The Ramble Reaches a Milestone!

by Pa Rock
Shameless Typist

Today marks my 5,000th posting to this blog!  Although it is only my 4,848th day of writing the blog, there have been days when I felt compelled to post multiple times - and the grand total of all of that effort has now reached 5,000 individual entries!

I began this effort on a warm November evening just a month or so after moving to Phoenix, Arizona.  The new feeling had begun to wear off of the big city, and I was sitting at home feeling a bit lonesome.   That evening on a whim I decided that I would learn how to blog.  Unfortunately, I proved to be a quick learner, and within an hour or so had named my blog and posted the first entry. The exact date was November 4th, 2007, and that is important because that first entry was entitled "Obama '08," and it was my rationale for supporting Barack Obama's presidential candidacy - and exactly one year later, on November 4th, 2008, Barack Obama was elected President of the United States.

Now, in recapping the achievements of this blog, I guess it would be worthwhile to note that it has stretched through four presidential administrations.  The Ramble was around for over a year of the George W. Bush presidency, all of the Obama and Trump presidencies, and now is still up and functioning as the Biden turn in the White House gets underway.  Pa Rock's Ramble has been around to witness a lot of history - and has commented on a fair amount of it.  

I've always had an interest in American politics, so a lot of what has appeared in Pa Rock's Ramble has mirrored that interest.  I also like to travel, and a host of travel adventures have turned up in this forum as well.  I have blogged from Arizona to Missouri, from New York City to Portland, Oregon,  from Alaska to Hawaii, across the Caribbean - including Cuba, and out into the Far East.  I blogged every day of the two years that I lived and worked on Okinawa, and I posted entries from South Korea, Taiwan, Vietnam, and Guam.  I have posted entries from computer labs on cruise ships - which charged by the minute for the privilege, and it was in one of those cruise ship computer labs where I introduced myself to the person sitting and typing next to me - American novelist E.L. Doctorow. 

One time - at the computer lab in the Dragon Hill Hotel at the US Army Base in Yongsan, South Korea - I was denied access to my own blog because that base had decided it was "hate speech."  (I've been accused political bias, but "hate speech" was a first!)   In order to meet my daily self-imposed deadline, I went to the Base PX, bought a small laptop, and found a wifi-hotspot in the city where I could get access to the internet.  Another time, when I went into the hospital for heart surgery in 2013, I had my son, Tim, pinch hit for me on the blog while I was out of commission.  

It took a lot of effort, but the blog kept running!  

As an avid reader, I began posting reviews of many of the books that I read.   I also used Pa Rock's Ramble to collect many of the things that I had written in the past.    At one time in my checkered history I was part-owner of a small newspaper and one of my duties there had been writing a weekly fictional column called "Doin' the Sales with Rusty Pails" -  a first-person account of a wizened old bachelor and his oddball friends who attended auctions and got into lots of mischief.  There are fifty or so "Rusty Pails" pieces scattered in the archives of this blog.

There was other fiction as well including several short stories that I crafted over the years.  One that stirred some attention was a tale about strange things that were happening around a trailer (double-wide mobile home for you snobs) that I lived in for awhile in Phoenix.  It was serialized fiction, and I thought that was obvious, but when I got to the part about hearing a sneeze coming from beneath the trailer, Tim immediately called from Kansas wanting to know if I was okay.  Then a day or so later his sister called him worried that "Dad has a homeless person living under his trailer!"  Then a cousin from Missouri emailed saying how much he was enjoying "the story."  I was surprised and pleased to know that people were actually reading my work - even if they were just relatives!

But other things that I wrote were getting read as well - far beyond family.  I penned a piece about Arizona Congresswoman Gabby Giffords a year or so before she was shot and several others were killed at a "listening" event in Tucson, and on the day of the shooting more than a thousand people pulled up that posting for information on the congresswoman.   Several years ago I also wrote a piece about the Agofsky brothers, whom I knew, who murdered Noel, Missouri, banker Dan Short, a friend of mine.  That posting continues to draw more readers and comments than any other piece in the history of this blog.

The Ramble contains lots of personal accounts of things that have happened in my life, stories about my kids and grandkids, as well as a fair amount of family history.  Beginning last month I have incorporated a fairly regular "Ancestor Archives" feature in which I  sort through all of my old family files and notes and then profile a different ancestor each week.  If all goes as planned, at some point I will collect those under a separate cover, have them bound, and then distribute to relatives and a few local libraries.

So that is roughly where this is at - thirteen years, three months, and a few days after that initial piece about presidential aspirant Barack Obama.   I've written quite a bit about family, politics, society, and things that interest me - and for the time-being I will probably keep on typing - but I seriously doubt that I will be banging out the blog for much longer.  Time grows short and there are too many other demands.   I have bird feeders to tend to and grandchildren to see!

Thanks for stopping by and listening to an old man prattle on.

Beware the Fourth of March

by Pa Rock
Soothsayer's Apprentice

Shakespeare used a soothsayer (fortune-teller) to warn Julius Caesar that trouble was afoot.  The soothsayer cautioned Caesar to "Beware the Ides of March," and sure enough on March 15th, the Roman general-turned-emperor was stabbed to death by  his former friend and colleague, Brutus.  Now, a mere two millennia after the death of Julius Caesar, we are again being warned that a day in the upcoming month of March may be of monumental significance.    Elements of America's voice of treason, a group loosely referred to as "Q-Anon," are foretelling that on March 4th of this year, Donald John Trump, the former 45th President of the United States, will be sworn in as the "legitimate" 19th President of the United States.

As with most utterances of Q-Anon, details are sketchy.

From the time of Washington's first term in office until the end of Herbert Hoover's only term in 1933, Presidents were elected in early November and then sworn into office on the following March 4th.  That long delay was intentional in order to give newly-elected Presidents time to get their affairs in order and then make their way, often on horseback or by horse-and-buggy, to the nation's capitol.    But with the advent of speedier forms of travel, that long delay became somewhat problematic - and it was an especially conflictual transition time for President Hoover and his replacement, Franklin D. Roosevelt.  Hoover seemed to many to be sitting on his hands while the Great Depression gained steam, and the ambitious FDR was chomping-at-the-bit to assume office and begin making bold changes to the way that America's government and economy functioned.

The Twentieth Amendment to the US Constitution was ratified during FDR's first term in office, and it set that inauguration of Presidents for noon on January 20th following the general election.  Part of the reason was to limit time for conflicts between out-going and in-coming administrations.  (However, during the most recent presidential transition, many people thought even that shortened time period was too long!)

Q-Anon is apparently a shirttail cousin to another whacko conspiracy group - the Sovereign Citizens Movement,  The Sovereign Citizens regard the federal government a some sort of illegal concept and they believe they do not have to follow its laws.  They apparently believe that the government passed a secret law in 1871 when Ulysses S. Grant was President that turned the United States into a corporation, and every President since Grant (the eighteenth President) has been illegal.  Also, all Constitutional Amendments since then have also been illegal, which puts the real God-given inauguration date back at March 4th.

And while it is doubtful that any members of the Trump family believe this conspiracy hogwash, that does not mean that they aren't above trying to make money off of the rubes who do believe it.  Anyone wanting to come to Washington, DC for the "real" inauguration on March 4th will find that the price of a basic room at the Trump International Hotel in the nation's capital has more than doubled for that night from $596 to $1,331.  Newsweek reported that on January 6th, the day of the Capitol riots, the Trump Hotel was charging a special rate of just $8,000 per room!

Donald Trump may make fun of people with challenges, but he will damn sure take the money of those whose only challenge is being a dumbass!

Dental Care in the Time of COVID

by Pa Rock
Smiler, Chewer, Biter

Thirteen days from today would have marked the one-year anniversary since my last visit to the dentist, but thanks to the combination of one very negative event and one very positive event, I found myself back in the dentist's chair this morning.

I generally practice good dental hygiene: two brushings a day (three would be better), and I follow each brushing with a good swish of mouthwash - an alcohol-based mouthwash in the mornings that annihilates germs, and a non-alcoholic but fluoride-based mouthwash in the evenings that fights to prevent cavities while letting me sleep without getting the alcohol dry-mouth.  I still have all of my own teeth, save one which had to be pulled last year, and it is rare that I have cavities or need serious repairs.

