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Looking Backward 5.29.2014

25 Years Ago

May 25, 1989

 

The major power outage that disrupted electrical service to the Red Bud Village senior citizens housing development here last week may cost the city as much as $6,000 to $7,000 by the time the work is completely finished.

Music on the Square program will get underway for the 1989 season this Friday with a well-rounded schedule on tap.

Monday night vandalism in Ava and at the Ava Country Club is under investigation by the Ava Police Department this week.

Mr. and Mrs. Donald L. Dobbs will celebrate their 25th wedding anniversary Saturday, May 27 with a barbecue at their home at Skyline.

Julie Aborn, fourth grade student at Ava R-I, participated in the fourth annual Missouri Student Mathematics Contest state competition held at Columbia on May 13.

A copper infant elephant, the latest creation of local sculptor, Lon Brusselback, was recently shipped to the Woodland Park Zoo in Seattle, Washington. Locally, his sculpture can be found at Bass Pro’s southern Missouri resort, Big Cedar Lodge.

Mr. and Mrs. Johnnie Johnson of Ava announce the forthcoming marriage of their daughter, Julie Deyon, to Greg Taylor, son of Evelyn Taylor of Edmund, Okla., and Bill Taylor of Springfield.

There will be an open house at the Division of Family Services office at 418 N. Jefferson in Ava, on Friday, May 26, from 1 p.m. to 4 p.m. The occasion is to honor Mrs. Faye Sims, Social Service Worker II who is retiring effective May 31.

Mr. and Mrs. Earnest Sparks of Dora will celebrate their 50th wedding anniversary.

 

50 Years Ago

May 21, 1964

 

One hundred members of the 1964 senior class of Ava High School will receive diplomas during the annual commencement exercises to be held at the high school auditorium tomorrow night.

Miss Mabel Mitchell was employed to teach English and speech, replacing Robert Prewitt, who resigned.

Berma Clinkingbeard, a caseworker for the Douglas County Welfare Office for 24 years, has been named as acting director of the office, effective Monday of this week.

A newly constructed Phillips 66 service station located at the junction of Highways 5 and 14 has been leased by Arthur Ray Murphy and will be opened for business Saturday. Murphy, who recently completed a six months reserve training program in the Army, is the son of Mr. and Mrs. Joe Murphy, teachers in the Ava schools.

The yearling quarter horse filly Miss Gold Star 2, owned by Dick Arndt of Ava, has won ribbons in three recent horse shows in Oklahoma. All shows were approved by the American Quarter Horse Association.

Ava now is officially “air marked.” A marking was painted on top of the Reid Tractor & Implement Co. building by the Missouri Pilots Association. The marking is a requirement in the state “five-star community” program.

“…migration from Ava and its adjacent area has been halted. In fact, the area’s population is growing again. Business activity is more than $1 million a year higher than it was in 1955. A total of 120 new homes have been built and real estate values have increased 10 percent.”

Ronnie Kelly, son of Douglas County Assessor Garnett Kelly and Mrs. Kelly of Star Route, Norwood, and Joe Chadwell, son of Mr. and Mrs. Ralph Chadwell of Macomb, were injured Wednesday, while on a senior class trip. The class had made a trip to St. Louis Wednesday and returned by way of the Lake of the Ozarks. Several of the class rented motorcycles in the resort area. The two boys, on the same motorcycle, were either crowded off the road or slipped in loose gravel and overturned in a ditch. Young Kelly suffered a severe arm injury and was taken to Springfield. Chadwell had a broken leg and mild concussion.

Virgil R. L. Fry, Wasola, Mo., is listed among the 135 students to graduate from Southern Baptist Theological Seminary at commencement exercises May 29. Fry will receive the Bachelor of Divinity (BD) degree from the Seminary’s School of Theology.

Mrs. Clinton Maloney hostessed the May meeting of the Wednesday Evening Bridge Club, May 6, in her home at 524 SE 2nd Street.     Seven members and one guest, Mrs. Joe Pitts, played several rounds of progressive contract and high score prizes were presented to Mr. Cleo Cooper and Mrs. Ralph Glendenning. A consolation gift was won by Mr. Burnam Cummins.

 

75 Years Ago

May 25, 1939

 

A check of the thinning ranks of Civil War veterans in Douglas County reveals only four left, following the death Saturday of Jesse Cox, 94. Remaining veterans, according to best information are: Providence Anderson, Blanche, Mo., who celebrated his one hundredth birthday anniversary on November 2, 1938; John Hutchison, Ava, 91 years old; George Nelson, Vanzant, 94 years old. Ephram Conklin, Ava whose age we were unable to secure.

Fred Livingston, manager of the Ava Lumber Company for thirteen years, has just closed a deal for the Gentryville store and service station, 22 miles east of Ava on Highway 14.

Three Douglas County farms are entered in the 1939 Missouri’s pasture contest, which is sponsored by the Kansas City and St. Louis Chambers of Commerce and the Missouri University Extension Service. They are Allen M. Rankin, who has a dairy farm in Clinton Township, C.E. Letsinger, who has a dairy farm in Miller Township, and Richard Uhlmann who has a herd of Angus beef cattle.   These men are to keep pasture and feed records starting Oct. 1, 1938, and ending September 30, 1939.

Wilson Theater is Now Named Pettit’s Avalon –– Completion of the new front of the Wilson Theater was effected the past week, and the name was changed to Pettit’s Avalon. Biggest change in the front is a large neon sign bearing the new name and neon lighting under and around the edge of the canopy.

