Volume 4, Number 8 - Summer 1972


The Editor Speaks

L. P. Edwards wants help in finding the name of "Foxy Grandpa" of whom he writes.

Edna Klein, 2528 MacMillian Street, Napa, California, 94558, wants information about N.J. Ramsey. He taught school and worked in the Probate Office in the 1800’s. She does not know whether it was in West Plains or in Taney County. Do you know?

Elmo Ingenthron writes that the Lawrence County Historical Society, P.O. Box 406, Mt. Vernon, Missouri, yet has some copies of a Brief History of Lawrence County, $2.50. That the McDonald County Historical Society has reprinted that portion of Goodspeeds History relating to McDonald and Newton Counties. Pre-publication price was to be $7.00. Write to Mrs Earl Sowers, Pineville, Missouri.

Donald Pharis and Mrs. Pharis of Liberty came a visitin’ to where this editor holds forth. But first they came to Ava to attend a meeting of the WRVHS. In fact they planned a vacation that they might attend the meeting.

Donald Pharis is president of the Clay County Museum Society. My, my, but how that Museum grows and grows. Little wonder that, for Pharis puts out a legal sheet printed on both sides with "history". Last month "Ancestral Lines of Alexander William Doniphan" filled one side of the sheet. This year the Society will review the first 150 years of Clay County, I attended one of the very first meetings of that Society. I was there to learn of what my country might do. Bertha Bless came from Platte County for the same reason. Another of the best museums of the state is that "mothered" by Bertha at Weston. Do make these museums a must when you go thru Clay and Platte Counties.

Call your county chairman of the program for the Fall Meeting if you know a "Story Not in Print". Write the story, try to keep it within or near three minutes of telling time. You surely have listened to your grandparents tell Civil War stories, a story of the first railroad, of the new strain of grape cuttings, of the new church, or maybe of silk worm culture. Give dates and names, too, when possible.

Mrs. Mary Scott Hair recently published a little booklet titled, "Rhymes From Spring Creek Valley".

These are poems Mary Scott Hair told her grandchildren, partly to entertain them, partly to make certain they knew a bit of their heritage. Mary oozes pride in her heritage.

She says as she watches the removing of the railroad track that runs through Hurley, "I am watching the closing of an era. I saw the first train enter Hurley. I listened to the whistle of the last train that passed through Hurley. If I had known it to be the last, I would have been at the crossing to see it pass.

Mary Scott Hair will bring or send two stories "Not In Print" to the Fall Meeting. I have a feeling that at least one of these will be a railroad story. Perhaps there is one of the house built of the first railroad ties removed from the bed. For more than a quarter of a century Samantha (Mary Scott Hair) has in the local newspapers told the story of her area.

A member brought to the editor a complete file of the Quarterlies for sale. They must sell as a complete file, from vol. 1 to now. That I believe is 42 issues. A fair price, $60.00 plus mailing charges. Write if interested.

Jewel Ross Mehus

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