I also try to visit the dentist twice a year for a check-up and a cleaning.  This year, because of the pandemic, I cancelled the six-month check-up that should have been last August, and kicked that can down the road a couple of months.  Then, as that time drew near and the pandemic was still raging, I kicked the can again.  I was to have a cleaning on February 8th, and if, at that time, I still had not had at least one COVID shot, I was prepared to kick it a third time.  (Dental problems are preferable to death by suffocation in a lame-ass rural hospital.)

But in December the ante on the side of keeping the dental appointment was suddenly upped when I broke a tooth.    Now I had a hole in one of my back teeth that filled itself with food every time I took a bite of anything.  I called the dentist and learned that the earliest I could get in was February, but I was able to piggyback the repair appointment onto my existing appointment for cleaning.  At that time COVID shots in the Ozarks were still a pipe dream, so I made a moral commitment to go whether I was able to score some pandemic protection before the appointment or not.

The broken tooth was the very negative event.  Fortunately, my community came up with a COVID shot clinic at the end of January where myself and 2,800 other old farts were able to score our first inoculations, so that was the very positive event that balanced out the situation.

Here are a few observations from today's visit to the dentist:  The clinic was not nearly as crowded as on past visits, and my dentist - who is exceptional - performed the cleaning himself after he had finished with the filling.  A technician did the X-ray work as well as the teeth-polishing after the cleaning.  Patients were required to be masked when not in the "chair" being treated.  There was also a procedure for waiting in your car until called, but they were ready for me as soon as I updated my paperwork.  Part of the paperwork was a new form which said the clinic was following all normal COVID protocols, and I relinquished my right to sue if I developed COVID after the visit.   And, the dentist and technician were both masked and wearing gloves during all of their interactions with me.

I felt relatively safe during the entire process, so safe that I had no qualms about making a follow-up appointment for six months from now.  Surely by then all of this pandemic madness will be over!

Life is slowly returning to normal.

Champ and Major Make the People's House a Home!

by Pa Rock
Citizen Journalist 

After four very long years of being occupied by a reality freak show, our nation's White House is finally home once again to a genuine American family.   Joe and Jill have unpacked and are at home, and so are their "rescue" German Shepherds, Champ and Major.  The two big dogs apparently have the run of the place, both inside and out,

The GOP and Fox News have so far let the White House dogs alone, and at some point they will undoubtedly manufacture some outrage focused on the canine inhabitants of the People's House.   But even at their most playful worst, Champ and Major pose less of a risk to the art, antiques, and dignity of the White House than Sarah Palin and Ted Nugent did the night they roamed and romped around the place unleashed as Trump's guests.

Most US Presidents have had dogs as pets.  That tradition goes all the way back to our first President - George Washington - who was actually a dog breeder.  Washington, ever the aristocrat, was involved in developing a strain of fox hounds.  The White House was under construction during Washington's tenure as President, and he never actually lived there.  His successor, John Adams, was the first President to reside in the White House.  Adams' wife, Abigail, had a pair of dogs which she moved into her new big and drafty home.  Their names were Juno and Satan.

Not every subsequent President was dog friendly, but most have been.  Abraham Lincoln, whose two youngest sons were full-time residents of the White House during Lincoln's presidency,  had several dogs, but his favorite seems to have been a mutt named Fido.  Lincoln supposedly cautioned the White House staff that they were not to  lecture Fido over his wet or muddy paws, and that if he scratched at the door he was to be let in.   Several months after Lincoln's assassination, Fido met the same fate as his master when he was assassinated by a drunk wielding a knife.

In modern times all presidents have been dog owners, with two exceptions. Even though Harry and Bess Truman desired to live a pet-free existence, they were given two dogs while in residence at the White House, and Harry caused a bit of a public outcry when he quickly gave both away, stating rather saltily that he did not ask for them and did not want them.

The other White House occupant to live a pet-free existence was, of course, Donald Trump.  Trump apparently does not like dogs, and many suspect that dogs do not like him either.

But those dog-less days of Trump are now history, and the present belongs to the Biden's, and to Champ and Major - important members of the First Family.

Rosie and I bid Champ and Major welcome, and we hope they have many wonderful adventures as they play - and romp - and  snoop - and chase - and fetch - and make the People's House a truly wonderful home!

Funding Government on the Backs of the Poor

by Pa Rock
Taxpayer

My first foray into college life was back in the 1960's when I was avoiding the Vietnam War and, in the process, managed to eek out a bachelor's degree with a major in history and a minor in political science - two essentially unemployable fields of endeavor.  I will be the first to admit that I did not learn as much during that first bout with higher education as I should have - at least not in the classrooms - but I did redeem myself later on as I acquired four more college degrees throughout my working lifetime.

One fact that did stick with me from those first four years of college was this:  regressive taxes and fees are bad news for the working poor.  I don't remember the professor who drove that point home, but it was something that stuck and affected the way I thought about funding government over the ensuing years.  I have even banged on  about that subject in this blog on several occasions over the years.

A regressive tax (or fee) is one that impacts those less able to pay more than it does those with money.  Sales tax is an example of a regressive tax that is often cited.  I listened to a very educated man one time cite sales tax as the "fairest tax there is because everybody pays it."   And yes, everybody does pay sales taxes, but that does not mean that they are "fair."  The poor have to use a larger share of their income to make survival purchases than do the rich, and therefore they spend a larger portion of their available cash on sales taxes.

For the past several decades there have been strong anti-tax movements focused on lowering income tax and property tax rates, taxes that tend to affect people of means, and as those government resources declined, new revenue streams had to be found.  State and local governments increasingly turned to sales taxes and increased public-use fees to make up the shortfalls.  Governments looked for any ways to bring in more money without increasing direct taxes on wealthier individuals or businesses.  

Sales taxes began creeping upward, as did fees for government service.  In some states, for example,  the price for a copy of an official birth or death certificate rose from one dollar to five or ten dollars within just a few years.  Also within just a few years almost every state in the union created a state lottery - a revenue stream that tended to be funded by those who could least afford it - and many states legalized other forms of gambling as well.

Those regressive taxes and fees - and gambling - were ways to keep government operating without reaching deeper into the pockets of those who could afford to pay - and who, in many cases, were seeing greater personal profits because of the protections, privileges, and infrastructure provided by government.  Those same people of means were also far more likely to vote and to make political donations than were the working poor.

All of the above was my starting point this morning when I happened to catch the new segment of NPR's "Planet Money" on the radio.  This week's episode deals with the court-related fees that many states charge to their incarcerated populations.  Oklahoma was the example de jour.

I didn't catch all of the history on the topic, but the gist was that in Oklahoma it is harder to raise taxes than it is to lower them, and consequently the state went a couple of decades with decreasing tax revenues.   To create more revenue, one of the things the state did was to come up with a system of "fees" which they charged to the state's prison inmates.  When inmates left prison they were presented with a bill for a variety of things like victim's funds, fees for prosecutors and defense attorneys, prison library usage fees, counseling sessions, and all manner of goods and services, some of which had never been accessed by the inmates.   Often payment of these fees was tacked onto their release as a condition of parole, and if they failed to make restitution, they could be returned to confinement where they would presumably incur even more fees.

It was easy to see this system of fees - in many states and not just Oklahoma - becoming a harbinger for a sort of debtor's prison, something straight out of Dickens' Victorian England but that is supposed to be illegal in the contemporary United States.

The trend of sending parolees home in debt up to their eyeballs is another fine example of regressive taxation and fees - just one more way for the "haves" in society to shift the costs of government onto the backs of the "have nots," and a way to help insure that the "have nots" never have a chance to have anything.

Sooner or later a society built and maintained primarily on the labors and taxes of the poor will collapse under its own weight - or it will rise up and eject those who have hoarded the bounty of that society.

Ancestor Archives: Alexander Sreaves (1857-1927)

by Rocky Macy

(Note:  For the past four weeks I have profiled my four paternal great-grandparents in this space.  Beginning this week and for the next three weeks I will be profiling my maternal great-grandparents.  The subject of today’s piece is my mother’s paternal grandfather.  Comments and/or corrections are welcome and encouraged.  Enjoy!)
 
