Volume 3, Number 3-4 - Summer & Fall 1968
The Editor Speaks
Across the hall from me at Burge Protestant Hospital in Springfield is Mrs. Joe Glossip, born at Ocie, Missouri, Ida Watts, daughter of Eula Bailey Watts and Henry Watts. Joe Glossip is a son of Henry Glossip and Ida Norman Glossip of Ponce de Leon, Missouri.
Maxine Glossip Marlin of Berryville, Arkansas, daughter of Ida and Joe, quickly informed me that "Ponce de Leon was once bigger than Crane or Galena - or Springfield."
I could not deny the fact, but must have appeared uncertain, for Maxine soon brought to me supporting evidence-newspaper clippings from "Springfield News-Leader" and ''Chicago Sunday World-Herald." The information came from Gerald Pipes.
He tells that Fountain Welch laid out the town in 1881. Peg Leg Nelson put up a two-story hotel; John Gideon, a distillery; and A. P. Flood, a saw mill. By 1886, the population was 2,000, doubled most of the time by visitors, who came to take a bath in the Medicinal waters.
Joe Glossip had a feed and general store in Ponce de Leon but has had a store in Spokane for years.
I am thinking that Ponce de Leon deserves a visit and some research. Will you send to me any material, clippings, or stories about Ponce de Leon's history, and we will preserve it in our columns.
* * *Today there came a letter from Avis Hawkins wanting the address of Jessie Cox. Avis thinks that Thomas Hawkins who witnessed the Last Will and Testament of Jesse Yarnell is the same Thomas Hawkins she has "chased from Virginia to Carolina-a skip-then found in Grainger County, Tennessee."
Also she wants to locate a Robert Edward Foster, who wrote a column for newspapers around Eureka Springs and Taney County under the by-line of Rebel's Roost.
He lived for a time with Aunt Jane Mitchell Todd Corbin in Eureka Springs.
Avis says: "His first wife was reportedly a daughter of a Georgia Governor. I do not know when they were in Belton, Missouri, but Jane Mitchell Todd Corbin died there at the age 99."
Can you help Avis Hawkins, 1634 Holley, Shreveport, Louisiana 71101?
* * *Again this year (1968) you will receive only three issues of the Quarterly. One subscriber wrote a very nasty letter concerning the fact that the editor misled the members; for membership promised four issues a year-At least she could not blame the officers for there's been no meeting of the Society or Officers elected for two years.
My explanation-and I have no apologies-when it takes sometimes several months to get an issue printed and then takes two or three months to get an issue mailed-and when funds are low, because members do not pay their dues-I cannot get out four issues a year.
To be truthful, I think you are fortunate to get three issues for $2.00, with prices what they are. I am doing the best I can (without salary, please know, nor do I want any) to keep the Quarterly going until the Society becomes reactivated-but keep in mind, I am only the Editor, without Portfolio. The Society is yours; as is the Magazine.
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