Volume 5, Number 6 - Winter 1974-75
THE EDITOR SPEAKS
Jewell Ross Mehus
Copies of the Hicks—Byerley Family History may be purchased from the author, Mrs. Viola Hicks, Route 2, Ava, Missouri 65608, postpaid for $5.00.
Mrs. Hicks put out the first edition in 1973; the second in 1974. The book measures 8 1/2 by 11 with 67 pages. She says, "It was my aim to place a copy to each head of the elder families, if possible, and I have not missed many. My father came from a large family and this I must tell you. In getting the material together, I wrote to heads of families. Soon our in—law sons and daughters asked me to include their families, so. . . as, an old man, a cousin to my mother wrote to me, ‘My, my, child I did so enjoy your family trees’."
The Ozark Headliner, newspaper of Ozark, carried during January, a series of articles telling of Harriet Massey’s Caribbean trip from New York City to Los Angeles. We cannot give space to Harriet’s story, but why don’t you stop at the Ozark Headliner office and buy the series for a nominal sum, go to the library to read the same, or better yet, stop at Harriet’s and listen.
I just could not pass up either of the stories that good historian, Douglas Mahnkey, permitted me to read. Concerning Alf Bolin’s Buried Treasure, Doug says, "It is a story of Alf Bolin — some factual, some legend.
‘For my information I have notes of talks with J. W. A. Keithley, Bull Creek Billy’, who was Associate Judge of Taney County Court in about 1928. . . Chester Bilyeu and his brother Clarence furnished much of the information. Robert L. Gideon and Joseph Gideon also gave
me a lot of stories about Bolin. No one that I ever knew or had any contact with had ever seen Bolin. However, many of them such as Keithly and the Bilyeus and Gideons were well acquainted with people who lived in Balm’s time.
"Wiley Brittain in his work ‘Civil War on the Border’, Vol. I, has about a half a page devoted to Bolin. He verifies the fact that Thomas killed Bolin just as I has heard from my mother and ‘Bull Creek Billy’. Sam Boswell, who was a lad during the Civil War, gave me first—hand information as to the severing of Bolin’s head and his burial near old Forsyth."
Concerning the story "The George L. Williams Memorial Library" Mr. Mahnkey says, "Lucile Morris Upton sent me the letter from my mother which I am using in the article. I had read the transcript of the preliminary hearing which contained the other information given in my little story."
Now, here is a promise. Beginning with the next issue of the Quarterly we will include in each issue a story by Douglas Mahnkey. One of those which have been running in the HILL and HOLLER News, a monthly publication of the White River Valley Electric Cooperative. We thank, also, Mr. Norwood Speight, Manager, for permission to use the stories.
They come at an opportune time for me, the editor. Just this month a subscriber to the Quarterly said, "I am glad to see you use cemetary records, marriage records and family data, but I love the stories about what people did in the early days."
For all of you I say, "Thank you Douglas Mahnkey."
Jewell Ross Mehus
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