Alexander SREAVES was born on October 29, 1857, probably in the state of Ohio.  He passed away at his home in Buffalo Township of McDonald County, Missouri, on April 22, 1927.  (His death certificate lists the county of death as Newton - which is incorrect.  Alex and Mary SREAVES’ home place was acquired by the Missouri Conservation Department after their deaths and opened to the public as the “Buffalo Hills Natural Area,” and it is in McDonald County – but close to the Newton County line.)
 
The most remarkable thing about Alexander SREAVES’ early history is its mysterious nature.  It was widely accepted in family lore that Alex showed up in northwest Arkansas sometime in the 1880’s, but after the 1880 census was taken, as a man with an unknown past.  In fact his first definite entry into the public record was when Alex SREAVES, aged 29, of St. Paul, Madison County, Arkansas, and Mary J. ELLIS, aged 21, of St. Paul, Madison County, Arkansas, applied for a marriage license on January 12, 1888, and were married three days later on January 15, 1888 in the state of Arkansas.   Mary Jane ELLIS, the bride, was a native of Madison County, Arkansas, having been born in Huntsville in 1866.
 
Alex and Mary’s children grew up without any contact with grandparents on his side of the family.  When one of his daughters asked about his parentage, he reportedly replied that she should “leave it alone.”
 
When Alex passed away in 1927 his youngest son, Ira “Jackson” SREAVES, was the informant on his death certificate.  Jackson reported that Alex’s parents were Samuel SREAVES of Ohio and Rebecca BLANTON of Ohio.  Years later when family researchers began digging into Alex’s cloudy lineage, it was assumed that Jackson may have just come up with a couple of names in order to make his father seem more respectable.  When Fannie SREAVES ULMER wrote her family remembrance in the early 1980’s she used the names that her brother, Jackson, had provided on her father’s death certificate, names that were being widely bandied about by researchers at the time she was writing.  Another sibling of those two, Ethel, who was older that Fannie but younger than Jackson, professed no knowledge of their father’s antecedents.        
 
Another thing that complicates research into the ancestry of Alexander SREAVES is that surname has obviously been misspelled at some point in history.  It could have been SHREVE(S), SHREAVE(S), or SHREEVE(S), but there are almost no words or proper names in the English language that begin with the letters SR.  (The country Sri Lanka and the related adjective Sri Lankan and a few abbreviations are the only SR entries in most standard dictionaries.  My mother told me that teachers had told her and her siblings that the name was spelled wrong, and when they told their father, Daniel Alexander SREAVES (the oldest child of Alexander and Mary SREAVES), he said they would not be changing the spelling because that is the way his father had always spelled the family name.
 
Family researchers are currently pursuing several possibilities regarding Alex’s ancestry.  What follows is the line of inquiry that I am following.  It is speculative and based solely on three documents.  It could also be compatible with the names that Jackson SREAVES entered on his father’s death certificate, if the father had died when Alex was very young and the mother remarried.  My goal this year is to prove or disprove the following speculation:

 

1.  The 1860 US Census of Franklin, Miller County, Missouri, has a two-year-old male child by the name of Elijah A. SHREEVES who was born in Ohio living in the household of John BLACKSTONE (age 25).   Also in the household are Lucinda BLACKSTONE (age 28), Prudence A. BLACKSTONE (age3), and Thomas ROSS (age 24).

 

2.  The 1870 US Census of Franklin, Miller County, Missouri, has a twelve-year-old male by the name of Alexander SRIEVE who was born in Ohio living in the household of Josiah ELLIOTT (age 42).  Also in the household are Emily E. ELLIOTT (age 27), William JONES (no age given), and Nancy M. COMER (age 27).   Alexander SREIVE is listed as a “farm laborer.”

 

3.  And, on November 25, 1887, a “Notice of Contest” was posted in the Ivanhoe Times of Ivanhoe, Kansas, in which a man named David A. ARMSTRONG had gone to court seeking to vacate a homestead entry that had been filed in Garden City, Haskell County, Kansas, by an Alexander SREAVES on October 5, 1885.  Mr. ARMSTRONG stated that Mr. SREAVES had not put any improvements on the land, nor had he cultivated it, and he was essentially seeking to have the homestead entry voided so that he could claim the land himself.  All parties were summoned to appear on December 6, 1887, to furnish testimony regarding the alleged abandonment of the claim.

 

My conjecture is that the 2-year-old Elijah A. SHREEVES in the 1860 census was possibly Elijah Alexander SHREEVES, possibly the son of Lucinda BLACKSTONE from a previous marriage.  Ten years later this same boy was still residing in the same neighborhood but with a different family where he was earning his keep as a “farm laborer.” 
 
(One of the family legends regarding Alex is that his father died and his mother remarried.  When she died not long after,  Alex’s stepfather remarried and the boy could not get along with his new step-mother and either left on his own or was forced out of the home by the pair of step-parents.)
 
And regarding the abandoned homestead claim, Alexander SREAVES would have been around 26-years-old when he filed it.  He could have moved on due to a failed relationship or because he simply changed his mind about living in western Kansas.
 
The names, dates, and locations all fit nicely with the known facts regarding Alexander SREAVES, and all merit further study and evaluation.
 
But back to what IS known about Alexander SREAVES.  
 
Alex and Mary Jane (ELLIS) SREAVES were the parents of seven children:   Daniel Alexander (1888-1970) (my grandfather), William “Jess” (1890-1956), Ira “Jackson” (1892 - 1928), Ethel May (1895-1982), Fannie Matilda (1898-1990), Alice Christine (1902-1944), and Lula Elizabeth 1904-1983).
 
Daniel Alexander married (1) Nancy Jane ROARK (my grandmother, whom he outlived), and 2.  Martha Adeline THOMPSON ROARK;   William “Jess” married Lula Mae ANDERTON;  Ira “Jackson” was born with heart issues and never married;  Ethel May married Harry B. ANDERSON;  Fannie Matilda married Andrew “Joe” ULMER;  Alice Christine married Henning G. ANDERSON; and Lula Elizabeth married Wesley Robert “Wess” KELLEY.
 
In 1901, (before the birth of Alice and Lula),  Alex and Mary loaded up their five children and all of their worldly possessions that would fit into two covered wagons and headed north out from Huntsville, Arkansas, to McDonald County, Missouri.  Alex handled one of the wagons, and Mary Jane’s younger brother, Tommy ELLIS, drove the other.  Northwest Arkansas is hilly country and the trip would not have been easy, especially over dirt roads and wagon trails.  Daughter Fannie, in recollections that she wrote over eighty years later, said the family camped out three nights on the way to what ultimately became their new home in Missouri.
 
(Fannie’s recollections of the family’s early days in McDonald County were entered into this blog last Monday – February 1, 2021.)
 
Fannie’s notes did not tell why the family suddenly decided to move, and why they headed north to Missouri instead of southwest to Texas which was the more common migration route at that time.  Family lore says that the move was the result of an argument with a neighbor, and a more specific story relates that a neighbor’s hogs got into Alex’s crop fields, and when he approached the neighbor about the problem the man threatened to kill him – and apparently the man had a history of violence that made the threat believable.   That story says that they began the move that very day.
 
And why did they travel north instead of going with the immigration flow and heading for Texas?   There was no indication in Fannie’s notes that the family had any connections to McDonald County, nor are there any records of relatives living in the area.  If Alex had lived in Missouri as a boy, he might have had friends from his youth in McDonald County or at least knowledge of the area that would have drawn him northward.
 
But whatever their reasons were for settling in McDonald County, Alex and Mary Jane were destined to spend the rest of their lives there, and almost all of their children lived at least part of their married lives in McDonald County as well.  
 
I conducted a taped interview with my mother, Ruby “Florine” SREAVES MACY in December of 1982 shortly before she began losing her mental acuity due to brain tumors.  We talked mainly about family history, and, in particular, her parents and grandparents.   I transcribed approximately half of the tape, six typed pages, and then set it aside. Sadly, my copy of that tape disappeared before I got back to finishing the transcription.  In the portion that I did transcribe, my mother revealed the following about her Grandpa SREAVES:
 
My mother was five-years-old when her paternal grandfather, Alex SREAVES, passed away, and she had very few memories of him.  She did recall, perhaps through family stories as much or more than through actual memory, that he traveled around in what she described as a “little wagon.”  She also described him as being an extrovert in the same mode as his oldest daughter, Ethel.  Ethel became a school teacher and later, in retirement, a Vista Volunteer and a Democratic Party activist – and she was the type of person who would jump up at a program and take charge by telling stories or jokes.  My mother said that her Grandpa SREAVES was the same way.  He liked to tell stories and was “a real comedian.”
 
