Looking Backward
25 years ago
The annual Topaz Fall Festival will be held this Sunday afternoon at the eastern Douglas County community. The fall scenery should be absolutely gorgeous by this weekend, and when you get to Topaz there will be a barbecue dinner awaiting you.
Saturday’s rain showers gave way to beautiful sunshine last Sunday for the 34th Glade Top Trail chicken barbecue.
A residence at the south edge of the Mt. Zion Bible School campus northwest of Ava was destroyed by fire Wednesday afternoon. The home was occupied by the Tom Bolding family and apparently no one was hurt in the fire.
Benny’s Restaurant, this week’s daily special, quarter pounder, French fries and 16 oz. drink only $2.49.
Carter and Deanna (Gunn) Blackerby, Route 3, Ava, announce the birth of a daughter at 7:35 p.m. Sept. 29, 1994 at St. John’s Regional Health Center, Springfield.
Tai Chi Chuan classes are now meeting at 7 p.m. every Monday at Mad Bears Gym. The instructor, Brandon Smith, has been cultivating Tai Chi Chuan for 12 years and also conducts Tai Chi Chuan classes at the YMCA facility in Mtn. Grove.
Announcing the opening of Olde Derby Bar, W. Washington Avenue. Richard and Mary Wolfe, new owners.
Mr. and Mrs. Otto Loomis were pleasantly surprised Sunday, Oct. 2 by their family in honor of their 60th wedding anniversary. Otto Loomis and Jewell Chaney were married Oct. 6, 1934 by Rev. Henry Higby at Mtn. Grove, Mo.
BUCKHART – Hubbie Huntsman and Morgan Smith visited Mr. and Mrs. Danny Smith Sunday.
A crowd of 175 people, family and friends of Steve Sanders gathered at Gentry Roadside Park last Sunday Oct. 9 to help him celebrate his birthday and to support his fight with cancer.
It is always the wrong time to be in the wrong place.
50 years ago
Grayson W. Tallent, son of Mr. and Mrs. Ora T. Tallent of Ava, died at 4:40 a..m. Tuesday from injuries received in the accident at 9 o’clock Monday night. Young Tallent was a passenger in a 1964 Chevrolet sedan driven by Lyle Kivetts, 18, also of Ava. Kivetts was hospitalized at St. John’s in Springfield with lacerations of the mouth and elbow. Also injured, but less seriously, was R.A. (Bud) Clinkingbeard, 37, Route 4, Ava, driver of a 1968 Ford pickup. Clinkingbeard suffered a right knee injury.
Collier Auto Supply, owned for the past 30 years by A.B. Collier and Vance Moore, was sold to Richard Silvey of West Plains and Clyde Bell of Ava.
Noel Elliott, a dairy farmer of eastern Douglas County, has recently been appointed to serve on the Douglas County Farmers Home Administration committee.
The true facts about anything are seldom pure and never simple. Fact often are deeply hidden, like the seven-eighths of an iceberg which always lie under water. Good newspapers, good newspapermen constantly dive, dig, and probe beneath the appearances of things to their deeper, often hidden meanings and connections. That’s the job of a free and unlicensed press.
Sunday afternoon Rev. and Mrs. Dwain Moore and his father, Elva, Mr. and Mrs. Lonnie Moore and Harvey Moore, Mr. and Mrs. Arthur Porter and Beth Ann and Miss Nolajean Schuenemann went to Branson where they put on a 30-minute worship program on station KBBM beginning at 3:00 p.m.
Sgt. Charlie Ray Herrell left Ava Wednesday enroute to Fort Riley, Kansas, where he is scheduled to begin a new assignment with the Army. Sgt. Herrell had been spending a 30-day leave in Ava with his parents, Mr. and Mrs. C.V. Herrell, after completing a one-year tour of duty in Vietnam.
A 13-year-old girl testified in a custody suit last week that she and other children had an electric cattle prod used on them as a disciplinary measure while at a religious community near Ava.
Two Douglas County men have been charged in Magistrate Court with car tampering, according to information on the court record. Jim Thomas and James Hutchinson are accused of tampering with a maroon 1965 Chevrolet coach, owned by Jerry Dale Welch.
