Hello, just wanted to say I was the other lister looking for Beardon information. I have a "Lucinda Beardon" (10/1835-6/9/1908) whose married names were (1) Kelley and (2) Abney. Census information shows she was born in Missouri, but her parents were from NC and GA. I thought the "Frances Marion Berdon" mentioned was also from MO, but his folks came from KY. Please correct me if I have any of the wrong. I'd love to find a connection. Diana ----- Original Message ----- From: HOUK DON (CBD) <DGHOUK@email.kline.co.jp> To: <MO-AR-WRV-L@rootsweb.com> Sent: Tuesday, September 19, 2000 7:11 AM Subject: RE: Cupp- Beardon--COMPTON--McKINNEY > Since Vonda added something to the very extensive and interesting > CUPP-BEARDON family data, and stated toward the end of her message below > that Lorea BEARDON married Albert COMPTON but she didn't have anything > further, here is (as Paul Harvey would say) THE REST OF THE STORY about > Lorea and her husband: > > LOREA LAURA BEARDEN > (spelling given me was BEARDEN--I don't know which is correct) > b.14 July 1912 in Chestnut Ridge, Taney Co., MO > d.31 Jan 1990 Springfield, Greene Co., MO > md 27 June 1931 in Branson, Taney Co., MO > JAMES ALBERT COMPTON > s/o John Thomas COMPTON & Daisy Mae SHAWLEY McKINNEY > b.5 Oct 1910 Branson, Taney Co., MO > d.21 Sept 1999 Branson, Taney Co., MO > they were parents of 2 children: > 1) Betty Mae COMPTON who married Archie PLUMMER > and still lives in Branson > 2) Albert James COMPTON who married Lynn Conway > b.12 Aug 1935 Branson, Taney Co., MO > d.2 Jan 1977 > > In order for Vonda to add to another name to her list of those having > Cherokee roots, the above-named Daisy Mae SHAWLEY was a Cherokee orphan > raised by Benjamin & Sis McKINNEY and hence took their name, as did some > others whom they took into their home since Benjamin & Sis had no children > of their own. Who Daisy's Cherokee line was unfortunately wasn't ever > identified prior to her death so I guess it will never be known. Daisy and > her husband John Thomas COMPTON were married in Forsyth 3 July 1897 and > lived to celebrate their 71st wedding Anniversary in 19 68 prior to John's > death in Calif. that year & Daisy's death in 1969. > > Above-mentioned Benjamin Franklin McKINNEY is mentioned in numerous early > Taney Co. stories but I have no other info on his ancestry except that shown > below, and therefore wonder if anyone else knows about his line since he > left no descendants: > > BENJAMIN FRANKLIN McKINNEY > b.18 Sept 1837-TN > d.5 Feb 1926 Taney Co., MO > md about 1860-1861 Taney Co., MO > BELVERETTA CATHARINE "Sis" CASEY > (d/o Levi CASEY & Mary "Polly" HAGGARD) > b.2 Dec 1844 Greene Co., MO > d.26 Apr 1921 Taney Co., MO > > Benjamin & Sis had no children of their own but helped raise a number of > orphans or at least opened their home to a number of less fortunate young > people in the Taney Co. area throughout their lives. > > Don Houk > E-mail: dghouk@email.kline.co.jp > > -----Original Message----- > From: Vonda Sheets [mailto:vonda@peoplepc.com] > Sent: Sunday, September 17, 2000 2:49 PM > To: MOTANEY-L@rootsweb.com > Subject: Cupp & Beardon & Hensley & Long & Wilson & Nash, etc. > Hey, Ideana, > >>3 Florence Beardon 1909 -<< > Florence Beardon married Chester Hensley, s/o Benjamin Hensley and Maggie > Long. She died 27 May 1970, here in Branson. They lived up by the Berry > Cemetery, on land that is just south of the current Branson High School. I > posted about this back in June, when our cemetery hopper group was featured > in the Springfield paper. > There were tombstones taken from the cem and used in the rock porch and > outbuildings. You can see them quite clearly. There is a small building > out of the rock, once used by George Beardon as a house. I don't imagine he > had more than a cot and maybe a cabinet in it--if memory serves me right, > Grandma said that it was also a chicken coop. > > If you want to get really twisted up....(gosh, a person shouldn't have so > much fun being cruel...LOL) > > Are you "listening", Pama? > > Maggie Long was the daughter of Franklin Long and Susan Charity Wilson. > Susan was the daughter of David William Wilson and Catherine Ann Brant. > David and Catherine were my ggg grandparents. > David and Catherine's son, John William, was my gg grandfather. His first > wife was Millie Wilson, who was the daughter of Johnathon Wilson and Mary > Ann Chrisman. Johnathon and David Wilson were brothers, so John William > married his first cousin (this was not an Indian marriage; these folks were > probably Irish). > John William Wilson and Susan Charity Wilson Long had a sister, Ruth, who > married Thomas Jefferson "Jeff" Nash, who were Pama's great-grandparents. > Catherine Ann Brant Wilson is buried in Renshaw Cemetery. > > Please forgive me for forgetting...but someone else onlist is looking for > Beardon info. Florence's father was Louis F. Beardon, as Ideana stated. > Louis' father was Frances Marion Beardon. > > The last child you have under Louis and Laura Cupp Beardon, was Lorea > Beardon. Her husband was Albert Compton. I don't have any information on > them other than that. > > So you are cousins, at least by marriage--I'd be afraid to figure the exact > degree out--to both me and Pama, possibly Don H., my husband Greg (who is a > Blansit/St. Clair descendant), the whole Bilyeu shebang, and most of the > folks who lived in Bear Creek Valley. > > Hee hee. Gawrsh, dat wuz fun... > Congrats on your new info...way to go! > Vonda > > > ==== MOTANEY Mailing List ==== > > > > ============================== > Search ALL of RootsWeb's mailing lists in real time. > RootsWeb's Personalized Mailing Lists: > http://pml.rootsweb.com/ > > > ==== MO-AR-WRV Mailing List ==== > Do you have records or data for the WRV? Transcribe it! > Do you have a webpage with information for the WRV? Link it! > Get involved! > > ============================== > Search ALL of RootsWeb's mailing lists in real time. > RootsWeb's Personalized Mailing Lists: > http://pml.rootsweb.com/ >