MARRIAGE LICENSES –– Hurse Smith, Ava and Albia Hunsaker, Ava; Neil Arthur Whitworth, Ava and Daisy Potter, Ava; Elsie Sellers, Mtn. Grove, and Tressie McGinnis, Vanzant.

Paul Cudworth of Ava and Miss Elsa Lee Hicks, daughter of Mr. and Mrs. C.E. Hicks of Wasola, were married Sunday at the home of the bride’s parents. The Rev. B.H. Daniel officiated.

Miss Kathleen Hailey returned to the home of her parents, Mr. and Mrs. Homer Hailey, Saturday, May 20, after spending a year and a half in Seattle, Washington, where she was employed by the Northern Life Insurance Company. On her return trip she visited the San Francisco world’s fair and relatives in Pomona, California; Phoenix, Arizona; and Tulsa, Oklahoma.

Tuesday it will be legal for boys to bait up their hooks and try for bass and goggle-eye, as Tuesday, Decoration Day, marks the official opening of the game fish season in Missouri.

STAR –– Sonny and Rosalie Merritt have measles but are getting along nicely.

The newspapers say that Andy Carnegie found it very difficult to distribute $400,000,000. He should have know Harold Ickes and Harry Hopkins.

 

100 Years Ago

June 1, 1914

 

Committees Fair Association –– The board of directors for the Fair Association met last Tuesday night and the following business was transacted: J.A.G. Reynolds was elected president of the board. Ira M. Davis was elected vice-president.

President Wilson in discussing the present business depression says that the tariff bill has nothing to do with it. He blames the railroads for the entire state of affairs.

The Canadian Pacific Liner Empress of Ireland, sank May 29, on the St. Lawrence River, and took down with her nearly 1,000 people.

Cabool was visited last week by a fire which cost some of her citizens several thousand dollars.

Work started this week on a concrete job which will mean much to the northwest part of town. They have commenced on the east side of the Gentry Hotel. They will run the walk then on the south side of the hotel and on down Washington Ave., to the southwest corner of Landers lumberyard. Then they will run north to L.N. Jones northwest corner. This will be quite a string of sidewalk and will be very valuable to the north west side of the city.

The surveyors who are working on the county seat roads are on the east route this week, between Ava and Vera Cruz. They say they are getting an excellent route to that point and will be able to reach Vera Cruz with but one crossing of Hunter Creek, that will be the first one at the foot of Hunter Hill. Next week they will begin at the east corners between Jno. A. Spurlock and M. King, and run due west to the southeast corner of W.H. Bradshaw’s and then to Cross Roads schoolhouse. From there possibly to Granada.

Even the Income Tax will not save Uncle Sam from showing a deficit in his cash box with such conditions as these.

Marriage License – J.K. Musick to Ora Woods, both of Denlow; Ed Hale of Blanche to Mary J. McClellan of Buckhart; Will Hicks of McClurg to Lillie Nave of Rome; Grant Hampton of Ava to Ina Cox of Roy.

Postmaster Orr believes in the closed-door policy. He seems to pay tribute to the authorities at Washington while the patrons of the Ava office butt up against a locked door in an effort to get their Sunday mail.

PANSY ITEMS –– The stork visited Mr. and Mrs. Ami Nettles last week and left them a fine girl. Mother and babe are doing nicely.

LARISSA –– At the selling of the old Star Schoolhouse, an old landmark passed away. The house was sold June 1, bringing $26.00.

 

125 Years Ago

May 30, 1889

 

The Marshall of the Supreme Court of Missouri was down last Sunday and took Parson Haws to the state penitentiary at Jefferson City, where he will serve out a two-year sentence for forgery.

Is it May or December? The way our people put up stoves this morning reminded us of last December, and all the way you could tell the difference was in the looks of the trees, grass and garden truck.

Art Eslick had quite a little bit of experience with a lot of toughs at Mansfield, but when the affair was over about three out of the four had the experience attached to their noses and faces. One of them now sees out of one eye for the present.

George Turner and James Watts now languish in the cooler as the natural result of their last nights carousal. These two young men came to town and filled up on bad whiskey, and while fooling with a pop, Watts shot himself through the leg. Dr. Harper was called and extracted the ball and dressed the young man’s wound. No sooner had he left the Dr.’s office than he commenced to fire off his pistol, which brought out the town Marshal, and when he captured the outfit they had broken into the mill.

Capt. Ingram, who was recently killed by an elephant in South Africa, sometime before his death unwound the core cloth of an Egyptian mummy. Inside he discovered a table which being translated was found to prophesy that the person who profaned the grave clothes would die a violent death within three months of his sacrilegious act and his bones be scattered to the winds. Within the prescribed time the prophecy came true.

The New York Tribune states that ex-President Cleveland has rented the house, 616 Madison Avenue for two years with privilege of purchase for $100,000.

The Attorney General has authorized the Marshal of Arizona to offer a reward of $300 each for the arrest and conviction of the robbers of Paymaster Wham.

Kansas City is plagued with a large rosetta of slums, commonly known as joints. The police commissioners have, however, placed their feet on the gap of sin and will trample it out of existence.

Poles are being set and wires strung for a telegraph line between Lisbon and Pond Creek, Oklahoma, and the line will be in operation inside of five years. About 400 Indians of the Cheyenne and Arapaho tribes paraded the city recently and afterward gave war dances in an opera house ten.

A handsome and vivacious female living at Mobile, Ala., has a more romantic history than can be found on the pages of a dime novel. She falls in love nine times in one year with that number of suitors, also performing an elegant poisoning of a husband.