And (according to the written recollections of his daughter, Fannie) when he wasn’t traveling around the community in his little wagon and entertaining the neighbors with stories and jokes, Alex SREAVES was a true son of the earth who made a living for his large family through hardscrabble farming, selling mule colts, and manufacturing and selling the best sorghum in the area, a product so good that he bought labels and had his name proudly displayed on each jar!
 
Alex and Mary Jane raised a house full of very fine children who all went on to be successful in life.  Arkansas’s loss, for whatever reason, became Missouri’s gain!
 
The couple are at rest in the Swars Prairie Baptist Cemetery in Newton County, Missouri, a place where many of their descendants are also buried.

Police Traumatize a Child

by Pa Rock
Outraged Grandparent

I am blessed to be the grandfather of six happy and healthy grandchildren.  Two of those six are nine-year-old girls.

This past Friday a family in Rochester, New York, was experiencing some emotional distress.  A child in the family, a nine-year-old girl, had made remarks about killing herself and possibly killing her mother.  The child was apparently outside of the home yelling when someone telephoned emergency services.  Police responded to what was clearly a mental health issue.

Last summer police in Rochester had responded to another mental health crises, and in that response the person suffering with the mental issues, a black man, was forced to the ground and had a hood placed over his head - and died of suffocation during the encounter.  The community, and especially black members of the community, regarded the response as more severe than what would have been imposed had the person suffering the issues been white.  The Mayor of Rochester, a person by the name of Lovely Warren, responded to the community's outrage by firing the Chief of Police.  

And now, less than a year later, the police department of Rochester is embroiled in another crisis of public confidence that centers on how the department responded to a person exhibiting mental health issues.

When police arrived at the family home last Friday they found the child, a nine-year-old-girl, outside of the house screaming.  Police approached the little girl and tried to restrain her, but she resisted and was yelling for her father.  The police then handcuffed the girl and placed her in the back of the patrol car where she kept screaming.  They were having difficulty getting her feet into the vehicle when one patrolman, a woman, threatened to pepper spray her "in the eyes."  At one point a policeman yelled at the little girl that she was "acting like a child," to which she yelled back, "I am a child!"

As the melee continued one of the three responding policemen did pepper spray the child.  She was then transferred to a local hospital and later released to her parents.  

The three policemen have been "temporarily relieved of their duties."  The acting Chief of Police, a woman with a ten-year-old daughter of her own, is enraged, and Mayor Lovely is as close as she can get to becoming ballistic without actually leaving the ground.  The major part of the community seems to recognize the issue as an incompetent and dangerous response by a police department that lacks the necessary training and temperament to handle a mental health crisis as the first responder.   

The child has been traumatized by the awful experience, and some of the effects are likely to last throughout her lifetime.    And the mother, of course, is suing the city - as she damned well should.

I am a former mental health worker who has gone out on many calls to domestic situations with law enforcement personnel.  I was lucky in that the officers I worked with always let me take the lead in dealing with children.  But not every police agency has the luxury of having a social worker available to respond to family crises.  

Here are the real issues:  money and training.  Law enforcement officers are generally among the lowest paid public servants in a community.  Consequently, they seldom attract the better-qualified job candidates.  Those people are siphoned off into higher-paying jobs in American business and industry.  It is often the high school bullies who barely managed to graduate that drift into the community colleges and work for a certificate in policing skills and then wind up as street cops.  They learn a few things from their police course work in college, and they retain a few things from their days of terrorizing other kids in high school.

If communities truly valued their police they would pump more money into those agencies up front and put a focus on attracting a better class of novice policemen.  And if they start with bright, conscientious people who truly have a desire to serve the public from a positive standpoint, then those same people are far more likely to be open to training in effective community policing than are the "us against them" Neanderthals who currently populate most police agencies.

You literally get what you pay for.

The same concept applies to teachers.

I'm not for de-funding the police because law enforcement forms a necessary part of our society.  I am for adequately funding the police so that they can attract higher caliber employees.

And know this world, if any over-zealous and self-righteous cop ever handcuffs one of my beautiful grandchildren, girl or boy, and douses that child with a chemical agent, a lawsuit will be the least of their worries!

Hawley Continues to Make an Ass of Himself

by Pa Rock
Missouri Voter

Missouri's junior United States senator, Josh Hawley, the man who posed for that iconic and Hitleresque photo with his fist raised in front of the US Capitol and helped to incite the rabble who later that same day stormed the Capitol, seems hellbent on burnishing his national reputation as a bonafide jackass.

Yesterday morning when the Senate voted to confirm Pete Buttigieg as Secretary of Transportation, Hawley officially became to only United States senator to have voted "no" on all five Biden cabinet nominations that have been approved so far.  Then later in the day when the Senate voted to confirm Alejandro Mayorkas as the Secretary of Homeland Security, Hawley extended his string of negative votes on Biden cabinet appointees to six.

Hawley was one of only two senators to vote against Lloyd Austin's nomination to be Secretary of Defense, the first black person to ever hold that position.  The other senator to vote against Austin was Mike Lee of Utah, a man who until recently was primarily known for being Ted Cruz's reliable right hand.

Missouri's senior senator, Roy Blunt, a Republican, and Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell, also a Republican, have each voted to approve five of the six confirmed Biden cabinet secretaries.  (They both opposed Alejandro Mayorkas for Secretary of Homeland Security, but gave their bipartisan support to the rest of Team Biden.)

Hawley's mother, and perhaps his wife, must be so proud of his irrational obstinance, but much of the rest of his state and nation are quickly growing tired of the unrelenting grandstanding and self-serving maneuverings of a politician whose only focus seems to be on building a national constituency so that he can run for president.

Give the self-pleasuring and ego-stroking a rest, Josh - before they start to affect your eyesight!

It Must Really Suck to be Kevin McCarthy

by Pa Rock

Citizen Journalist

Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy has had a very rough couple of weeks trying to get his portion of the House in order.  Not only has McCarthy been plagued by the antics of a couple freshmen members who seem to be focused on making each day's news cycle all about themselves, he is also having to deal with a revolt among conservative members who want to have Rep. Liz Cheney of Wyoming removed from her position in the House leadership because she dared to vote to impeach Donald Trump for inciting the attack on the Capitol.

And as if McCarthy doesn't have enough to deal with, he now has his counterpart in the Senate, Minority Leader Mitch McConnell of Kentucky, openly sparring with one of McCarthy's problem children in the House.

Yesterday McConnell felt emboldened to throw his two-cents worth into the controversies that are percolating around Representative Marjorie Taylor Greene of Georgia, warning that her espousing of "loony lies and conspiracy theories" were a "cancer for the Republican Party."  McConnell opined:

"Somebody who's suggested that perhaps no airplane hit the Pentagon on 9/11, that horrifying school shootings were pre-staged, and that the Clintons crashed JFK Jr.'s airplane is not living in reality."

Greene fired back with a tweet saying that the real cancer for the Republican Party is weak Republicans who only know how to lose gracefully, a situation she claims is "why we are losing our country."

Democrats in Congress are making political hay and fundraising off of the antics of Ms. Greene, and McConnell rightfully fears that Greene and other fringe politicians in the GOP will cost the GOP the support of moderate voters in the 2022 elections.  

Democrats are threatening to force a floor vote this week to remove Representative Greene from two powerful House committees unless McCarthy does it himself.  McCarthy is scheduled to meet with Greene and discuss her history of making controversial remarks and bizarre statements, but there is doubt that he will take away her committee assignments.  Greene says that she has the support of Donald Trump,  and Trump's support still seems to carry weight among the GOP members of the House.  If McCarthy fails to rein-in Greene and the Democrats take the matter to a floor vote, that could be a problem for moderate Republicans who would then have to cast a public vote on the matter.