Good Monday to ya! I don't know how many of you have become members of Ancestry.com since MyFamily bought Rootsweb; I was a member before, having decided it was something I needed to try out in learning all I could about genealogy. Anyhow... They send out a bi-monthly magazine the regular ol' snail mail way. Most of the time, the various quarterly and other mags I get, being "in the business", are pretty dry reading, but the Ancestry mag is usually enough to make me lie awake reading after Greg's passed consciousness...<BG> The Sept/Oct issue was one of those, mostly because of its articles on cemeteries, etc. However, I was dismayed to discover that the writer wrote about cems which are in "civilized" locations. Not once did she touch on family cems, or regional research. The bulk of the article concerned records she found in cemetery offices and death records; although she wrote about possible incorrect tombstone information, she assumed, at least to me, that all graves have tombstones. Ahuh. All the pictures with the article also showed cems that were well-manicured, with neat rows of tombstones; a couple even show the church or other building associated with the cem. Welllllllll. Gotta say, she's lucky her people all stayed, apparently, in the Northeast and along the eastern seaboard. (Heck, I can't even get the majority of my lines within viewin' distance of the Atlantic--one line did come from Wales (Evans) and one from Prussia/Pomerania (Radloff)--and I'm into the 1700s and even the 1600s on some of them!) Cemetery Research in the White River Valley is nowhere near that easy. Cemetery offices? Them could be considered snooty words, or words that should never be in the same paragraph, let alone the same sentence. Tombstones? Well, they mighta used a rock. And the rock might still be there. Depends on if any building was going on near the cemetery at any time in its existence. Death records? If they could write, and if they had a family Bible, or wrote a letter to kin who lived "back home".... Most of us have gone on cemetery hops, or visited cems where our people are buried. How many of us can say every single person in our lines have tombstones? All the way back? Not if they lived in the White River Valley...with a few exceptions, the majority of us have family cemeteries we can't find, or that have been deeded over to counties and stand neglected to the point you can't see the other side of the acre or 1/2 acre the cem is in size. You can only visit these cems if you are going in the colder months of the years, for they are thick with copperheads, not to mention ticks and other critters. We won't even discuss poison ivy <BG for B> The article is well-written, and probably relevant for most folks. One thing the author didn't take for granted was that sometimes you just don't know WHERE someone is buried, but she used an instance of an aunt (something like 3xg) who was buried with her parents, and the tombstone was never changed to note that. However, the office associated with the cem had not only the aunt, but the aunt's "boyfriend" recorded as being buried in the parents' plot. The author also seems to presume you can find a death record. Okay. In the WRV region, even if you don't live here, you don't necessarily have to come here to find a cemetery. Somebody, somewhere, most likely, has recorded a cemetery that is currently unknown; land deeds, chapters of the DAR who have done transcriptions, that sort of thing. Taney county, for instance, has had its cems recorded by at least 4 different people in roughly 40 years--and each one of them has found people in cems that weren't previously noted, or whose location has since become a mystery (even with the boundaries noted). There have been many more people involved in transcribing, some for their own benefit, but we are discussing the ones who've published their work, or made it accessible to the public by donating their records. First, if you haven't found a record of a person's death, and they seemed to have just dropped off the earth, you need to figure out where they lived. To say one county or another is a start, but you need to know the part of the county. Second, you have to take into account the difficulty of traveling, especially with a pine box in the back of the wagon, taking up enough room that the kids either have to ride with someone else to the cemetery, or walk. That's if they had a wagon. This country is ROUGH. I'm not kidding in the least when I say we still have shelf-rock roads, limestone outcroppings that make roads exceedingly difficult to navigate in a car or truck--imagine sitting in a wagon, trying to maintain your balance and stay on the seat while one side of the wagon is a good 6 inches (or more)higher than the other. While going up or down a hill. No seat belts. And keeping one hand on your hat, which is necessary for protection from the elements, and which you might have only one of. So folks created a cemetery on their own land, POSSIBLY deeding the land to the county on their next visit to the county seat. Then again, maybe they don't deed the land. Another possibility is that they used another family's cem, which was close by. And the other family only noted their own deaths, but not burials by neighbors. A church nearby? Sometimes. And sometimes they kept records of the births, deaths, and marriages of members. If they lived in an area, such as Horseshoe Bend, or another area that required crossing the White River or a creek during high waters, look to other counties. In the case of Horseshoe Bend and other parts of southern Taney county, you'd have to look in northern AR. In southern Stone county, same story. Tombstones are another matter altogether. IF they died before the late 1870s/early 1880s, depending on where they lived, they may NOT have one. Or, if someone later had a stone erected, the dates could be wrong. There weren't many, if any, stone cutters in the area who erected tombstones for a living before the 1880s. I've been trying to think of stones I've seen with earlier dates of death on them, and none come to mind, except the Berry infants who died in the early 1860s. My guess is that their father or an uncle had some stone experience, and produced the stone out of his own resourcefulness. That is by no means unusual throughout the area, but what happened when the person who made the stones died? So you're reduced to fieldstone markers. Sometimes it is possible to figure out where a certain person is buried, the grave marked by fieldstone. Depends on what researching records tells you. I'm thinking of the Berry Cemetery, in Taney County, on the north end of Branson. The only stones in evidence are those of the two infant sons. However, there is evidence of some 30-40 graves in the immediate area. Looking at the house nearby, which is a minimum of 100 years old (if my grandmother is correct), I wouldn't be surprised if the Berrys (Francis P., by the way) built the original house, and the one you can see was built around it. But after their marriage in the early 1900s, Ben and Maggie Long Hensley apparently bought the place and did some improving. I don't know who, if anyone, owned the place between the Berrys and the Hensleys. I don't know who built the rock front porch, the rock outhouses. I do know--at least some of those buildings are built out of tombstones. From the cemetery in what is now the front yard. Much of the rock is limestone, which is of course, abundant. Nicely flat, like professional rock work. I've not taken a cornstarch sock to the rock to see if the names and dates are still evident. Might should oughta do that (now that I think on it). I could get unlucky and find that if there were any carvings, they were all turned to the inside. A lot of research could give me some ideas on who is buried in this cemetery. Census records, family records. I could check that research against other cems in the area, and see who isn't in them, who I know lived nearby. We also have to take into account the fact that many of the White River Valley's courthouses were burnt, either during the Civil War or later. But I won't ever know for sure. My ggg grandfather could even be buried in there. You can't holler too much about fieldstone being taken from cems and used in building the old places, either. Getting rock and lugging it any distance is hard work. If a house or another building was built near an old cemetery, there's all that easy rock, right there. Hillbillies of Scots-Irish descent, in particular, were noted for their thriftiness. Good way to ease some work, y'know. And they weren't particularly worried about any "haints" getting at them for disturbing the graves. That's just superstition, and some folks just aren't. (However, I don't think I could've done it...and I'm not particularly superstitious). You can holler about the damage being done today. I know of a gazebo and landscaping done, just in the past few years, on property next to Renshaw Cemetery in Rockaway Beach. Given the number of holes there are in the cem, just the size of a foot--or a fieldstone marker--and given that there are several more depressions in the ground, obviously graves, in a cemetery which has a few spectacular tombstones, I would say at one time, every grave was marked. Not anymore. The article--sorry for getting off-track, I get aggravated--also talks about buying plots. Off the top of my head, I can't think of any cemetery in Taney County that people "bought" plots in. Might have been some, else there wouldn't have been so many "family" cemeteries. The cemetery used mostly these days, Ozarks Memorial, I'm sure you have to buy the plot. Folks just didn't have any cash. If a non-family member was buried in a neighbor's cem, if there was any charge for the plot, it was done on a barter-basis. Had to have been. That's how things got done. I don't know enough about that particular aspect; it's an educated guess. No cash for a plot, stands to reason, no cash for a stone. You are not always going to be able to find the location of an ancestor's grave. Cold, hard fact. You might be able to figure out the cemetery, using what you know of where they lived and the cems close by. But the actual grave? I won't say it can't happen, but you gotta realize it might not. Bob Miley, Taney County's cemetery expert (you've heard me braggin' on him), is looking for Old Forsyth Cemetery. It's in Swan Creek Valley, somewheres upstream from the original townsite of Forsyth. Tammy Roberts has an "Old Forsyth Cemetery" on the "Taney and Beyond" website, but Bob says that is the new Forsyth Cemetery, located near the school. The old one is mentioned in several books about the area, but has been changed over the years enough to make it unrecognizable. Bob is trying to get the Corps of Engineers in to use some high-tech equipment and find it. This is long enough, I won't even go into the lack of death records. Let's just say, things that work in other areas/regions for research, not just in cemeteries, but in all aspects of life in the WRV, don't necessarily work here. I'm more familiar with Taney and Stone counties in MO, but this kind of research applies to all of the White River Valley. Vonda