The Do-Re-Me’s was the name chosen this week for the elementary music club. Submitting the winning name was Junior Fleetwood, son of Mr. and Mrs. Ronnie Fleetwood. Cathy Durham, daughter of Mr. and Mrs. Bob Durham, submitted the winning name for the folk singing group. Her entry was The Hi-Lo’s.
The Central Ozark Neosonic Opportunity Corporation Douglas County Neighborhood Center will hold its organization meeting Oct. 8 at 2 p.m. in the basement of the courthouse.
Yvonne Johnson was presented with a golden goblet for her record sales performance with Mary Kay Cosmetics., Inc., the Dallas headquartered firm.
75 years ago
Gilbert Grote, farmer of the Hilo community, was here Tuesday with two coyotes he had trapped Monday night in the vicinity of Hilo. This brings Grote’s total up to eight, captured in that vicinity in the past two years. Otis Strong, farmer living some distance north of the Grote place, trapped two coyotes in the same general territory early in September.
Technical Sergeant A.W. (Sonny) Jenkins, here for a 21-day furlough, has had a wide experience during the past 14 months with the U.S. Air Forces in Europe. Sergeant Jenkins has participated in 30 bombing missions, including the bombing of Weinersneiztel Vegasac, Wilhelmshaven, Bresnen, Ludwigsharren, and the robot installations of the Caisis area.
Orval Hale of Goodhope is recovering from the bite of a copperhead snake, suffered last Thursday night. Mr. Hale was working on his truck, which was parked in a weedy spot, and the snake struck him on the arm as he reached under the car in making repairs.
Geraldine Hailey and Geraldine Davis spent the weekend at Little Rock, Ark., and visited with Miss Hailey’s brother, Private Edwin Hailey, who is stationed with an Army unit at Camp Robinson.
Selected candidates to represent the classes for Harvest Queen and Prince Charming for the school’s harvest festival to be held Friday, are: senior, Miss Bonnie Stafford and Bob Livingston; junior, Miss Ruth Jackson and Edwin Brentlinger; sophomore: Miss Alta Hardcastle and Stanley Jennings; freshman: Miss Deatta Johnson and Lawrence Silvey.
Fifteen-year-old German boys and 16-year-old girls have been drafted “jointly with the whole population” to work on “entrenchments along the frontier of the Reich.”
According to a story for which we won’t vouch, a successful candidate for sheriff’s office in a well known county submitted the following required list of campaign expenditures: Lost 1849 hours of sleep thinking about the election. Lost two front teeth and a lot of hair in a personal encounter with an opponent. Donated one beef, four goats, and five sheep to county barbecues. Gave away two pair of suspenders, four calico dresses, $5 in cash, and 15 baby rattlers. Kissed 126 babies. Put up four stoves. Kindled four fires. Shook hands with 9,503 people. Walked 4,967 miles. Told 10,101 fibs and talked enough to make in print 1,000 volumes. Attended 16 revivals and was baptized four times by immersion and twice by other ways. Contributed $59 to foreign missions. Hugged 40 old maids. Got dog bit 39 times and was elected by a small majority.
Mr. and Mrs. Raymond Ellison announce the birth of a daughter, Thursday, Oct. 5. The baby has been named Donna Rae.
ROBERTSON –– Sunday dinner guests of Mr. and Mrs. Norman Alcorn were Henry Huffman and children, Media Davis and Sarah Alcorn.
Woodrow Gray moved Noah Hockett and family to Wichita, Kansas, Sunday.
100 Years Ago
Contracts have been entered into by the Hitchcock Factory Company for materials to construct another large concrete building in the north part of the city. The building is to be used to house a wood factory, will be 60 x 85 feet in size, two stories high, and provide over 10,000 square feet of floor space.
“Roy Tooley Post No. 1” is the name given the local post of the American Legion organized at Ava on Thursday of last week with a charter membership of 25 Douglas County soldiers. The post was named in honor of Roy Tooley, son of Mr. and Mrs. T.D. Tooley of Vanzant, and the first Douglas County soldier to make the supreme sacrifice at the front in France. Officers elected are Cecil G. Reynolds, post commander; Wm. A. Dickison, asst. post commander; E.C. Vancil, post adjutant; and C.G. Blair, treasurer.
