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:[email protected] if you need to reach me!