Hey, gang, Jo just let me know the link I sent in the "News Post" doesn't work; okay, so I can't type... You can access it by going to the Taney page off the WRV home site, or use http://homepages.rootsweb.com/~moarwrv/taneycomaps.html I copied and pasted that by following the route described above, and got there... <G> Vonda

Okeydoke, After some frustration--not a lot--and a few wrinkles ironed out, the maps I've been working on for Taney County are now online http://homepages.rootsweb.com/~moarwrv/taneycomaps/ WARNING: The 2 1913 maps are huge, requiring a few minutes to download on your computer for the first time. I would suggest (after you go to the kitchen for a drink) once your browswer has finished loading the files, which are jpeg, then do the following: 1) Right Click on the image with your mouse. 2) click on "Save As" 3) when your window pops up, put it wherever you keep your gen pictures or research notes--in that directory. 4) Then "save" This will save you from having to go online to view the map; I couldn't get the 1913 maps to print while creating the pages, but they might now that they are online. They are BIG! Too big for a single piece of paper--you will have to tape them. But I wanted you to see the details. They will be valuable, especially when you start looking for towns and cems. Which is coming, I promise! (Have I lied to you yet? LOL) BTW, Pama isn't able to take over this week, so you'll have to put up with me... But I won't be hanging online much. Gotta yard sale to prep for. Vonda Listmom for MOTANEY and MO-AR-WRV

Robert Eugene (Bobby Gene) Wylder passed from this life on Sept. 16, 2000. He was a lifelong resident, born in Hollister, MO.on May 10, 1936. He served in the US Arty. Army. Proceeded in death by his parents Andrew and Lorena Mae Wylder, brothers William and Donald, nephews Robert A. and Gregory O. He is survived by 1 son-Hollister and 3 daughters-Missy, Tami L. and Theresa W.,1 brother- Robert J. Wilder and several other family members. He shall be missed Sincerely, Pama Wilder

>>Pama Wilder came by yesterday (after I called and bribed her), and while I had to back her into a corner and then beg, hair standing on end and all, she agreed...I am going to take a week off from the puter next week (starting when I get the maps uploaded and I'll notify you). I don't know that I am suffering from burnout, but I'm not taking a chance, and so Pama will be ListMom for a few days.<< Hello there Listers, This is Pama and I will do my best to help out with anything that I can. I am really new to this and hope that I can find information that will help. I, (Taking a big swallow), am in the Taney County area, but as Vonda has found out I am one of the "Old Hillbillies" that you there make fun of. LOL Nope, I don't were overalls, smoke a corncob pipe, or wear one of those funny hats. I do, however, walk barefooted a lot, at home, gots to wear shoes at work and I do talk with a with an accent or so I've been told. I was raise on Bear Creek since I was 3, if I tell you how long I've lived here it would give away my age, lets just say about 40 years. I am married, have 4 kids, 4 grandchildren and grandchild on the way. I am very interested in finding family, not just for me, but for anyone that is looking. Families are so very important. My lines are Nash, Bilyeu, Wilson, Myers, Faulk, and several more. If I can help just give me a holler. I shall try my best to fill in Vonda's shoes, (Only while she takes a very well deserved break. She is so very helpful to everyone. You all of to meet her, she is just great. Thanks for you time. Warmest Smiles, Pama