And if by some miracle McCarthy is able to resolve the matter with the outspoken Marjorie Tayor Greene - who is also a gun rights' activist - he still has to deal with pistol-packing Colorado Representative Lauren Boebert who, like Greene, is now harassing at least one survivor of a high school shooting and who is trying to loosen gun restrictions in the House.   Boebert reportedly was using social media to alert rioters outside of the Capitol about the movements of House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, and she has also been accused of giving "tours" of the Capitol the evening before rioters stormed the building. 

And when that dust settles McCarthy can then move on to the question of what to do about Liz Cheney.

It must really suck to be Kevin McCarthy.  I just wish I could give a damn!

Ancestor Archives: The Recollections of Fannie Matilda Sreaves Ulmer

by Rocky Macy
Transcriber

(Note: Beginning this week I will profile my four great-grandparents on my mother’s side of the family:  Alexander Sreaves, Mary Jane Ellis Sreaves, Samuel James Roark, and Nancy Anthaline Scarbrough Roark – at a pace of one per week.

 

In beginning research on my mother’s grandparents, I came across a lengthy set of notes that had been written by my grandfather’s younger sister, Fannie Matilda Sreaves Ulmer, a daughter of Alexander and Mary Jane Ellis Sreaves.  In those notes my grand-aunt Fannie tells about her family’s sudden move from Arkansas to southwest Missouri in 1901, and then goes on to reveal much about their daily activities in those early years in Missouri.

 

As an introduction to Alexander and Mary Jane, both of whom will be profiled here over the next couple of weeks, I am going to post Fannie’s entire story in the blog today.  Her notes appear to have been written in pencil.  My copy is old and faded, but I will attempt to lay out her original document with only minor editing for clarity.    The notes were untitled, so I have supplied a title.     Also, the original document was essentially one extremely long paragraph – so I have broken it down into standard paragraph formatting in order to make it easier to read and understand.

 

The original document was written in a spiral notebook.   Fannie appears to have started it when she was eighty-four and completed it as she was nearing eighty-six – or roughly during 1982 and 1983.  At that time she was a widow living in Ft. Worth, Texas, with her daughter Ruth and Ruth’s husband, Gene Scurlock.  Fannie’s account covered twelve full pages in the notebook!  Enjoy!)

 

 

Recollections of Fannie Matilda Sreaves Ulmer:

 

 

I was born in Huntsville, Arkansas, on March 26, 1898.

 

My name is Fannie Matilda Sreaves Ulmer.  My father was Alexander Sreaves.  He was born Oct. 29, 1857, in Ohio.  His father was born in Ohio.  His father was Samuel Sreaves.  His mother was Rebecca Blanton.  She was born in Ohio.  

 

My mother was Mary Jane Ellis.  My father and mother were married Jan. 15, 1888, in Arkansas.  My mother’s father was William J. Ellis.  He was born in Georgia 1840.  He was married to Matilda Cook who was born in 1842 and died in 1904.

 

My Dad and Mother, Alexander and Mary Jane Sreaves, had three sons:  Daniel Alexander, William Jess, and Ira Jackson – and four daughters:  Ethel May, Fannie Matilda, Alice Christine, and Lula Elizabeth.  They had a son who was stillborn.

 

We moved from Huntsville, Ark. to McDonald Co (Missouri) in 1901.  We moved in two covered wagons.  My mother’s brother, my Uncle Tommy Ellis, had one of the wagons.  We camped out three nights.  The last night was at Anderson, Missouri.  

 

The house we moved into was two rooms and an upstairs.   My brothers Dan, Jess, and Jackson, and my sister Ethel went to Owen School.  One room.  They went there two years.  My sister Alice was born in that house.

 

After that we moved to another place.  It was Goodman (Missouri) Route One.  My Dad bought it.  He put out an orchard on it.  That is where my baby sister Lula was born.   My sister Ethel and I had lots of good times there.  The house was a log house, one big room and an attic and a boardwalk took us to the kitchen.  It was one room.  In the separate kitchen we had a wood cook stove, a cook table, and dining table and chairs with hickory bottoms - they were made with hickory bark.  The kitchen also had a pie safe, and a shelf for dishes and such.   And a big box for the wood for the cook stove.

 

That was where I went to my first year of school.

 

There was a spring that was walled up with rocks.  It was wonderful.  My brothers could dip a bucket down and get it full of water.  It was so swift that water went in and out all the time.  I was six but I can still remember it.  I am eighty-four-years-old now and have never gone back, but this spring I told my niece where it was.  It was up a hollow, our neighbor lived in one hollow and we lived in the other.  Well, she said the spring is still there.  And there is still an orchard where my Dad had his orchard  - not the same one, of course.

 

I went my first year of school at May.  I remember Jackson, Ethel, and I went together.  We had a path that made it a lot it a lot closer.  My teacher was Bill Moore.

 

Oh yes, I want to tell you about Mama.  It was before my time, but Grandma Ellis, Mama’s mother, told her if she would shear her sheep she could have the wool from one of them.  She did, and she washed it, carded it, spun it into thread and wove it into cloth.  She made Papa two pair of pants and a coat.   When we moved to Missouri she left her spinning wheel.  But she would raise a little batch of cotton and card it into bats to make our quilts and comforters when I was small.  

 

Mama had several wool blankets she brought with her to Missouri..  She took some and made Ethel and I long-sleeved undershirts to wear to school.   They sure did scratch, ha, ha.

 

Mama always made our soap.  Papa would fix a barrel we called a hopper.  It had a hole in the bottom.  They would just put wood ashes in it, and pour water on the ashes.  When the water got through the ashes they had a container to catch it.  It was lye, and Mama made soap with it.

 

Papa made lots of railroad ties.   He would cut a tree and measure the length.   He had a broad axe to hew them with.  

 

(Transcriber’s Note:  Many early pioneers in the Ozarks earned money by cutting ties and selling them to the railroads.)

 

We raised our own cane to make our sorghum molasses.   When I was small Papa would get red clay, and after we ground the cane we would carry it to a big pan like the one we cooked it in, put a big scoop shovel of clay in the juice and then stir it with a big paddle until it all mixed real good.   Then we let it set for about twenty minutes.  We had a stopper in one end of the pan which we would take out.  Then we drained it out and put it in the cooking pan.  It would have the green juice as clear as water.  When we did that we didn’t have nothing but a few white skimmings.  It sure was awful good sorghum.  It was much better than other people around us made.  It sold real good.  Some would say they had “Sreaves Sorghum,” so Papa had labels made to put on his sorghum.

 

(Transcriber’s Note:  Dan and Jess Sreaves farmed as adults, but they also went into the sorghum production business together and made an income from that as well.)

 

When we lived in the house where Lula was born we had some neighbors who lived just a little ways from us. Their name was Carr.  They had two girls.  Their names were Mary and Clara.  We played together.  Grandma Ellis came from Arkansas and visited with us.  That was before we got Lula.  When she went home Papa and Jackson took her home in a covered wagon.  When they came back, Uncle Tommy’s girls, Nellie and Mable, sent Ethel and I two little dolls.  They were about six inches long and came with two matchboxes of clothes.   We had lots of fun changing their clothes.

 

One night Papa and my brothers and a neighbor went coon hunting.  They caught a coon and three little ones.  They had killed the old one, so they brought the little ones home.   They kept one and the neighbor took the other two.  They all made pets out of them.  Ours would go to the blackberry patch with us.  It would eat blackberries off the vines and follow us back home.  It was like a monkey.  One day it did something it wasn’t supposed to and Mama whipped it.  She had a basket with eggs on the sewing machine, so the coon got up there and went to throwing eggs on the floor. 

 

And our neighbor’s wife made some blackberry jam.   She put in in a pitcher to cool on the table.  While she was outside the coon got on the table, and when she came back in it was stirring the jam with his paw.   She didn’t like the coon in the house, so she waited till her husband was eating the jam and then told him what happened.  I don’t know if he got rid of it or not.

 

We had a threshing crew at our house.  The coon didn’t like strangers, so it hid out and after dark we heard something in the chicken house.  My brother Jess went to see what it was.  The little coon had a rooster by the foot trying to get it, so Jess brought the coon to the house and fed it and it was okay.