BUCKHART –– Mr. and Mrs. Richard Uhlmann are the proud parents of a new daughter.
Mr. and Mrs. C.G. Blair are the proud parents of an 11 and 1/2 pound boy, born at Cabool last Sunday.
The Hitchcock Factor Company checked out in Ava during the month of August about $12,000 and during September over $20,000. Twelve car loads of tomatoes have already been shipped from their factory here this season.
“Bob” Robinett, farmer living near Olathe was arrested at his home last Friday by J.B. Shellhorse of the U.S. Secret Service of Kansas City, for making counterfeit U.S. coins. When Robinett was placed under arrest a pair of molds made from plaster of Paris, designed for the making of nickels, was found in the farm house. The arrest was indirectly due to a quarrel that he had with his wife several days ago. The quarrel is said to have been the culmination of several disputes between Robinett and his wife, in which he is said to have beaten his wife with his fists. At Mansfield, the federal officer received information from J.J. Craig, cashier of the Farmers and Merchant Bank of the circulation of spurious coins of various denominations. Officers are of the opinion that an underground tip had been conveyed to the counterfeiter that a raid was likely to be made, and that the equipment with the exception of the nickel molds had been destroyed or concealed.
High School Notes –– “I can’t” and “not prepared” were the statements most frequently used during class periods all day Monday by most all students. Attempt at self-justification was: “too much fair.” Excuse not accepted. Result, a zero on record. Who was to blame? Answer: “Blue Monday.”
125 Years ago
NEW YORK –– There now seems to be very little doubt that, barring an accident to either man, Heavyweight Champion James Corbett will defend his title against Bob Fitzsimmons, the champion of middle weights. They will meet in the ring for $41,000 after July1 .
Ben Thompson, noted Texas desperado and gambler, died with his boots on in the Vaudeville theater at San Antonio.
Cotton pickers are in demand in the Missouri cotton country.
The “Frisco” road is to be called the “Santa Fe” hereafter.
In 1826 the crime of perjury was a hanging matter in Missouri.
Shannon County has a population of 10,000 and there is not a bank in the county.
Circuit Judge Ellison has decided that Kirksville having voted itself “dry” is “dry.”
The ‘open season’ has opened with such a roar of shot guns that the quails are migrating.
The counties of Livingston, Mercer, Morgan, Pike, Putnam, Scotland, Washington and Worth have lady school commissioners.
Prosecuting Aattorney Farnsworth returned from Walls Township on Sunday where he went to prosecute Workman & Workman on a charge of disturbing the peace.
The average Japanese god is sixty feet high. He is a hummer. No little dumpy, sawed-off god will suit the Japanese.
In politics it is often not so much a question as to whether a man will run as it is whether he will stand and deliver.
It is estimated that capital and labor would lose $3,000,000 a day were all railroads in this country blockaded by strike or boycott.
If man had been limited to the use of his natural weapons of defense he would long since have been beaten out of the contest by the animal kingdom.
Mrs. Belle Wilson, in the interest of her business, spent two week in the city of St. Louis, devoting all that time to studying the Fall and winter styles in the millinery line. She has made careful selections and the ladies of Ava and vicinity may rest assured that if they purchase their hats of Mrs. Wilson, they will be strictly in style. The new millinery store of Mrs. Wilson is doing a thriving business.
The Douglas County Normal was never more prosperous than it is at the present, and with every indication for a large increase of students for the next term.
The Ava Dramatic Club held a meeting Monday night at the residence of H.S. Wilson to arrange for a play to be given on New Years evening.
SPRINGFIELD, Mo. – A. R. Crawford, cashier of the defunct American National Bank, was found guilty and sentenced to five years in the penitentiary for forgery in altering the bank’s books.
KANSAS CITY –– Never before in the history of pigeon shooting have the lovers of the sport been treated to as wonderful a contest as was given by J.A.R. Elliott and Dr. W.F. Carver at Exposition Park yesterday. Mr. Elliott won by the remarkable score of 100 to 99. Mr.. Elliott has probably established a record, with 50 yard boundaries, that will never be broken.