It's Football Friday! The servers are fixed, and Greg re-upped the business site. I didn't do any mail yesterday, and after I fixed a snafu this morning that not even Greg found, my mail seems to be going about its business. I have been feeling more gray/silver hairs popping out this week--I can tell. I am in the midst of doing up some maps for Taney County at the WRV site. It occurred to me that the volunteers for cem transcribing in Taney County would be greatly helped by having a map to look at, so after a few days of frantic digging, I came up with one (why that notebook ended up where it did is a total mystery) that I've been working on. More about it on the Taney list later. Now... Pama Wilder came by yesterday (after I called and bribed her), and while I had to back her into a corner and then beg, hair standing on end and all, she agreed...I am going to take a week off from the puter next week (starting when I get the maps uploaded and I'll notify you). I don't know that I am suffering from burnout, but I'm not taking a chance, and so Pama will be ListMom for a few days. That means that she will be doin' the "howdies" and trying to help folks when she can; I don't expect any trouble, and she may even get y'all jumpstarted on the fall research season. I might even get some new research done--I tend to forget that's what it's all about, research...there's so much to share in the way of our history, I get in a hurry to try to do all-around research and writing, and guess what? After a while, you get to wondering how you got down the path you're on. Speaking of all around history--if some of you have some stories about when your families moved to the WRV, or the "whys and wherefores" of why they left, let's hear about them. Y'all just jump right in on Monday and make Pama feel like she's doing me a big favor...LOL Vonda ListMom for MOTANEY and MO-AR-WRV at Rootsweb http://homepages.rootsweb.com/~moarwrv/

Well. The copper-turtle server is still down, but at least there's something there now that tells you it will come back...! SO...if you e'd me asking for the links to the Townsend Godsey books, and I've not answered you...there have been some unforeseeable complications. The server containing the business website was physically moved Friday evening, and while our mailing server wasn't supposed to be upset about it, apparently it was. I've not been able to check my email since then. Then tonight, techno-guru Greg managed to find our mail (everyone in the family has a mailbox there) and I darn near had a stroke when he told me I had 1200 emails. I've been fretting over getting kicked off my own lists, but that didn't happen (dream on...LOL). I've been fretting over not getting requests from folks onlist for the book links, which I couldn't give you since the server was down. Incredible, impossible timing. Not very funny. Then my puter, which doesn't seem to appreciate Greg as much as I do, threw a hissy and wouldn't let him download my mail. In retrospect, I wisely took off and drove around with my visiting sis-in-law for an hour, just long enough to stay out of Greg's hair and let him figure out the mess. Part of it is figured. For the time being, if you happen to have my addy for copper-turtle in your address books, please use mailto:vonda@peoplepc.com . I changed my settings to use that for the "reply to" button, so any e you send should go to that mailbox. If it goes to copper-turtle, please be patient... I did get kicked off some of my lists, and the bad part is, I don't remember which ones...but they were the busiest ones, and so I'm sure I'll get to missing them. For those of you receiving doubles of messages, I often send posts to both lists at the same time. If you are on both lists (MOTANEY and MO-AR-WRV), you get doubles. I was getting 4 of them...and it's hard not to think you're boring folks when you read the same subject line 4 times in your own mailbox. I have managed to get through all the emails, believe it or not...for some reason, although I checked my mail every day last week, a lot of it was the same mail I got last week. So if I wrote you in reply to a message you sent last week, just realize I didn't dare drink coffee to stay awake, and my frazzlement isn't necessarily catching. Else I'm having a bad dream in which the same emails are going to haunt me forever. Gots to git. I told the kids I was going to get them up earlier than usual in the morning, but that only works if I hear the alarm clock... Let's have some genealogy and some local stuff! Brighten my day tomorrow! And thanks for letting me sob on your shoulders... <mutter, mutter, 1200 emails...> Vonda ListMom for MOTANEY and MO-AR-WRV http://homepages.rootsweb.com/~moarwrv/

Hee, hee... Got my Summer 2000 issue of the White River Valley Historical Quarterly in the mail just a little while ago. Ingrid Albers, a list member here, has done wonderful with her first issue as editor! (and I'm not just saying that because I have an article in there, either...I'm ashamed I didn't contribute earlier, when Lynn Morrow, the former editor, was aboard, and I have all 1001 excuses at the ready, including being one of the younger and newer members) I would say this is a history-making edition for a variety of reasons, not the least being Ingrid's first...included are articles about the MO-KS Melungeon Group; several articles about Branson and Hollister in the early days, including articles about the Turkey Creek Bridge in Hollister, and the first stage production of Shepherd of the Hills on the lake front in Branson; there is a letter from one Bald Knobber descendant to another; and an article about Frank Jones, a sheriff in Christian County, MO. Unfortunately, the latest edition online is from 1998... Maybe that's another project for next year, eh? You can join the Society from the home page of the White River Valley of MO and AR at http://homepages.rootsweb.com/~moarwrv/ and scroll down to "The White River Valley Historical Society". Members get copies of each quarterly for the year of their membership, as part of membership dues. Speaking from experience, each one is a good read; I'm going to have to start keeping a list of the ones I do have so I can get the ones I don't...(can't you hear poor Greg moaning now? LOL) Hear, hear, Ingrid! GREAT WORK! Vonda

Hi, I'm new to this list, and helping a friend of mine research his grandmother. I have her on the 1870 and 1880 census of White River Township, Barry County. The family was James MOSS & wife, Margaret. My friend's grandmother was their daughter Emma. The family has always claimed that Emma was Cherokee. We are having a problem making that connection. The census lists the family as white, but I know that can be misleading, because of the fear back then, of being considered Indian. I am wondering if anyone has access to the 1900 census to see if James & Margaret Moss are still listed there. Emma was married in 1883, to Edward Maynard Thurman, in Denton County, Texas. I have no idea if the entire family moved there or not. If anyone possibly has any information on this family, I would be eternally grateful if you could pass it on to me. Thanks. Myrna MyrnaS@aol.com