 

When I was about seven Papa sold the place and we moved to Swars Prairie.  I went my second year of school there.  I don’t think I liked it there very much for I don’t have as many fond memories about the place.  From there we moved to our old home place.  That was Papa and Mama’s last move.  They were there till we children were all grown.  

 

The folks bought it (the home place) from Mr. Lagers.  It was awful cold.   I remember Papa and Mama had an iron kettle with a lot of hot coals in it.  So us kids sat around it to keep warm till they got the stove up and a fire in it.  We had three rooms and two upstairs and a back porch on the east side of the kitchen.

 

Our closest neighbor was Mr. John Thompson.  They had four girls, all about the same age of us girls:  Martha, Pearl, Minnie, and Marie.  They had one boy his name was Charley.  He was next to Martha.

 

(Transcriber’s note:  Fannie’s oldest brother, Daniel Alexander “Dan” Sreaves was reportedly “sweet” on Martha Adeline Thompson when he was a boy.  He went on to marry Nancy Jane “Sis” Roark and Martha married Wesley Roark.    Years later (1954) after they were both widowed, Dan and Martha married each other and were together until Dan’s death on September 29, 1970.  Martha passed away on February 25, 1972.  Dan and Sis were my maternal grandparents.)

 

Us girls would help with the chores and help in the field.  We didn’t have corn planters then.  The men folks would get the ground plowed and harrowed.  Then they would lay the rows off both ways, and then us girls would drop the corn in the rows, and sometime someone would follow behind and drop stock peas in with the corn.   Then it was all covered with a plow, but most times it was covered with a hoe.

 

One time when Alice was about 10-years-old we were waiting until Jess got the rows ready for us girls to plant the corn and peas.  Alice and Lula would climb up on an old straw stack and roll down.  So it was time for us to start planting and Alice said “I am going to roll down once more.”  But when she started a copperhead snake bit her on the thumb.  It went in so deep on her little thumb that it wouldn’t sling off.  My brother Jess came running and he was chewing tobacco, so he took it out and held her thumb real tight and he would suck her thumb and spit it out.  He got some of it out.  He said it puckered his mouth like a green persimmon.  We had three doctors, and it took about a year before she got it all right.  It left her thumb stiff.

 

Well, we all finished our school at Hart.  It was two rooms:  1^st, 2^nd, 3^rd, and 4^th grades were in one room, and 5^th, 6^th, 7^th, and 8^th were in the other.  I remember one year there were one hundred and eight in school.   Charley Nutting taught the higher classes.   At the end of the term he wrote a poem and everyone’s name was in it.   A little boy, Clarence Roark, died.  I remember the end of it (the poem).   He had all of the names two at a time.  The last of it was:  “Ethel Sreaves is the last one mentioned.  We have none with her to mix.”

 

Oh yes, I forgot that when we moved to Missouri we had two horses.  They were bay.  Their names were Fan and Bird.  Fan was blaze-faced and Bird had a little white spot on her face.  We also had two cows, Hart and Lill.  Hart had a hat in her face, and Lill was brindle.   We had them a long time.  We had two dogs.  Flora was a shepherd.  We had her till she was eighteen-years-old.   Ring was red with a white ring around his neck.  Old Fan raised enough mule colts to pay for our home place.  The last mules she had were twins.  Papa called them Jerry and Ribbon.   They never did get very big.  He broke them to work, and when he sold them he sold them together. 

 

(Transcriber’s Note:  A mule is a large farm animal used for heavy chores like plowing and pulling wagons and sleds – and logs for railroad ties.  Mules are products of cross-breeding between female horses and male donkeys.  They are born sterile which means they can’t reproduce as a species.)

 

Mama had a bunch of Plymouth Rock chickens.

 

Well, Ethel and Alice taught school.  Alice didn’t like teaching, but Ethel taught till she got married.   She married Harry Anderson.  They had four girls and three boys.   After they were grown she went back to teaching.  Ethel made a real good teacher, one of the best.  If they didn’t like school, she got them liking it.  After Harry died she joined the Vista Volunteers and they sent her to Florida.  She worked with the real poor people.  She started Meals-on-Wheels.  One old lady called her “the angel.”  

 

My sister Alice married Henning Anderson.  He was a cousin to Harry.   He was from Nebraska.  My brother Dan married Nancy Jane Roark.  They had four girls and three boys:  Mary Ruth, Florine, Christine, and Bettie – and the boys were Dean, Ned, and Floyd.  Jess married Lula Anderton and they had one girl and three boys:  Mary, Ray, Roy, and Marvin.

 

My brother Jackson never married.  He had heart trouble real bad.  He had an enlarged heart and when he died at thirty-seven, the doctor said the ligaments gave away and it dropped down.

 

My sister Lula married Wess Kelley.  They had one boy and two girls.  Their names were Manuel Kelley, Jewel Kelley, and Ethel Kelley.  They were the ones who started Kelly Ville.

 

(Transcriber’s Note:  I can remember visiting Kelley Ville a couple of times with my parents back in the 1950s.  My memory is that it was on a river near “Twin Bridges” close to Wyandotte, Oklahoma.    The primary business was a café which also doubled as a tavern.  The most memorable thing about Kelley Ville was Aunt Lula’s husband, Wess (Wesley Robert) Kelley.  He looked and sounded exactly like William Frawley, the actor who played Fred Mertz on the television show “I Love Lucy.”)

 

I, Fannie, married Joe Ulmer.  He was a wonderful man.  We had five children.  The oldest is Ruth, then Grace, Othur, Ray, and Joan.    Ruth married Gene Scurlock, Grace married Alfred Shreve, Othur just lived six weeks – he had flu, Ray married Mary-Ann Loucks, and Joan married Charles Tanner.   Joe is gone but I will never forget him.   He was sick a long time with cancer.   I loved him so much.  I am making my home with Ruth and Gene at Ft. Worth, Texas.   I am eighty-five, eighty-six before long.

 

(Transcriber’s Note:  Fannie’s story ends there.  The only time that I can remember seeing her was at my grandfather’s funeral in 1970.  Fannie Matilda Sreaves Ulmer passed away in Parker County, Texas, on December 1^st, 1990 at the age of ninety-two.  Descendants of Alexander and Mary Jane Ellis Sreaves will be forever grateful for the time and attention-to-detail that Fanny took in preparing this narrative and preserving a cache of family history which will be shared and enjoyed by many generations yet to come!)

 

Protesters Attempt to Deny COVID Vaccine to Others

by Pa Rock
Citizen Journalist

At this point in time I don't have a major problem with people who decline to be vaccinated against COVID.  Their denial of science just means that others will be able to get the life-saving treatment earlier.  I do, however, realize that sooner or later most people will have to be vaccinated in order to put a permanent end to this cruel pandemic - but for now let's focus on the smart end of the gene pool.  The others will come around eventually as pandemic deaths begin to devastate their numbers.

So, for the time being, let the alarmists alone as they increase their own risk and provide extra vaccine for the rest of us.

But I do have a problem with the shot protesters using their unhinged conspiracy theories to try and deny life-saving medical treatment to others.   There are people fighting the inoculation program who believe  the pandemic is not real, and that the nearly half-a-million US deaths were the result of other causes.  Those people are dangerously ill-informed about the ravages that COVID-19 is unleashing on the entire planet - as well as just plain stupid.

At the same time there is also a small but growing anti-vaccination community that stretches across the United States, people who believe a range of blatant falsehoods from the rise in cases of diagnosed autism is a result of childhood vaccinations to the freakish claim that the government has placed a tracking technology in inoculations so that it can monitor the movement of citizens.

And now all of these science-deniers and kooks are coming together in a crazy mix that is focused on disrupting the program to immunize Americans against COVID-19 - and their goal has gone beyond just refusing shots themselves to the notion that they are somehow responsible for denying them to others as well.  They have stepped beyond their own self-interest and are now trying to force others to live in their fantasyland.

Los Angeles has set up a mass COVID-19 clinic at Dodger Stadium where the city is attempting to vaccinate 12,000 individuals a day.  Yesterday that clinic was stopped for nearly an hour as the city attempted to move protesters away from the entrance.  Protesters also took to the main highway arteries serving the stadium and disrupted and stalled several lanes of traffic.

