trickle of curiosity seekers who make their way to the out-of-the-way spot about twelve miles southwest of Joplin where the Spook Light, if conditions are right, makes its nightly appearance. Maybe half a dozen cars, give or take, might find their way to Spook Light Road on any given night, but that is nowhere near the number that used to frequent the road back in the 1970s when I first got interested in the light or even in the 1980s and early 1990s. Sometimes there would be as many as a couple of hundred cars over the course of one night, especially on weekends. </span></p><p><span style="font-size: medium;">The light lost some of its allure when both Spook Light Road and State Line Road were paved. Without looking the information up, I'd say that happened in the early nineties. About the same time, law officers, in response to complaints of rowdiness from people living in the area, started patrolling the vicinity more often. Also, Spooky Middleton, who used to run the so-called Spook Light Museum, retired about 1982 and died shortly afterwards, and no one stepped up to take his place. Because of all these factors, a trip to the Spook Light just lost a little of its rustic, magical appeal. </span></p><p><span style="font-size: medium;">I think another reason the Spook Light is not the attraction it once was is simply the fact that it's harder to see nowadays than it used to be. At least, that has been my experience. As I mention in the book, I attribute this phenomenon mainly to the fact that the trees on either side of Spook Light Road have been rather drastically cut back, thereby reducing the tunnelling effect that the V those overhanging trees used to create. Looking to the west along Spook Light Road (as almost all viewers did) was almost like looking down the sights of a gun, but that is no longer the case. Everything is more wide-open, which, I think, makes it harder to see the light or distinguish it if and when you do see it.</span></p><p><span style="font-size: medium;">At any rate, I'm balking on trying to write a new article about the Spook Light, but it's still something I'm mulling over. </span></p>Larry Woodhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12024182801689417267noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5617745107547433863.post-973193793967841812023-11-12T16:23:00.004-06:002023-11-12T16:25:00.377-06:00The Past Two Days<p><span style="font-size: medium;">Part of last week's post pertained to Missouri and Ozarks history, but some of it did not. What I want to write about this week has nothing at all to do with Ozarks or Missouri history. Instead, I want to relate a personal experience and give some thoughts and reflections on it. Sometimes, everyday life takes precedence over writing about history. </span></p><p><span style="font-size: medium;">Friday night, my wife collapsed and fell on our bathroom floor, almost completely unconscious. Fortunately, she had grabbed a towel rack when she started feeling weak and unable to stand, so that she didn't go down really hard. Also, I was nearby and helped break her fall.</span></p><p><span style="font-size: medium;">I had already called an ambulance as soon as she said she was feeling bad, because it was pretty clear that this was not your normal "feeling bad" because of a headache or something minor like that. However, I called a second time after she collapsed to make sure help was on the way. </span></p><p><span style="font-size: medium;">The ambulance got here pretty quickly, although it seemed like a long time to me when I was waiting. The EMTs gave her some sort of shot that brought her around a little bit, but she was still pretty much out of it. They loaded her into a stretcher to get her out of the bathroom and down the hall, put her on a gurney, and wheeled her out to the ambulance. </span></p><p><span style="font-size: medium;">I followed the ambulance to the hospital, but I had to wait before I was allowed in to see her. The wait only added to my anxiety. I was finally told after about 15 or 20 minutes that I could go in and see her. When I did, she was beet red but awake and more lucid than she'd been after she collapsed at home. Gradually her complexion started coming back. </span></p><p><span style="font-size: medium;">At first, my wife and I thought, and the medical personnel seemed to go along with the idea (maybe just to placate us) that she had had some sort of allergic reaction. After a series of tests, however, the diagnosis was that some blood clots in her legs had gone to her lungs, which I guess is called a pulmonary embolism. </span></p><p><span style="font-size: medium;">The docs put my wife on a blood thinner, and she soon started feeling better. The doctors and nurses told us that she would likely need to be admitted for observation, however. This, mind you, was Friday night, and a room did not actually become available until early Saturday afternoon. </span></p><p><span style="font-size: medium;">By yesterday (Saturday) evening, though, she was ready to go home with a prescription for Eloquis, a blood thinner that not only prevents blood clots but also breaks up already-existing ones. </span></p><p><span style="font-size: medium;">Although it's almost