Well... I'm not totally cut-off from the rest of society, anyway... I'm headed over to Forsyth to make copies of Bob's notebooks, and to work on my lessons for my certification course...I've been dragging my feet, reasons unknown. The quarterly meeting Sunday of the WRVHS went well. It has been decided to re-activate the Historic Places Committee, and we should be holding a committee meeting in the next week or so. It wasn't necessarily inactive, but hadn't been a really big priority in the past couple of decades. I get to be on the committee (squeaky wheel, a role I play well), and I've decided to draw up a prototype brochure and design a non-fancy sign that we could use as a prototype as well. The hollering I've done in the past about there being few, if any, historic markers or preservation work being done in the WRV region, particularly Taney County, may get a few results. We'll have to see. I still have some kinks to work out for suggestions, and since I have a lot to learn, it's going to be a wild ride! The president of the society, Jo Albers, and Ingrid Albers, who is the editor of the WRVHS's Quarterly, and I met Friday morning to start up a list of places we felt deserved recognition. It is by no means complete, but it is started! The Becker Family Reunion was held last weekend, at Taneycomo Resort on Lake Shore Drive, just east of Branson. I found out that Vera Greene (whose mother was Minnie Becker) was married to Clarence CORNELIOUS, and they had 2 sons, Freddie and Harold. Freddie apparently has been sheriff or a deputy in Douglas Co. MO, and plays in a band (which no one seemed to know the name of). I received 2 death certs in the mail from the MO Dept of Health last week, both for my mother's Becker grandparents. The one for Mary Ellen Watson Becker is correct, but apparently there were 2 Jacob Beckers who died in 1936, and they sent the first one--which was not the right one, although I had supplied the necessary dates and places. One thing the websites for MO Vital Records do not tell you is to submit a copy of your i.d. and you have to state your relationship to the person you want records for. I sent the incorrect record back, the receipt, my original letter, and a letter to the supervisor, requesting that they send the correct record since I had supplied the actual dates for them. If I hadn't, I'd simply just request the record again, but I felt someone simply found a Jacob Becker who died in April 1936 and didn't bother to double-check. My Jacob died in June 1936, in a different county altogether; plus I supplied the date of birth. I hope they don't write me back asking me for another $10, but we'll see...;>) Pama Nash Wilder and Deb Hagler visited me last Thursday (while my living room is in the midst of preparation for a yard sale in a couple of weeks). We had a wonderful time--it so neat to actually get to talk to people who know the same stuff you do. Pama is a cousin to me twice--through the Bilyeus, and through the Nashes (though the Wilson-Nash connection is quite a bit closer). She's also a cousin to Greg through the Blansit-Nash marriages. Deb, who is not onlist, is a Nash descendant from the NW corner of MO. We are trying to find if there is a connection, but haven't yet. Wanda Pickett Ehlers, who is related to the Edwards-Pickett-Haggard/etc., bunch of folks who live around Kirbyville, called me on Labor Day. She is wanting to find someone who restores tombstones, for work on Van Zandt Cemetery in Kirbyville. I spoke to Walter Cobb, director of Whelchel Funeral Home in Branson, at my cousin's funeral last Wednesday, and he thought he might know of someone who does such work. I'm going to give him another few days, then drop in to see if he's found someone. Speaking of my cousin...Ernest Lee Boyd, s/o E. Jake Boyd and Pansy Malita Wilson, passed away 2 Sep 2000, from cancer. He was b in 1940 in Branson. The Boyds all lived up along Hwy 248, along the ridge separating Bear Creek Valley from Roark Creek Valley. I've not figured the exact connection yet, but I believe Lee was a great-nephew of the Fate Boyd in the book "These Were the Last", who is pictured and noted to be a white-oak basket maker. There is a sign up at the jct. of Hwys 248 and 160 advertising the baskets, and I believe some Boyds are still making them up there. A neighbor and I went to breakfast together a couple of weeks ago, celebrating the kids going back to school <VBG>, and ended up going exploring down some dirt roads in Taney and Stone counties afterwards. Considering some of the places we were, the flat tire I got on the way back down 248 to Branson was a blessing--we were on some old shelf-rock wagon roads in my little Chevy (which Greg probably wouldn't have taken down) waaaaaaaaaaay back in the hollers. I made it almost home after airing the tire up on the north side of town, and a couple of nice young fellers changed out the spare. Seems I can't go exploring with either my aunt or my female friends without having car/van trouble of some kind--Greg said that meant he was supposed to get to go, too! The thing is, Greg always insists on driving, and he goes so fast, I don't get to see some places...by the time I tell him I want to stop, he's already past it! And he gets irritated at turning around...so it's kinda small price to pay, picking up a bolt on a tire covered by road hazard! LOL It does my heart good to "get lost" in some of these places. Repairs my soul, you could say. I asked a couple of people, just for kicks, who the Bald Knobbers were, in the past couple of weeks. No surprise, the answer was, "That music show out on the strip". So I'm putting together a site for Bald Knobbers, that I hope to have done in the near future. It will be accessible through the WRV site. I am trying to collect some stories from some of the descendants of the people involved, both for and against. The more I study them, the more I really can't say they were good or bad--they did what they thought necessary at the time, I suppose. We got our first rain since the first of August this morning, and it may rain some more today. Let's hope... Have a GREAT week! Vonda mailto:vonda@peoplepc.com if you need to reach me!

Hello! My servers are down for both the business and my mail, so I've not gotten any emails since Friday. Despite the work being done, seems they can't find the problem...I'm hoping, for a change, that y'all are just being real quiet--otherwise, I'm probably kicked off all my lists for bounces. If not, I likely have more than 500 e's waiting for me... If you need to contact me, use my backup addy of mailto:vonda@peoplepc.com --I seem to be getting mail through it okay! Vonda

From the 1926 OZARKA Yearbook, School of the Ozarks (a high school then) - Seniors & Hometown: Margie HOLT Galena MO Glenn MOORE Hollister MO Chloe OWEN Protem MO Clyde HALE Hurley, MO Frances NEAL GreenForest AR Dick PIERCE Hollister MO Anna McHOLLAND Hurley MO Mary E. BAKER Millersburg MO Gladys MOORE Hollister MO Theodore PETERSON Lee's Summit MO Edna FORD Branson MO Mildred MELTON Galena MO Winnie BLASINGAME Hollister MO Eunice DOTSON Protem MO Edna JONES Hollister MO Massie CENTER Enon, AR (male) Dovie ROBINSON Omaha AR Carl PRESLEY Wheaton MO Ono DAVIS Enon AR Paul MEADOR Enon AR Juniors (no hometown listed): Opal HICKS Francis KEENER Otis COX Ray CARDWELL Alice LAYTON Alta FRANCE Kermit WOOD Anna Mae BOWMAN Frank WHITE Fred SISCO Rheba DENNEY Lela SUPPLE Violet TRIMBLE Beryl COX Ernest RALEY Ila SMITH Ledley TREMBLE Leon FARRELL McNatt PHARRIS Troy ENIX Ernie MOORE Bessie GRAUEL Denver HOLLARS Ronald HOLLARS Morris BAKER Catherine WALKER Charlene COLLIER Sylvia JONES Virginia MARSH Fern NAVE Cuma DOTSON Newton TURNER Othell JAMES Beulah KILBY Lillian CADY Delmer JACKSON Oral JACKSON Pauline MARSHAL Lora SHELTON Blanche CARY Robert HOWELL