There is a difference between placing your own health at risk - and deliberately interfering with the health practices of others.  When the protesters began feeling a misguided urge to protect everyone else, they crossed a line.  It's one thing to endanger your own life - and quite another to endanger the lives of others!

Whacko conspiracy theories are a danger to the health of individuals, our nation, and the planet.  Let science rule!

 

COVID Shots Arrive in the Ozarks

by Pa Rock
Local Yokel

This past week I began focusing on COVID-19 vaccinations with a vengeance.  I was already on two waiting lists - one with the county health department and the other with our local hospital group - but had received basically no information from either of those sources as to when the vaccines would reach our local area - if ever.  On Monday I sent a polite but pointed email to my state representative, a Republican ex-judge whom I do not know personally, asking about the state's plan for getting the vaccine out to his rural district.   Now, five days later, Rep. David Evans still has not provided me with the courtesy of a response.

On Tuesday and Thursday I directed tweets to our state's governor, a Republican by the name of Mike Parson, asking him about the state's vaccine distribution.plan.  Governor Parson also did not deem me worthy of a response.  On Wednesday I masked up and went to the local Walgreen's where I do all of my considerable pharmaceutical business.  I asked the young man at the window if they had a sign-up sheet yet for COVID inoculations, and he sheepishly told me that would be "months away."

So I sucked it up, went home, and waited on the killer virus to find me.

But then Thursday afternoon, not long after I had sent another POT (pissed-off tweet) to Governor Parson, things suddenly changed for the better!  As I was sitting at the computer working on the day's blog entry, an email dropped into my in-box from the county health department and the local hospital group.  It said that a mass COVID inoculation clinic would be held the following day at our local Civic Center, and that I met the requirements for getting the shot.  I was to arrive between the hours of noon and two p.m. and was cautioned not to arrive early.  (Shots were being given all day on a schedule defined alphabetically by last names.)

So yesterday I got in my old flivver and headed to the Civic Center - early of course - where I got in a long line of slow-moving cars that were being marked and directed into the Center's large parking lots by uniformed members of the Missouri National Guard.  (The one thing that Governor Parson has done right in this whole mess was to turn distribution of the shots over to the Missouri National Guard.  Those folks get things done!)

Once parked, I was told to remain in my car and that someone would come and get me when it was my turn.  I chatted with the Guard member who was wearing an Air Force uniform, and learned that he was based at Jefferson Barracks near St. Louis - the place where my father had enlisted in the Army Air Corps in 1942 just after he turned eighteen.  Cars were still coming in, bumper-to-bumper, so I settled in with my Ellery Queen Mystery Magazine expecting it to be late in the day before I was finally called.

Less than thirty minutes later, however, another young man in an Air Force uniform tapped on my window and asked if I was ready.  (It's a wonder I didn't knock him over as I hustled out of the car!).  I was driven to the front door of the Civic Center by a non-uniformed person who was operating something that resembled an agricultural golf cart.  (Similar vehicles were everywhere transporting us frail, elderly types around the parking lot like a colony of deranged ants at a picnic.). I chatted with my driver - because that's what old people do - and he told me that he was employed by the city street department.

Human foot-traffic inside of the Civic Center was being carefully directed by members of the National Guard.  I talked to another guardsman, a young woman in an Air Force uniform, and asked if she was based out of Jefferson Barracks.  It turns out she was from the other side of the state and was working out of Whiteman Air Force Base in Johnson County, near Kansas City.  She led me into the Center's gymnasium, the place where the teams from the local university play their home basketball games.

I was quickly shuffled to one of many small tables that were being manned by young women in what appeared to be blue nurses uniforms.  It turns out they were student nurses from our local university.  Mine took the forms that I had downloaded from the internet and carefully filled out - and she transferred my information to another similar set of forms.

And then . . . and then . . . she plunged that blessed needle into my right arm and delivered my first COVID shot - Pfizer - and handed me a card with instructions to appear at the follow-up clinic which will be held at the same location on February 19th.  

I was then shuffled along to another part of the gym where people were seated in groups and required to sit for fifteen minutes until released by the timekeeper.  While sitting in the large time-out space, I overheard a conversation between a fellow with shoulder-length gray hair, like my own, and a friend whom he had apparently not seen in quite some time.  The friend was commenting on the man's long pandemic hair, and the guy responded, "Yes, my sister says that the longer I stay at home, the more I look like a homeless person!"  And that sounded like something my own sister was probably thinking about me!

After being released, I was shuttled back to my car and allowed to be on my merry way!   (Shuttled, shuffled, shuffled, shuttled - there's a poem in there someplace!)

And now I am beginning to feel empowered.  The shot didn't hurt and I had no side effects other than a bit of a sore arm late in the evening - and that has now passed.

I feel both pleased and very honored to be part of the Biden administration's ambitious goal of inoculating 100 million people during Biden's first 100 days in office - and I know that it would not have happened without the highly coordinated efforts of our local medical community, county health department. local college students, city employees, and the Missouri National Guard.  You guys rock - and help to make West Plains, Missouri, a great place to live!

Many thanks!

Ancestor Archives: Etta Orvilla Griffith (1873-1950)

by Rocky Macy

Etta Orvilla GRIFFITH was born on August 17, 1873, in Sarcoxie, Jasper County, Missouri, to Orville and Lucinda M. (JONES) GRIFFITH.   She married Thomas Franklin NUTT in Neosho, Newton County, Missouri, on March 31, 1893.  Etta passed away in Neosho on June 13, 1950.

Etta Orvilla GRIFFITH was my great-grandmother.
 
Although Etta (Griffith) NUTT was born in Jasper County, Missouri, she and her family were residing in Van Buren Township of Newton County, Missouri, by the time the 1880 census was taken, and in each of the censuses from 1900 through 1940 she was a resident of Neosho in Newton County, though she did spend time residing in Florida and California between some of those census years.
 
Etta and Tom had eight children:  Claude Franklin (September 7, 1893-July 19, 1980), Mable May (September 20, 1896-January 7, 1979), Ethel Blanche (June 3, 1898-May 3, 1968), Ina Eskil (August 21, 1900 – September 18, 1980), Hazel Josephine (July 28, 1902-October 29, 1975), Daisy Orvilla (February 13, 1904-March 5, 1963), Robert Eugene (February 19, 1908-April 14, 1998) and Lawrence “Earl” (August 27, 1911-March 21, 1973).
 
Spouses of the children of Etta and Tom were as follows:  Claude (Jeanette A. CUSHMAN), Mable (Charles SOUR), Ethel (Walter “Jack” MACY), Ina (Lewis Eggleston JOHNSTON), Hazel (Charles Eugene MACY), Daisy (1.) V. Desmond WHEELER,  2.) E.T. LINDBLAD), Robert (1.) Verna Unknown,  2.)  Gladys Unknown), and L. Earl (1.) Isabel WOODWARD,  2.) Ruthella M. WADE).  Robert divorced his first wife, and L. Earl’s first wife died at a young age in Riverside, California.
 
There was a “news stand” on the south side of the Neosho Square up at least through the 1960’s, and probably beyond that, which sold a variety of newspapers, magazines, and paperback books.  I remember making several trips through that small building when I was in high school and would occasionally purchase a magazine or book while I was there.  I heard a few years ago that the news stand had been operated by Etta NUTT at one time, and while researching her, I found several mentions of the news stand which, it turns out, was the property of her and Tom’s oldest son, Claude.
 
Claude NUTT appears to have been the quintessential all-American boy.  He served in the US military on three separate occasions – with the Army along the Mexican border in 1915, with the Army in France during World War I, and a third stint with the Army during World War II.   Between his service along the Mexican border and his enlistment to fight in World War I, young Mr. NUTT made a name for himself in the Neosho business community.  A notice on page one in “The Neosho Daily Democrat” on November 26, 1915 informed the public that F.C. ARMSTRONG had sold the “Neosho News Stand” to Claude NUTT.  
 
Two days later, on November 27, 1915, the following notice ran on page four of the same newspaper:
 

“Notice!
 
