Purgatory The year of 1921 was a year so full of catastrophe and gut wrenching pain that Ralph was never able to fully recover from this pain and humiliation. He would be destroyed by the Missouri state legal system, but never fully destroyed as long as he lived, it just wasn't in him to quit when he was behind. Simply put; Ralph was arrested for first degree murder among other charges. This single event in my life proved to me how really dumb I always denied being. The reason I feel so stupid is, "I never asked detailed questions while Ralph was still alive." In one of our bull sessions I once asked Ralph what happened to Betty after they divorced in 1919. He told me he thought she had gone back south to one of three places. He named Cape Girardeau, Ellsinore or Poplar Bluff, but he wasn't sure. Sometime in 1920 Ralph was still interested in Betty Mae enough to start asking questions about her, even though they were divorced, and I believe was the reason he was in Cape Girardeau living with three brothers named, Luther Little, Herbert Little and William Little, and had hopes of a reconciliation. I have a stack of court papers as thick as my finger is long and I will shorten the story as much as I can. Ralph maintained through out the rest of his life; "I never killed nobody and I never stole anything that belonged to another man." And I Believe Him. The following year of 1921 was to be Ralph's most catastrophic year ever and was to be the beginning of his life in purgatory. A life he was never to recover from. Ralph was arrested March 11, 1921 and jailed in Cape Girardeau, Missouri. His charges were; First degree murder, burglary, larceny and a month later of breaking jail. His total sentence for all this was twenty years, plus two years for breaking jail, with only eleven years served at the Missouri State Prison in Jefferson City, Missouri; during his trial his charges were reduced to second degree murder. It was in prison that Ralph learned the shoe making trade. He was placed there January 5,1922 and released April 27,1933 in the middle of America's worst depression. Ralph said, "I didn't do it." And I believe him. I knew my grandfather, Ralph Waldo Brasher Sr, from the day I was born and then even better while living with him on his farm in the 1950s. I knew his faults and his strengths, his sense of fair play, his attitudes, and his way of solving problems. I knew his bigotries and his prejudices and what impressed him and made him happy or fill up with laughter. But never did I admit he was right while I was growing up. I couldn't, he hid too much of his good side. But make no mistake, I loved this grouchy old man and harbor nothing but fond memories of growing up with him in a huge Park called the, "Ozarks." But getting back to Ralph's incarceration; I found that the only charge against him that I believe is true is, breaking jail. Ralph had a very strong sense of what was right and wrong. If he believed he was unjustly accused, he would have taken matters into his own hands and would most certainly try for freedom. The court papers I have copies of, say that Luther Little received a total of forty-two years and the other two bothers, Herbert Little and William Little received 35 years. This leads me to believe that Ralph didn't really have much to do with the robbery and killing of the store owner where the offenses occurred, but in those days the old saying, "Birds of a feather flock together," was a saying that held a special meaning. You were guilty by association if your friends were guilty. Ralph arrived at the state prison in Jefferson City, Missouri January 5, 1922 not yet 28 years old, where he was to remain until sixteen days after his thirty ninth birthday. He was released April 27,1933. The 1933 St Louis street directory shows Ralph living at 1416 Monroe which indicates that Ralph, upon his release, went directly to St Louis. Beatings were meted out for the slightest infraction of the rules in prison. Loud talk, laughter, slow movement, fast movement, sloppiness, practical jokes and worst of all talking back or defending yourself verbally to a guard. Talking back to a guard had an additional penalty added to the beating. Should you talk back to a guard you also received time in a dark, damp dungeon. Ralph did exactly that, he complained to a guard about the way he was talking to his ex-wife, Betty Mae, when she came for visits and comments he made to her in front of Ralph. The beatings, for Ralph, lasted through out the first year of his stay with the state of Missouri and didn't end until he finally convinced Betty Mae that she was the cause of so much pain. (Remember; by this time Ralph and Betty Mae were divorced.)