Wouldn't you know, just when I wuz a'wonderin' how to let more folks know about the Godsey books, I'd get an e about an area at Rootsweb from another list. If you didn't know about the classified ads at Rootsweb, here's the link: http://cgi.rootsweb.com/~classifieds/ You can post things to buy or sell here. Larn summat new ever'day. Hope y'all have a great week! Vonda

okeydoke, here we go--better not be drinking whilst you're a-readin', you'll spit all over your puter. A native who lives south of Hollister, MO, tells about how he tried to befriend an outlander who had come into the hills from Chicago, and knew nothing about raising a garden. The Ozarker told him how to plant pole beans and how to set up a wigwam of poles for them to climb on. He explained the importance of pulling weeds and even gave the fellow his own recipe for the finest bean soup. A couple of months later the outlander came to the Ozarker's cabin complaining that the bean soup was tasteless. The native went back with him to find out what could be wrong. When he looked into the bean pot it was full of hickory nuts. They went out to the garden and he found that the man had used shagbark hickory shoots for his bean poles, and in the rich Ozarks soil the poles had flourished and grown a crop of nuts. Thinking the bean vines were weeds, the newcomer had pulled them up and harvested the nuts instead. *********** Referring to an unusually cold winter in the Ozarks, a native said, "It was a common thing that winter to see a farmer a-buildin' a fire under a cow of a mornin' to get her thawed out so's the milk'd flow." Another fellow said he thawed his cows so the milk began to flow but the stuff froze immediately and busted the bucket. So he milked right on the ground and the milk froze as it fell. When the cow wouldn't give down any more he just took an axe and chopped the frozen milk into chunks which he carried like cordwood into the house. That must have been the same winter it got so cold folks couldn't blow out their candles because the flame was frozen stiff. One night the blaze in the fireplace froze right in the chimney and had to be chopped out with an axe. The old woman ground it up in the coffee mill and used it for red pepper. ********** In the Ozarks, as it should be anywhere, nobody but strangers and durn fools attempt to predict the weather. Once a native was asked if he thought it would rain the next day. He replied, "When God was a-runnin' the country, I used to be a pretty good weather prophet but now the govern'mint has took over, hit's mighty hard to tell what's a-goin' to happen." ********** One of the better known Ozarks beasts was the Sidehill Hoofer which always ran in one direction for its legs were shorter on one side than the other. Because of this, it could more easily run along the sides of the Ozarks hills. Unfortunately, the Sidehill Hoofer became extinct from overkill a hundred years ago. Hunters, seeking the critters for meat and fur, learned to get them confused and they turned around and ran in the opposite direction. Their legs then being shorter on the downhill side they lost their balance and tumbled downhill where they were easily captured and killed. ********** Windies, for all their exaggeration, may explain as metaphors, characteristics of subjects, of places or things. How better to set forth the remarkable qualities of the common Ozarks persimmon than this: A deacon whose responsibility it was to bring the grape juice for communion in his backhills church forgot it one Sunday morning. It was too late to return home and get it but a brother deacon rose to the occasion. "Ye just stop frettin'," the 2nd deacon said, "I've got a jug of persimmon beer in my car and we can use that." And they did; and all went well until the end of the services when the congregation had to whistle the doxology. That there is real art in tall tale telling is seen when an uninitiated person attempts to repeat such a tale. An Oklahoma preacher who had heard the persimmon beer story told by his brother used it in his own pulpit one Sunday morning but the congregation sat stony faced. In reporting the incident to his AR relative the puzzled preacher said, "Last Sunday I used that story you told me on that congregation but no one laughed. I don't understand it." "Which story?" "The one about the prune juice." *********** [vks note--this, without a doubt, is about either a direct cousin of mine, or a married-in one. Could even be my grandpa and one of his little brothers, now that I think on it.] A classic coddling (gulling) story from the hills concerns two pranksters, brothers from over on Roark Creek in Taney County. One fall the boys were out in the woods and they came upon a city sportsman who was scouting the timber to locate a deer stand. As the trio said their "howdies" the city man noticed that the bigger boy was carrying a heavy muzzle-loading shotgun while the smaller boy had a claw hammer hanging from a loop at one side of his overalls. His curiosity aroused, the sportsman asked the older boy, "I guess you must be hunting with that shotgun, but what's the little fellow doing carrying a claw hammer?" This was the cue for the smaller lad to begin whimpering and his big brother to answer. "We live mostly on squirrel meat, mister, and they's no cash money to buy shot, so we loaded Old Betsy here with rusty nails." He put his arm around his sobbing brother. The younger boy shoved him off. "Ever squirrel we kill nowadays is nailed fast to the tree," he blubbered, "and this big sunny-b*%&# makes me climb up an' pry 'em loose with this here nail puller." *************** A Eureka Springs resident tells of a gulling tour guide who operated out of the old Crescent Hotel. At one stopping place the guide had an accomplice who walked around holding his left arm conspicuously akimbo. Invariable one or more of the tourists noticed the native, sidled up to the guide and asked him if the man's arm was frozen into a big O because of an accident. Feigning surprise and concern, the guide called out to his accomplice, "Tolliver, what's the matter with your arm?" The seemingly startled man looked down at his arm and yelled, "My God, I've lost my watermelon!" ************* A tourist ran out of gas on a backhills road and started walking to town. Around a bend in the road he came upon an old Ozarker leaning against a yard gate. The tourist called out, "How long will it take me to get to a place where I can get some gas?" There was no answer and thinking the old man didn't hear him he repeated his call, "How long will it take me to get to where I can get some gas?" Still no answer, so in disgust the tourist walked on down the road. About 100 miles later the old man called out, "About 10 minutes." The tourist turned back and glowered. "Why didn't you tell me in the first place?" The old man just grinned and said, "I didn't know how fast you were a-goin' to walk." *********** A friend say his wife has an awful memory--never forgets anything. *********** A trout fisherman whipping the waters with his fly rod below Table Rock Dam was approached by a man he presumed to be a curious tourist who asked, "How are you doing?" "Pretty darn good," said the fisherman as he lifted a string of beauties out of the water. "They're all mine. I was out here this morning, too, and did good." The curious man moved closer and examined the string. "I bet you don't know who I am, mister. I'm the conservation agent." The fisherman let the stringer slip from his hand as the catch disappeared in the rolling waters. "You don't know who I am, do you? Anyone around here can tell you that I'm the biggest liar in Taney County." ********* Chigger Bill says: "Hit never bothers me none catchin' myself talkin' to the hoot owls or even when they begin talkin' back to me. But when I git to understanding what they'uns air sayin', hit's time for me to shuck out for town." ********* A smart aleck tourist pulled up along a hitchhiking young Ozark boy. "Guess I've hit the wrong road, sonny, how far is it to Harrison?" "Don't rightly know," said the boy. "Then how do I get to US 65?" "Don't reckon I know." "Boy, you're sure the dumb one." "Could be, but I ain't lost neither." ************* A student brought up to let a computer solve his problems in mathematics at school had an old fashioned teacher that gave him homework to do. That evening, he appealed to his grandfather for help. "Grandpa, will you help me find the common denominator?" he asked. "Haven't they found that thing yet?" asked grandfather. "They were looking for it when I was a boy." *********** Two old Ozarkers met on a street in Forsyth one day. "What do you know?" one asked of the other. "Don't know nothin' and didn't find that out 'til yesterday." Now yuns know whyfor I'm dis way. Vonda