“All accounts on papers due the Neosho News Co. should be paid either at the news stand or to Mrs. Etta Nutt, collector.  Phone No. 2.  Claude Nutt.
 
“Will move Monday to South Side Square, 2^nd door east of McGinty Bros.”

(Telephone No. 2 – how cool is that!  Who had Telephone No.1?  The mayor?  The president of the bank?)

The following month, on December 29^th, 1915, Claude NUTT ran an advertisement in the same newspaper which listed the names of the newspapers that his business sold.   They included:  “The St. Louis Republic,” “The St. Louis Globe Democrat,” “The St. Louis Post Dispatch,” “The St. Louis Times,” “The Kansas City Post,” and “other Kansas City papers”  that could be purchased as single copies or by the week or month.  The advertisement also mentioned that the business sold magazines.  It was signed by Claude Nutt, Agent.
 
Over the next year there were other advertisements for Claude’s news business in the “The Neosho Daily Democrat” and also in “The Neosho Times.”   Finally on March 25, 1917, after Claude was making plans to rejoin the Army  or possibly had already rejoined, this very short notice ran in “The Neosho Times”:
 

“News Stand for sale or trade.  See Mrs. Thos. Nutt.”

Etta NUTT who had a taste of managing a business was not destined to stay at home mothering and grand-mothering her large family.  By mid-March of 1920 she was managing another business, this time on the West Side of the Neosho Square.  The following ran in “The Neosho Times” on March 16, 1920:

 

“Ladies, you are invited to inspect our stock of ladies’ and children’s hats before buying elsewhere.  Royal Millinery.  Mrs. Thos. Nutt, Manager.  West Side Square.”

The hat business did not last long either because by 1923 Tom and Etta had packed up their younger children and moved to Florida to pick fruit in the groves.  They were listed in the Orlando City Directory of 1923 where Tom’s profession was given as that of a carpenter. 
 
The family excursion to Florida did not last long and soon Tom and Etta were back at home in Neosho.   Ina had met a young man by the name of Lewis Eggleston JOHNSTON while they were in Florida, and he followed the family back to Neosho where he and Ina were soon married.  She then returned to Florida with her new husaband where they raised a family and spent the rest of their lives.  

A couple of years later Etta was back at work at the news stand which had been renamed “The Southand News Stand. "  An article in the local newspaper on December 29^th of 1928, reported that Mrs. Thomas Nutt, an employee of the news stand, had been confined to her home by illness for the past two days.

By the mid-1920’s all of their children were grown and out on their own except for the two youngest boys, Robert and Earl, who were teenagers.  That gave Etta some time to begin concentrating on her grandchildren.   On September 3, 1926, “The Neosho Daily Democrat” ran this brief story about a party that Etta hosted  for one of her granddaughters:
 

“Small Guest Entertained
 
“Mrs. T.F. Nutt entertained for her granddaughter, Mary Ruth Nutt of Wichita, Kansas, yesterday evening, inviting several of Mary Ruth’s cousins to spend the evening with her.
 
“Joy Cushman of Neosho, and Mildred Nadine and Lynn Earl Sour of Joplin, were among the small cousins who enjoyed the time, and the ice cream and cake which were served late in the evening.”

 
The next mention of Etta NUTT in the local press – “The Neosho Times” – was on March 12, 1936 when it was reported that she had just returned to Neosho following a stay of almost a year in Los Angeles, California, where she had been visiting her son, Robert, and her daughter, Daisy.   Five years later, on April 4, 1941, “The Neosho Democrat” carried a report that Etta and Tom had sold their property in Neosho and had moved to Corona, California, to be near a number of relatives.  (At least three of their children were living in southern California at that time:  Daisy, Robert, and Earl.)
 
Etta and Tom eventually returned to Missouri, and she passed away that their Neosho home on June 13, 1950.  Her death certificate listed congestive heart failure as the cause of death with “senile dementia” as a contributing factor.   The document also stated that she had been bed-ridden for several years.

My father, Garland Eugene MACY left handwritten family notes in which he described his Grandmother Etta this way:  

"My Grandmother Nutt (Etta) died when I was 26.  She was irritable and cranky with us kids, probably (because) she was sick.  We stayed with them so (often) when I was small (that) she was probably sick of us.  We would stay with anyone that would have us.  We were hungry.  We liked to eat."

 
Etta’s obituary ran in “The Neosho Daily Democrat” on the day of her death:
 

“Mrs. Etta O. Nutt Dies This Morning
 
“Mrs. Etta O. Nutt, 76 years old, died at 4:15 o’clock this morning at her home on Neosho, Rt. 4, following a week’s illness.
 
“Mrs. Nutt, the wife of Thomas S. (sic) Nutt, was born in Sarcoxie  and had lived in the Neosho area since she was three years old.
 
“Surviving besides her husband are three sons:  Claude F. Nutt of Wichita, Kans,, Robert E. Nutt of San Diego, Calif., and Earl Nutt of Riverside, Calif.  Five daughters:  Mrs. Jack Macy and Mrs. C.E. Macy both of Neosho, Rt. 4, Mrs. Charles Sour, Joplin, Mrs. Lewis Johnston of Winter Garden, Florida, and Mrs. E.T. Lindblad of El Monte, Calif.
 
“Mrs. Nutt was a member of the Baptist Church and the Royal Neighbors Lodge.
 
“Funeral arrangements will be announced by Clark-Bigham Mortuary.”

I was just two-years-old when my great-grandmother, Etta Orvilla NUTT, passed away, and I have no memories of her.  She does seem to have been an ambitious person who successfully raised a large family, held down a variety of jobs, and liked to travel.   Etta seems to have been the type of person who was driven to experience what life had to offer – and she did it well.

Blood Victory

by Pa Rock
Reader

"Blood Victory" is the third novel in what author Christopher Rice has termed his "Burning Girl" series.  The first two titles in the series were "Bone Music" and "Blood Echo."

The "burning girl" at the center of these thriller novels is Charlotte "Charley" Rowe, a young woman who, as an infant, fell victim, along with her mother, to a married pair of serial killers.  The mother was killed by her captors, and the killers raised Charlotte as their own daughter.  Young Charlotte, not knowing her personal history, was eventually rescued from the captivity of her mother's killers and sent to live with her biological father, a parent she never knew and who had been estranged from her mother.  The father raised her more as a sideshow freak than as a daughter, and he concentrated on enhancing her "story" of captivity and making a living off of exploiting her to the curious world.  Eventually Charlotte reached an age where she was able to understand that her father was manipulating her for profit, and she escaped to the home of her maternal grandmother in California who gave the girl her first experience with some form of a normal life.

That bit of normalcy was short-circuited when her grandmother died, and Charley, now a young adult, fled to Arizona to hide from curiosity-seekers and stalkers and to enter therapy.  Unfortunately she chose the wrong therapist and soon found herself the emotional prisoner of yet one more person who was not acting in her best interests.

The therapist, who was really a chemist working for a multi-national pharmaceutical concern, slipped Charley a special drug that he had invented which he hoped would give her super physical and healing powers when the was emotionally triggered.    Then he created and cast her into a position where she was emotionally triggered.    A  physical marvel - or monster - resulted that could challenge and destroy some of the most savage criminals in the world.

The new Charley was a killing machine who began working in partnership with the young head of the pharmaceutical company that developed the drug that gave her the special powers.  Together with a team of experts and some cutting-edge technology, they began identifying serial killers and eliminating them via Charley's special powers.  Once a serial killer had been identified and his method of operation sussed out, she would manage to become his next victim to learn the details of the operation, look for any hidden survivors, and then take him out.  

"Blood Victory" has Charley being captured by a trucker in Dallas, Texas, a man she and her team believe tortures and kills young women in the back of his truck.  It is only after Charley is abducted, however, that it becomes obvious that this serial killer is actually part of a much larger operation, and that in addition to saving herself, Charley and the team must also be concerned with identifying and rescuing other women who are in other trucks - and all being transported to an unknown location and fate.

"Blood Victory" is an exciting tale with plenty of action and cutting-edge science to keep the pages turning, and it also offers up a couple of romantic storylines to occasionally calm the pace.  It's a well plotted story, well told through the exceptionally fine writing of Christopher Rice.  

And Christopher Rice never disappoints!