needless to say, I'll say it anyway. I was very relieved when my wife of almost 52 years started feeling better and it looked like she was going to survive this medical crisis with apparently a decent outlook for no further complications. Although I've always loved Gigi, sometimes I guess it takes a crisis like this to bring that love into sharp focus and make one realize how much another person means to them. </span></p>Larry Woodhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12024182801689417267noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5617745107547433863.post-73681843684097036792023-11-05T15:11:00.001-06:002023-11-05T15:11:47.681-06:00My Trip to Ohio<p><span style="font-size: medium;">My wife and I just returned from a trip to the Columbus, Ohio, region. Any time I take a road trip across the country or even just across the state of Missouri, I am always awed by how much open land there still is in the United States. </span></p><p><span style="font-size: medium;">Our nation's population has increased by about two and a half times since I was born and more than doubled since I was a little kid. Yet, it seems to me that the amount of open land has not decreased by all that much. Indeed, some of the rural areas have actually lost population, while almost all of the country's population growth has been in the metropolitan areas. </span></p><p><span style="font-size: medium;">We traveled to Ohio by way of St. Louis and Indianapolis and came back by way of Cincinnati, Louisville, and St. Louis. Just driving across Missouri on I-44 between Joplin and St. Louis, one sees a lot of open land, but I was even more struck by the amount of open space in Illinois, Indiana, Ohio, and Kentucky, because I've always thought of those states as at least somewhat more densely populated than Missouri. Except for when we were passing through the large cities (namely Indianapolis, Cincinnati, and Louisville) much of our trip was through farm country. There were numerous times when only about a half dozen homes were visible when I looked around in every direction, as far as the eye could see. </span></p><p><span style="font-size: medium;">We saw some interesting sights along the way. In St. Louis, we visited the Missouri Civil War Museum at Jefferson Barracks and the Missouri History Museum at Forest Park. The Garst Museum in Greenville, Ohio, was also an interesting stop. The Annie Oakley and Lowell Davis wings of that place were very interesting, especially the Annie Oakley section. The highlight of the whole trip, though, was visiting with friends. </span></p>Larry Woodhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12024182801689417267noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5617745107547433863.post-91170203366174723072023-10-22T16:44:00.003-05:002024-02-08T13:08:28.434-06:00Ritter School Consolidation Controversy<p><span style="font-size: medium;">The last couple of weeks I've written about school consolidations, and I've written about the same subject at least a time or two in the more distant past. So, while I'm far from an expert on the subject of school consolidation, I know from my limited experience and research that school consolidations were rarely accomplished without some degree of controversy or disagreement. Often, the extent of the controversy was simply that one school district, usually a smaller one being taken in by a larger one, did not favor the consolidation while the other one did. Occasionally, though, the controversy involved two larger school districts contending over which one would take in a smaller school. The consolidation of Ritter School with the Springfield (MO) School District is one example of this phenomenon. </span></p><p><span style="font-size: medium;">In the fall of 1949, a county-wide school reorganization plan under which the rural Ritter School, located between Springfield and Willard, would be taken into the Springfield district was rejected by Greene County voters. Then on October 18,1950, a group of Ritter patrons petitioned the Ritter School Board for annexation to Willard, and an election was set for November 6. On October 20, however, the county school board approved a new reorganization plan under which Ritter would be taken into Springfield. </span></p><p><span style="font-size: medium;">One of the main problems with the proposal for Ritter to consolidate with Willard was that the two districts did not join each other. But on November 2, patrons of Schuyler School District, which lay between Ritter and Willard, voted to join Willard, and Willard agreed the next day to accept Schuyler. </span></p><p><span style="font-size: medium;">On November 4, the Ritter patrons who'd gathered the first petition filed a new petition to join Willard, because the legality of the move had been questioned when the two districts did not abut each other. At the November 6 election, Ritter residents voted overwhelmingly to approve the first petition to join Willard. </span></p><p><span style="font-size: medium;">Then in January 1951, they also voted, by an even greater margin, to approve the second petition. One of the reasons Ritter residents cited for preferring to join Willard was that they did not believe in "progressive education," which they felt was taught in the Springfield schools and instead preferred the old-fashioned 3-Rs.