Some of the folks in some of the pictures-- "Uncle" Wylse Yandell, ferryman of the White River Adella "Cassie" Wheeler, butter maker Tommie Redfearn, sorghum maker Mary Elizabeth Mahnkey, writer of Ozarkian life Picture of the Hilda (Taney Co.) post office Fox chasers, hounds and all Bee hunters Fayte Boyd, basket maker J. M. Nichols, Mt. Judea (Newton Co. AR) chairmaker Lige Isaacs Frank Shaffer, Protem (Taney Co.) columnist for the "Taney Co. Republican" The store at Protem Sycamore Log Church (Taney/Stone, near the townsite of Garber) Tom Yocum, White River float guide Charlie Barnes, johnboat builder Ted Richmond, Newton Co. AR homesteader and librarian Pie Supper at Pine Top (Taney Co./Boone Co.) Vance Randolph, folklorist and more "Deacon" Hembree, fiddle player and storyteller May Kennedy McCord, newspaper columnist and ballad singer Sue Mullinax, grannywoman Frank Hodges, horse trader John Groves, preacher Levi Casey's log house (built 1843) Taney Co. MO That's not nearly all of them. Vonda

"Hillbillies had a great sense of humor, usually humor of character which often was pungent. Humor of character is personal and to be effective requires that the hearers know the victim of the joke. Hillbillies took delight in 'gulling'. Gulling was in effect play-acting of the most realistic sort. If a stranger was within hearing, two or more hillmen would strike up a conversation with each other in deliberately audible tones. With great exaggeration they would rehearse or vividly tell an oft-reported happening. Their demeanor would be so serious and they so seemingly oblivious of an audience, the gullible stranger would be completely taken in. Such duping was wry fun for the natives and it gave them a sense of superiority over the gullible outlander. Their everyday humor was droll humor, sly and sometimes offcolor, more closely related to British humor of understatement than to the traditional American frontier humor of overstatement...." [That sounds very much like my daddy, who will go out in the yard ever' so often, dig a hole, put something dated in the present in the bottom, fill it partially with dirt, then put in something that is much older before filling the hole back in. I told him once that archaelogists 10,000 years from now were going to be a-cussin' his name; he just laughed and laughed, and when he could finally speak, he said, "Shore wish I could be there!" I've considered doing the same, over on this side of the river, just so's they know we're related.] One last quote from the book, which states something that is still quite true today. "Hillmen had a strong sense of family. They staunchly defended the virtue of wife, daughter, and hound dog, though not necessarily in that order. A good boy was one who was good to his mother. As outlanders began to come into the Ozarks to live, settlers became clannish. They fought among themselves, over the most trivial of matters such as the spelling of a family name; but they resented intrusion by another and invariably united against outsiders, sometimes violently turning upon an innocent bystander. These hillfolk asked only to be let alone and allowed to 'stomp their own snakes.' Native Ozarkers were suspicious of 'furriners' and not without cause, for some outlanders who came into the area on business took advantage of them. First it was fur, beeswax, and yarb [herb] buyers; then land speculators, peddlers, and bushwhackers. There were timber buyers and railroad tie buyers and later, range hog and cattle buyers. Egg, fruit, cotton, and tobacco buyers came. As they had little, if any, means of transporting their produce to a favorable market, hillmen were at the mercy of unscrupulous traders. It was natural then that Ozarkers became suspicious of all straangers. In later years there was the added fear that the stranger might be a game warden looking for poachers or a federal agent hunting moonshiners or one to tell them how to run their farms. Hillmen transferred their deep suspicions of outsiders, whom they felt threatened their freedoms, to new settlers and it took a long time for newcomers to prove themselves and be accepted. Even today, though Ozarkers are overtly courteous and respectful, an outlander is seldom fully accepted into whatever remains of the Ozarkers' fragmented society. Considering their experience with outlanders, it is not surprising that hillbillies became as sharp bargainersd as the proverbial New England Yankees. It is said of one family that on a rainy afternoon their menfolk could go out in the barn lot and make five dollars each just trading knives among themselves. In business dealings, however, These Last were honest folk whose word was bond. Once they had 'shook' on a deal it was considered final and inviolable. No written word or signature was needed." I will post some of the names of folks in the pictures of the book shortly. (Gettin' ready for a yard sale, y'know...) Vonda

Ohhhhhh speaking of books. Those that relish old books like I do will love what I just purchased. The Journal of the proceedings of the convention of Rebekah Lodges of the state of Missouri I.O.O.F. Tenth Annual Session held at St. Louis, May 14th 1894. This is the original book printed in 1894, 24 pages of names and names and names, dates, places. Just so happy I got it that I had to share. Vikki Brittain Allen National Domestic Violence Hot Line (1-800-799-SAFE)

