Volume 6, Number 1 - Fall 1976
The Editor Speaks
The White River Valley Historical Society will meet Sunday, December 12, in the Good Memorial Building at the School of the Ozarks. Go through the Main entrance to the first building. Dinner is served in the Cafeteria beginning at 11:30 o’clock. Senator Emory Melton, president, will call the meeting to order at 1 p.m. in an adjoining room marked with the name of the society. If you wish to, you may bring your food to this room and visit as you dine.
Eula C. Ramsey, 4210 Bunker Hill, North Hog Lands, Calif. 95660, asks for information concerning Amstard Morton Shawley, born June 5, 1844, died June 1883, who married Theodosha Manis or Moten born Nov. 18, 1848, died 1862.
Mrs. Ramsey writes, "One son, Norton, or perhaps, George Norton Shawley, who was my grandfather who married a Cherokee, came with the Trail of Tears from Tennessee. I do not know the name of my grandmother. I think they lived in what was known as McKinney Bend in 1882 when my mother, Georgia Ann Shawley, was born.
Mrs. Ruby Robins, former president of the WRVHS, continues to do a fine job of publishing the history of her area, in her newspaper, the Ozark County Times, printed at Gainesville. In almost every issue, beginning on the lower one-third of the front page she gives a story, complete with pictures, of some family, business, building, cemetery, church, individual, or bit of history. Often these stories run far into another page of the newspaper.
Next issue we will carry a Bald Knobber story using research, by a member of the WRVHS. Now will you write about your family. We need the story of Presbyterian Hill, the story of the Kite Drug store in Hollister, of the owner and his wife (perhaps Mrs. Hackett will do that one, not forgetting the orange marmalade); the story of the several Court houses in Stone County; the story of the wild turkey with pictures; stories and pictures of Barns, perhaps a series of them before there are none left for children to see and know, the what and why of the eightsided one; of the country school you attended: (was there a literary society and from there did some one of the community become a great or and good lawyer?) Let us get busy and preserve local history. We may needs let Marvin Tong research big and long-ago history, but only you can tell of the immediate past of this area.
I sat thru class sessions of a country school, high school, and college and did a little reading concerning the Civil War. And I listened to my grandfather, William Gilbank Smith, born in England and a Union Soldier, and Mr. Alex Marksberry of the adjoining farm in Henry County, a "rebel" according to my grandfather argue the Civil War hour on hour and often with a bit of rancor. I yet know little about the war. But I gave thot when I hear Dr. L.E. Meador say, "The Civil War was won in the West, but the histories were written in the East" and The South won battles, but lost the war when she lost the Mississippi River and its tributaries". I may have my quotes a bit wrong, but they served to start me reading. This week I am doing Schmuckers’ "A History of the Civil War", and lo he mentions as important the fact of keeping Texas cattle from reaching the Southern army. His story of the battle at Cane Hill, Pea Ridge, Springfield, and Lexington with its earthen works ten feet high and its ditch twelve feet wide…There, there, but I am glad there is now time for reading.
Mrs. Mary Lou Newman, Jackson Trailer Park, Cassville, Mo. 65625, wants information on James and Rachel (Holman) Oliver family. There were 12 Oliver children, she has no information on: Abigal (Oliver) Archer, Cynthia Oliver, Lucinda (Oliver) Archer, Martha (Oliver) Haggard, Milton Oliver, Henry Oliver, and Fielding Oliver who died as a child but Mary Lou Newman knows not where or when. She says of this list "They left Taney County before the Civil War and never came back."
by Jewell Ross Mehus
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