</span></p><p><span style="font-size: medium;">Later that month, patrons of Springfield and Ritter voted, by order of the county school board, on a proposal for Ritter to consolidate with Springfield. Ritter patrons voted solidly against the proposal, but, because Springfield voted in favor of it, it passed easily, since Springfield patrons greatly outnumbered Ritter patrons.</span></p><p><span style="font-size: medium;">The Greene County attorney sought the opinion of the Missouri attorney general on the matter, and the state official said the Springfield annexation was legal and that Ritter belonged to Springfield. The Ritter School Board then turned its funds over to Springfield. </span></p><p><span style="font-size: medium;">Boiling mad, some Ritter patrons filed suit in circuit court to overturn the ruling. The judge's sympathies were clearly with the Ritter patrons. He said, "Here a rural school district having at most a population of only a little more than 200 qualified voters, after having twice declared its desire to be annexed to Willard, a neighboring consolidated district with adequate schools, is gobbled up by its city neighbor which has a hundred times as many voters--a rural farming community has been absorbed in a metropolitan school system where instead of managing its own school affairs, it will be hopelessly out-numbered and out-voted, where its school children may feel out of place among strangers."</span></p><p><span style="font-size: medium;">However, the judge said he had to follow the law and that the annexation of Ritter into Springfield, according to the school reorganization law in Missouri, was legal and binding. </span></p>Larry Woodhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12024182801689417267noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5617745107547433863.post-11488833638484018802023-10-14T19:09:00.002-05:002023-10-18T18:39:20.680-05:00Hickory Barren School's Consolidation with Fair Grove<p><span style="font-size: medium;">Last week I wrote in general about the school consolidation movement in Missouri and more specifically about the consolidation of the Bois D'Arc and Ash Grove Schools in Greene County. Another Greene County school consolidation that I'm personally familiar with is the consolidation of the Hickory Barren School into the Fair Grove district, because I was attending Fair Grove Elementary at the time.</span></p><p><span style="font-size: medium;">Greene County began a school consolidation movement at least as early as the 1940s, probably earlier, and Hickory Barren being taken in by Fair Grove was specifically discussed at least as early as 1950. At that time, the proposal was that Hickory Barren and Liberty in Greene County and New Garden, just across the line in Dallas County, would all be consolidated with Fair Grove. Taking in Hickory Barren, however, was rejected by Fair Grove patrons. (Not sure about Liberty and New Garden. They did consolidate with Fair Grove, but I'm not sure whether it was at this time.)</span></p><p><span style="font-size: medium;">What to do with the Hickory Barren district was discussed for a couple of more years, before it was once again slated to be consolidated with Fair Grove if voters of both districts approved. The vote was held in the spring of 1954, and this time it passed. </span></p><p><span style="font-size: medium;">An election to select a new school board for the consolidated district was set for the summer of 1954, and a controversy arose when the names of seven women from the Hickory Barren district were placed on the ballot, apparently without their knowledge or consent. The women included Mrs. Sue Kesterson, Mrs. Mary Kesterson, Mrs. James Roberts, Mrs. Paul Stafford, Mrs. Vivian Weber, Mrs. Evelyn Israel, and Mrs. John R. Wood. Sue Kesterson told a Springfield newspaper at the time that she and the other women did not want to serve as board members and that she thought they had been nominated by "enemies of Hickory Barren" just to stir up trouble by making Fair Grove patrons think that the people of the old Hickory Barren district were trying to take over the Fair Grove School Board. She said this was most definitely not the case.</span></p><p><span style="font-size: medium;">Fair Grove superintendent Wensey Marsh went to the county superintendent, Paul Alan Hale, to try to get the names of the women removed from the ballot, but Hale said he couldn't do it even if he wanted to because it was too late. </span></p><p><span style="font-size: medium;">The dispute resolved itself when the top six vote-getters in the election, held in early July, were all men. When the 1954-55 school year started a month or so later, the former Hickory Barren kids came to Fair Grove. I was in third grade at the time.