First published in 1977-- Some of you will remember that the first thing you read on the WRV site is from the opening paragraphs of this book. Here's more-- "The Ozarks hills embrace the highest land between the Applachians and the Rockies although they are not as high as is often assumed... Here and there knobs, or "balds", a surprising sight, rise out of the landscape. Balds are nigh rounded treeless hills often covered with tall grasses or low shrubs. Once an imaginative westerner was riding along one of the ridge roads with its lovely vistas. As the road descended into the hollow below to the usual small settlement, the traveler mused aloud, "You know, these Ozarks hills are different from our Rocky Mountains in more than just their lesser height and lush greenness. Out there, you go uphill and come down; but here it is more like you go downhill and come up." It is when going downhill or entering a deep hollow or gap that the illusion of mountain height is encountered. The Ozarks embrace at least 1,400 caves...Most are inhabited by some species of bats...Early settlers excavated guano, (you know what that is), from some of the caves, using it for fertilizer or boiling it down to produce saltpeter. They mixed the saltpeter with pulverized charcoal and sulphur to make gunpowder. Alluvial lead was so common in some areas of the hills that pioneers could pick it up off the ground. Using resinous pine knots which burned very hot for the smelting fire, they melted the metal in hollow stumps and used it to make rifle balls. The once abundant buffalo, antelope and elk were gone by the mid-1830s but bear, deer and wild turkey remained abundant." (vks note--deer were nearly all gone in MO by the start of the 20th century, but conservationists have brought numbers back up to where deer are sometimes considered pests in the city of Springfield. Black bear, which a person never heard about 30 or 40 years ago, are being sighted on a regular basis in some of the less populated areas of Taney county these days. There was a report of a bear on Roark Creek last spring, upstream from Branson. And the Taney County Times columnist Herman Rosser is reporting bear up on H Highway, north of Forsyth). Then there is talk on the different seasons of the year, weather averages, and what pioneers and settlers did in each season in relation to gardening, "yarb gathering" (herbs and wild greens), and other plant and meat preparation. Discussion of the cabins-- "Cabin building techniques used by an Ozarker even in the late 1800s were identical to those used in Virginia, North Carolina and New England during Revolutionary War days! Shingles, or shakes as the Ozarkers called them, were made with the froe, a blade about a foot ong and three and a half inches wide with a round hole at one end where a handle was inserted. This blade was set upright near the edge of an upended bolt (a 24" section of tree trunk) of oak or cedar, and struck with a mallet to split the wood lengthwise into shingles about 1/2 inch thick and 5 or 6 inches wide. Shingles must be split during the dark of the moon lest they curl up at the edges, causing the roof to leak. To prevent splitting, they were put in place when fresh cut, with a single homemade nail. They were laid on the rafters snugly, side by side, and the first rain swelled and tightened them. Early cabins were rectangular untis about 10 to 15 feet wide and 16 to 20 feet long, called pens. Their size was limited by the length of logs available and how heavy a timber could be handled. If more space was needed as the family increased, an additional unit was built nearby. The roof and sometimes the floor were then extended to join the two pens, making a "dog trot" between them... Cabin furniture included a corner bed with trundlebed, and perhaps a freestanding cradle...The bed was little more than a bunk built into a corner of the cabin, the fourth corner being attached to a post... Children, both boys and girls, wore long dresses and were called "shirttail youngens" until they were about 5 years old. To keep a child from underfoot in so small a living space a mother would "bedpost" him. This meant putting the child's dress under the free corner post [of the bed] giving him reaching freedom but not roaming room. There were no limiting game and fish laws in the wilderness but extravagant killing of wildlife was not common. An animal was killed chiefly for meat, grease, or hides. Yet having no stringently enforced state or federal laws did not make this a lawless area [vks note--That's depending on the period of time you are discussing. The Godseys are NOT discussing the first 20-25 years after the Civil War]. "Chimbley corner" or common-consent law, provided a definite code of conduct. Any breech [sic] of the code was severely punished often by the person against whom an offense was committed or by a committee of "regulators". Hillfolk put great emphasis on informal religious worship and avoided involvement in an "organized" church. Fifth Sunday meetings and basket dinners were joyous events. Religious leaders were usually unschooled men who had "seen the light" or were "called" to preach.... Young hillmen and women began dating early and most were married by their eighteenth birthday, many much younger... Granny women served as physicians to the isolated hill people. They had a store of mysterious simple remedies and superstitions handed down from generation to generation of pioneers. A few of these remedies were traceable to the Indian's use of medicinal herbs. Hillfolk buried their own dead and most communities had a woman skilled in laying out a corpse. She closed the eyes of the dead, placing coins on the lids to hold them shut; she tied a cloth under tha chin and over the top of the head to hold the mouth closed. These were left in place until rigor mortis set in. She bathed the face with wahoo bark tea and camphor to prevent discoloration of the flesh. Washing and clothing the bodies of women and children was her task but a man was expected to bathe older males. Many an Ozarker kept boards in his hayloft against the day neighbors would be called in to make a coffin for him or a member of his family. By the late 1800s coffin material such as sateen for lining and cotton lace for trimming were staples in many stores. These items were still available in isolated areas as late as the 1940s. Funerals were held as soon as possible after death. (Facilities for embalming a corpse were not available to most hill folk until well into the 1900s.) In the preface of one of his many books on Ozarks folkways, Vance Randolph said of the Ozarkers that they were 'the most deliberately unprogressive white people in the United States...'" [more to come]

Howdy! I am going to be posting excerpts from 2 of Townsend Godsey's books today. These books are available for sale now--if you will e me privately, I'll send you the link to order them (I won't post it to list, for they are from our business website, which Greg designed. Since y'all are genealogists, the only other thing you'd be interested in there would be my library, which <bribe offered here> you can visit when you come to Taney Co. LOL). "Ozarks Mountain Folks--These Were the Last" is a "portfolio of photographs" taken by Townsend and his wife, Helen, with an introduction consisting of information regarding the lives of pioneers in the Ozarks. I've seen this book available in stores here in the Branson area, but haven't been able to find it either online or out of the immediate region. This particular edition was reprinted by the Godseys' grandsons in 1988; it was originally published in 1977 by the Godseys. "Ozarks Tall Tales: Not by a Jugfull", written with the pseudonym of Will Townsend, is a collection of jokes, short stories, and pranks pulled by hillbillies; it is similar in style to some of Vance Randolph's books, although I've not read any of the exact same things anywhere else. Townsend and Vance were friends, and it would be unusual for Townsend to NOT have a book with Vance's influence (or maybe it was the other way around?). As y'all know, any chance I get to share history and Ozarkian lore with you, I do. Neither book is indexed, but both are good reading for anyone interested in our history, not just genealogy. And I'm excited to have an opportunity to share these books with you. It is very hard to find books on the region like this anywhere but here in the area. This was one of the goals Greg and I had when we started diving head first into genealogy and history, making "unique to us hillbillies" stuff available to EVERYONE, not just folks who could here in person. Now, if I could just get some of Elmo Ingenthron's books... Vonda mailto:vonda@copper-turtle.com