Volume 2, Number 10 - Winter 1966
The Editor Speaks
by Jewell Ross Mehus
Does any one know who the persons are in the picture of the Old Bridge at Taneycomo as published in the 1966 Fall Issue of the Quarterly? Carl B. Ike of Deepwater sent the picture.
Mrs. Fauntella J. Hill, Medford, Oregon, says:
"The word ‘dog’ on page 10 of Vol II, No. 8 should have read ‘wild hogs’. Hester Stanely Johnson said those small wild hogs stayed in the cane brakes along Big Beaver Creek in Taney County. They were seen as late as 1872. Shortly thereafter they seemed to have migrated farther west.
Mrs. Hill added, "Thank you for returning the Stanley family pictures. The one couple, Thomas and Nancy Sheridan, were the parents of the movie actress, Ann Sheridan, who died recently."
In a letter to Dr. Lyle Owen, Vance Randolph, eminent writer of Ozark Folk Lore tells that copies of The Pioneers by E. J. and L. S. Hoenshel, are rare. Randolph says he has seen only three, one in Columbia, one in the New York City Library, and one owned by Otto Ernest Rayburn. Many of us recall buying Ozarkania from Mr. Rayburn at his shop in Eureka Springs. I think Mr. Rayburn left his fine personal collection of Ozark books to the University of Arkansas.
Myking says that wherever I am I sell the White River Valley Historical Society Quarterly. I am certain that I sell the Ozarks and to me the White River Valley covers "The" Ozarks.
I did come away from Camelback Inn, between Phoenix and Scottsdale, Arizona, with a ten dollars for the White River Valley Historical Society Quarterly.
Mr. Philip N. Sunderland, of Danbury, Connecticut, a guest at Camelback, read my copy of the Winter 1966 issue, then said: "Allow me, please, to make a small contribution to the Treasury of the White River Valley Historical Society. It would be a pity to have it suspend publication. My best to you and to the Society."
For Mr. Sunderland I immediately felt a kinship. He builded Mark Twain’s home in Redding, Conn., in 1908 . . . Then Philip Sunderland was thirty-seven years old, now he is 95 years young. I literally sat at his feet and asked for more stories of Mark Twain.
Never did Mr. Sunderland make our Missouri-born writer any one but a lovable person. That, though according to some biographers, Mark Twain was bawdy often and egotistical generally . . . but Mr. Sunderland is a kindly gentleman.
Mr. Sunderland told me of the friendship between Mr. Clemens and Albert Bigelow Paine. He says the story is that Mr. Paine had written a biography of Thomas Nast, the famous cartoonist of "Harper’s Weekly" in the 1870’s and 1880’s, which interested Mr. Clemens very much since he was a friend of Mr. Nast. Mr. Clements invited Mr. Paine to call on him at his home in New York. The visit ended by his telling Mr. Paine that he wanted him to be his biographer. They became friends and Paine often visited him thereafter.
Mr. Clemens secretary, Isabel Lyon, and Mr. Paine became friends. Mr. Paine had a home in Redding. He suggested that Miss Lyon visit him as there was an excellent hillside property which he though would be just the site for the country house which Mr. Clemens wanted to build.
Mr. Clemens asked John Mead Howells, Architect, son of William Dean Howells, the author, a close friend, to look at the Redding property. Howells too liked the property very much. Mr. Clemens bought the place and said, "Johnny, you design me a house."
Mr. Sunderland says that Mark Twain never came near the house during its construction. The author said, "I do not want to see it until the kitten sits purring on the hearth."
I am glad Jack Stewart, a graduate of the University of North Dakota, has, with Louise, built a bit of Heaven in the desert, a bit called Camel-back Inn, for there we meet ‘interesting’ people like Philip Sunderland.
Here it is near summer and we are just getting out the Winter Issue . . . Somehow the mailing crew was late getting the Fall Issue in the mail. Then with a new printer who did not know we were one issue behind . . . well we are yet one issue behind. Please bear with us. Please remember we are all busy workers, each with a "work-day job". The Quarterly is our extra curricular job.
The School of the Ozarks prints our magazine on a "cost" basis; not on a "cost plus" basis.
Dr. Graham Clark, president of The School of the Ozarks, says, "We do not want to make any money off this publication. We will do everything we can to keep it going. We think it a good thing for the community and for posterity".
For Dr. Clark’s backing we feel grateful. But even with The School of the Ozarks doing the printing at "cost", the cost yet runs high. Myking often tells me how they sold eggs in Brinsmade, North Dakota when he was a boy for five cents a dozen. Now I pay more than fifty cents a dozen. So we must pay more for paper and other printing operations.
However, if all 700 of you members pay your dues we will carry on and on with the Quarterly.
And do not forget to send material. That means send facts and stories about your family; pictures and old clippings; wills and other records.
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