</span></p>Larry Woodhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12024182801689417267noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5617745107547433863.post-19760605783379833002023-10-09T18:29:00.001-05:002023-10-09T18:29:35.785-05:00Consolidation of Ash Grove and Bois D'Arc<p><span style="font-size: medium;">I've mentioned the school consolidation movement of the 20th century on this blog two or three times in the past. In Missouri at least, the movement started in the early part of the century, picked up steam during the middle part of the century, and then tailed off near the end of the century. In the 1800s and very early 1900s, public educators sought to provide a school within walking distance of every child in the rural sections of the state. However, as roads and methods of transportation improved, the emphasis changed from locating schools close to every child to finding the best way to provide a quality education to the most students in the most efficient and economic fashion possible. </span></p><p><span style="font-size: medium;">School consolidation was more or less a two-pronged movement: 1) incorporating small, rural, elementary schools into nearby K-12 school districts and 2) combining two or more k-12 school districts into one. One instance of two K-12 districts going together to form a single school district that I remember was the Ash Grove-Bois D'Arc consolidation in Greene County during the late 1950s. I was not personally affected by it, but I remember when it happened because I went to Fair Grove Schools, and all three schools (Fair Grove, Ash Grove, and Bois D'Arc) were members of the Greene County League when it came to sports competition. I was in grade school at the time, but I recall that, during my early elementary years, we used to play Bois D'Arc in basketball and then, all of a sudden, we didn't, because there was no longer a Bois D'Arc High School. </span></p><p><span style="font-size: medium;">Consolidation of Bois D'Arc and Ash Grove was first proposed in the fall of 1956, but it was another year before the school boards from the two districts and the Greene County School Board all got together to seriously discuss such a consolidation. The county school board was pushing for the consolidation, because its members, including the county superintendent, thought combining the two school would provide for a better education for a larger number of students. An example cited was the fact that Ash Grove Schools, with an enrollment of 424, had a band and offered agriculture classes while Bois D'Arc, with only 225 students in grades 1-12, did not. Putting the two schools together would give kids from Bois D'Arc an opportunity to participate in those activities as well. </span></p><p><span style="font-size: medium;">In mid-December 1957, the school boards from Ash Grove and Bois D'Arc met in a joint session and agreed to move forward with consolidation. Plans called for an elementary school to be retained in Bois D'Arc while all high school students would go to Ash Grove. It was also mentioned that a few students from the two districts might end up going to either Willard or Republic because the school district boundaries would likely be redrawn to make them more uniform. If the consolidation plan was approved, election of a new, six-member school board for the consolidated district would be held immediately. The county superintendent announced that the consolidated district would probably not be called either Ash Grove or Bois D'Arc. </span></p><p><span style="font-size: medium;">That, however, turned out not to be the case. The proposal for consolidation was presented to voters in March of 1958, and it was overwhelmingly approved by patrons of both school districts, although the ratio of "yes" to "no" votes was understandably somewhat greater among Ash Grove voters than among Bois D'Arc voters, since Ash Grove patrons were not in line to lose their high school. Where school consolidations are concerned, however, this particular one came off with relatively little dissent or dispute, even after it was learned that the high school would still be called Ash Grove rather than being assigned a new name. </span></p><p><span style="font-size: medium;">An interesting footnote to this story is that, when school started in the fall of 1958, the Ash Grove High School basketball coach learned that he had eight players returning who had been varsity starters the previous year. Despite this fact, the coach said he anticipated only an average season.</span></p>Larry Woodhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12024182801689417267noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5617745107547433863.post-39907757602403965462023-10-01T10:12:00.002-05:002023-10-01T10:12:57.069-05:00Mysterious Disappearance of Sadie Nave<p><span style="font-size: medium;">On May 3, 1893, twenty-year-old Sadie Nave arose early, "arrayed herself in her best clothes," and told the woman she was boarding with in Springfield (MO) that she was going out to "seek a situation." She left her trunk, wardrobe, and other belongings at the woman's house, but she never came back.