Volume 9, Number 12 - Summer 1988
Honeymooners Romantic Experience in the Ozarks
Edited by Lynn Morrow
From Ca. 1905-20 tourism in the Lake Taneycomo region was often practiced by a cultural gentry from urban cities and towns who could afford the experience. The regional fiction, Shepherd of the Hills, created the opportunity for adventurers to travel a circuit of "historic sites" represented in the book. A great pleasure and attraction throughout America at this time was the opportunity to visit characters and yarn spinners who had served as actual or general models in regional fiction. Thus, the Branson Leader in the summer of 1915 reported a classic example of urban elites visiting a famous place.
Leaving Kansas City, Missouri, Sunday, June 27, 1915 at 8 a.m. the hour of noon finds us with our Cadillac roadster at Butler, Missouri, a distance of7O miles. Here we are confronted with the Marais des Cygnes River seven miles wide on account of the high water stage, it being utterly impossible to cross this water, we are forced like many other tourists to store our car and take the train. We arrive in Branson Monday at noon, dine and take the Sammy Lane for an 18 mile ride down the lake to Powersite. Here we spend a week with experiences as follows.
Not being expert fishers we decide to try our luck, having heard of wonderful catches made below the Ozark dam. A couple of hours fishing supplies us with 18 crappie s and cat which we deem a good reward
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for our efforts.
Our next outing is a hike to Forsyth, the county seat, a distance of 3 1/2 miles, with a friend we have made by the name of Larue from St. Louis. Getting shaved and taking the ferry across the river we hike back again to the Cliff House at Powersite. On our next walk to Kirbyville on the 3rd of July their celebration for the 4th we were entertained by Mr. (James R.) Vanzandt* 91 years of age, the grandfather of 70 children and the great grandfather of 60. Mr. Vanzandt shows us his garden in which we find turnips as large as cantaloupes, string beans a foot long, and everything else in proportion, showing the wonderful growth produced by Ozark soil properly tilled. On our way back to Powersite we participated in dancing with the "hillbillies" as they introduced themselves, and had no end of fun.
After a week at Cliff House on Lake Taneycomo at Powersite we decided to make our headquarters at the Taneycomo Club at Hollister from which we took the wonderful "Shepherd of the Hills" country trip on horseback lasting three days.
Leaving Taneycomo Club at two o’clock on Wednesday, via saddle, six o’clock finds us at Rose O’Neill’s, the home of the "Kewpies". Through the kindness of friends and the aid of a letter of introduction, we had the pleasure of meeting the elder Miss O’Neill, Miss Flo O’Neill and Miss Parra, a visiting friend, also Polah,** a celebrated violinist of Berlin. Leaving Bonniebrook in the midst of a heavy storm, we are beckoned to stop at a wayside cabin sopping wet which we are pleased to find the owner is Madam Mariska Aldrich of the Metropolitan Grand Opera Company. Through her courteous treatment of building a fire and appeasing our hunger we again start on our journey arriving at a farm house and putting up for the night.
Starting the next morning bright and early, noon finds us at Garber where we dine with the finest old couple anyone would care to meet, "Old Matt and Aunt Molly." Securing their pictures and having been
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started on the right road to Notch by Mr. Ross (Old Matt) we made the same at 3 p.m. We meet Uncle Ike and then gallop over to the W. H. Lynch home, the office of Marvel Cave. Taking a two hour trip through the cave we emerge simply spellbound to think that our old state, Missouri, has within itself such wonderful sights. We have read and observed pictures of Marvel Cave but may state it is utterly beyond comprehension until you see it.
Spending an evening of thorough enjoyment in the Lynch home we started the next morning by the old mill site up the trail "nobody knows how old" to Old Matt’s cabin where we encounter ten other tourists and feast on fried chicken until we have to refuse owing to the the fact that our capacity is limited much to our sorrow. Here we also see Pete’s Cave, and the old mill engine and spring. We are now guided by Pete to Dewey Bald where we stand on "Sammy’s Lookout" and cut our initials on the signal tree. Pete now sends us on the trail through Mutton Hollow past Jim Lane’s cabin where we register and resume our way to Taneycomo Club via Branson and Hollister -- the end of the trip over a trail "nobody knows how old" costing very little and worth nobody could say how much.
(The honeymooners were Mr. and Mrs. Jimmy Elwell, 6000 Main Street, Kansas City, Mo.)
*In old age Captain J.R. Vanzandt had become a locally legendary figure. He was a veteran of the Mexican War, Florida War, and Civil War; a Methodist circuit rider; and a state legislator from Taney County.
~ Polab received an appointment at Drury College and spent weeks at Bonniebrook hunting wolves in south Taney County while assisting Rose O’Neill with a musical composition for her Kewpie opera in New York.
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