</span></p><p><span style="font-size: medium;">It was almost two weeks later before the <i>Springfield Leader</i> got wind of the girl's disappearance and reported on the story. It was feared Sadie had either been abducted or had committed suicide, said the <i>Leader</i>. "She was rendered desperate on account of the seductive wiles of a man who has promised to marry her and then refused to do so after he accomplished her ruin." It was the "old, old story of loving not wisely but too well," and, according to the newspaper, it had left her despondent and friendless. </span></p><p><span style="font-size: medium;">Sadie had left her home in Douglas County in late 1892 and went to Seymour, where she worked at the Castor Hotel for about five weeks before coming to Springfield in early 1893. She had stayed with and worked for a number of different families since her arrival in Springfield. </span></p><p><span style="font-size: medium;">The name of the young man who'd deserted Sadie was Will Hampton, and it turned out that he had been previously married and had never gotten a divorce. The husband of one of the women Sadie had stayed with consulted an attorney about suing Will Hampton for breach of promise, but the attorney advised the man that he should contact Sadie's father in Douglas County, because he was the proper person to bring such a suit. </span></p><p><span style="font-size: medium;">A <i>Leader </i>reporter called on one of the women with whom Sadie had stayed, and the woman told him that Sadie had often threatened suicide and had tried in vain to purchase morphine and laudanum. "She cried nearly all the time she was with me," the woman said, because Will Hampton had "gone back on her." At one point a month or so earlier, Hampton had promised to meet Sadie at the woman's house and "make it all right with the girl," but he never showed up. Sadie told the woman she'd rather die than face the shame of returning home to Douglas County. </span></p><p><span style="font-size: medium;">The newspaperman thought Sadie had most likely carried through with her repeated threats to kill herself, but whether that is the case, I have not been able to learn. The lack of any follow-up stories to that effect suggests that maybe she did not commit suicide. Or at least that no body was ever found. </span></p><p><span style="font-size: medium;">I mentioned several weeks ago that newspapers in the late 1800s and early 1900s often made headline stories out of incidents that nowadays would scarcely warrant a mention. The story of Sadie Nave seems to fall into that category. Nowadays, such a sad, personal story would probably be considered by most legitimate newspapers to be nobody else's business. Only in the gossip sheets would you likely find a story like this one. </span> </p>Larry Woodhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12024182801689417267noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5617745107547433863.post-54890136808267528772023-09-24T19:31:00.003-05:002023-09-24T19:31:56.862-05:00A Dead Man Turns Up Alive<p><span style="font-size: medium;">On August 31, 1891, two masked men held up the American Bank of Corder in Lafayette County, Missouri, carrying away about $600. The men retreated through a rear door, mounted their horses, and started north. </span></p><p><span style="font-size: medium;">An alarm was given quickly, and a posse started in close pursuit of the bandits. One of the robbers' horses tired, and its rider dismounted and darted into the shelter of a cornfield but not before he was spotted by one of the posse members. The man was soon found inside the cornfield, captured, and brought back to Corder. The captive, who gave his name as Andrew Murrell, had about half of the stolen loot on his person. </span></p><p><span style="font-size: medium;">Two law officers were getting ready to take the robber to the county seat at Lexington when a mob formed, overpowered them, and took the prisoner away. He was strung up to a nearby thorn tree and, according to at least one report, his body was riddled with bullets. The body was left hanging until the next morning, when the county coroner arrived to cut it down. </span></p><p><span style="font-size: medium;">Although the man who was lynched had given his name as Andrew Murrell, circumstantial evidence suggested that he might really be Jesse Messer, who had disappeared from neighboring Pettis County a few days earlier. Relatives of Messer traveled to Lafayette County and identified some of the personal effects of the dead man as having belonged to Messer. The body was then dug up and the identity of the man confirmed as Jesse Messer. </span></p><p><span style="font-size: medium;">Everyone thought that was the end of the story, but it took a strange twist when Messer showed up at his home near Houstonia (Pettis County) in June of 1892, ten months after he had disappeared. He said he'd gone to Saline County when he left home and had been working there ever since. He had heard about his supposed lynching, had got a good laugh out of it, and, thinking it was an insignificant matter, had neglected to inform his family that he was not dead. He asked their forgiveness for not telling them. </span></p><p><span style="font-size: medium;">The question that now arose, as one newspaper asked, was, "Who was the man lynched?" It was suggested that perhaps the dead man's name was indeed Andrew Murrell, just as he had told officers, but, as far as I've been able to learn, the mystery was never solved with certainty. </span></p><p><br /></p><p> </p>Larry Woodhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12024182801689417267noreply@blogger.com0