Looking Backward 12.4.2014
25 Years Ago
November 30, 1989
Several businesses have opened, moved or expanded in the downtown Ava area during the past few weeks. Country Charm, located just off the southwest corner of the Ava square near City Hall, features handmade craft items. Ava Music Company has been established in conjunction with Ava Used Furniture on South Jefferson Street. Donna’s Discount and Pawn Shop is located on the north side of the Ava square in the building formerly occupied by Ruby’s Country Store. That store has moved to the east side in the building that formerly housed the Ice Cream Parlor. Hammer’s Used Furniture Antiques and Curios has occupied the Silvey building on the northeast corner of the Ava square.
Several members of the Ava Lions Club gathered at the site of the new Lions Club building Tuesday afternoon. The building will be constructed on a lot just north of the square given to the club by Sybil Kerr, of Ava.
Bill Roark, Springfield, was re-elected president of the Missouri Fox Trotting Horse Breed Association at the annual election of the organization here this fall. Don Freeman, Mansfield, was elected secretary / treasurer, replacing Roy Brown, Ava, who did not seek re-election the position. Instead, Brown was elected to a regular board seat. Also elected to a first term on the board was Mylo Brown, of West Plains.
Shalana Fleetwood, daughter of Bob and Shirley Fleetwood, celebrated her 13th birthday with several of her friends in her home Friday, Nov. 10, after school.
Mr. and Mrs. Tom Johnson will celebrate their 50th wedding anniversary on Sunday, Dec. 3, at the Ava Community Center. Tom and Jewell Newton were married on Dec. 1, 1939.
SQUIRES –– Theta Porter and Belinda Lawrence went to Springfield Sunday where they attended a performance at the Little Theater of Camelot.
50 Years Ago
November 26, 1964
Twelve Ava High School students will participate in Miss Merrie Christmas activities Saturday during the annual Christmas parade which is scheduled to start at 1 p.m. One girl from the senior class will be crowned “Miss Merrie Christmas” following the parade and the others will serve as her attendants. Candidates are Carol Denney, Mary Swain, Paula Cudworth, senior class; Nancy Musich, Donna Tidwell, Jeanetta Johnson, junior class; Janet Frye, Diana McAllister, Carole Burk, sophomore class; Carol Riggs, Linda Bacorn, Carol Leeper, freshman class.
Plans were announced this week by Supt. Of Schools O.T. Tallent, for the construction of a $77,000 addition to the Ava Elementary School building. The new wing, consisting of six self-contained classrooms, is planned to provide quarters for the three sixth grade classes which are presently housed in the junior high building.
Bond sales got underway this week on the $300,000 nursing home which is scheduled to be constructed here by Assembly Homes, Inc., of Kansas City.
This issue marks the beginning of the 79th year of continuous publication of the Douglas County Herald. The Herald is the oldest business establishment in Ava. Although it has been published under several different owners, J. E. Curry, the present publisher, became the majority stockholder in 1915.
The 1st Thanksgiving–a harvest feast–was celebrated in 1621 by the Pilgrims at Plymouth with Chief Massasoit and his tribesmen as guests. We’ve much to be thankful for despite our troubled times. We have much more to be thankful for than did the Pilgrims. Our modern conveniences, which make life easier, are too often taken for granted. Pause for a minute and give thanks.
THE SNOOP, by the editor –– I noticed two service stations signs on a recent trip to Harrison, Ark. One station advertises: “Put a Tiger in Your Tank” with our gasoline. A station next door displays this noticeable humor: “We Sell Filters to Filter Out the Tiger Hair.”
Snow tires or chains? Consider buying both, but if you are trying to decide which is best, snow tires cannot equal the performance of chains.
Enlisting in the U.S. Air Force this week is James Clifford (Junior) Detherage, son of Mr. and Mrs. Clifford Detherage of Route 2, Ava, according to T-Sgt. Billy Montgomery, local Air Force Recruiter.
Jerry L. Wallace, grandson of Mr. and Mrs. Claud Gaulding of Ava has recently been promoted to rank of Cadet First Lieutenant in the ROTC program at the University of Missouri.
75 Years Ago
November 30, 1939
Principals in the Lions Club minstrel to be given Thursday night next week for the benefit of the Lions Christmas basket fund are announced this week. Dr. F. F. Schudy will occupy the center of the stage again this year as interlocutor. Endmen will be Claude Hibbard as Deuteronomy; J.E. Curry as Tambo, John Fawcett as Doorknob, J.A. McKinney as Cudgel, Ben Callaway as Snowflake, Russell Ferguson as Shinbone, C. O. Daves as Sockeye, D.W. Tillman as Lopear, O.M. Swick as Mudheel, Ray Royce as Bones, David Joslyn at Suntan, Harry Martin as Foghorn and John Putnam as Tailspin. Music for the show is in charge of Roy Tharp and Floyd Curnutt. Dialog has been prepared by O.M. Swick and D. W. Tillman.
Harold Barritt, serving a term in Kansas State Prison at Lansing, Kansas, on a stolen car charge, had contracted to buy a tract of land from the Poe family near Roy, Mrs. Poe said this week. With this for an excuse, he dumped stolen merchandise and cattle at the Poe farm, she said, and the Poe family knew nothing abut the stolen goods until officers got on the trail of Barritt and his companion, D.F. Snyder. Snyder is serving a sentence in the Oklahoma state prison. Mrs. Poe said some of the stolen goods are yet at her farm. They never knew the merchandise was stolen, she said.
Fighting between Soviet and Finnish troops was reported Wednesday from Moscow by the United Press shortly after Russia denounced her 1932 pact of nonaggression with Finland. Hostilities between the two nations, overshadowed present warfare between Germany and the allied powers of Great Britain and France.
Herr Hitler claims that he would have the sympathy of the “World” and particularly that of the U.S. if he were not misunderstood because of the trickery and lies of England.
Ted Gray left Sunday afternoon for his home in Iberia after spending the holiday season visiting in Ava with his brothers-in-law and sisters, Mr. and Mrs. Lyle Ross and Mr. and Mrs. Virgil Kester.
Wallace Hartley left Monday for St. Louis where he will undergo a series of examinations before being assigned to a naval post for training. Mr. Hartley enlisted in the U.S. Navy two months ago but had been in Ava awaiting a call to begin training.
CROSS ROADS –– Mr. and Mrs. Homer Hailey and family had as guests last Thursday Mr. and Mrs. Orville Denney and sons, Eldon and James, and Glenn Harnden.
- TABOR –– Mr. and Mrs. Ford Andrews, Messrs. Jess and Geo. Turner moved to the farm home of Jess Turner last week.
ROME –– Mrs. Roy Mackey accompanied her husband to Dora Sunday where she will spend this week. Mr. Mackey drives No. 9 bus to Ava High School.
100 Years Ago
December 10, 1914
Just two weeks from next Friday until Christmas. What are you doing to better the lives and brighten the hearts of your fellow-man. Do you feel the spirit that “It is better to give than to receive?”
Let’s pave the streets of Ava around the public square.
We are still waiting for that wave of prosperity and our share of the Regional Banks fund but it strikes us not. Now this half a million dollars may be all right for those banks and the individual owners, but it doesn’t lower the rate of interest and make money more plentiful. It will not help the businessman, and if it does not give the laboring man job, it is not worth a cuss to them.
Never try to dictate to a woman – unless she is your stenographer.
The home of Mr. and Mrs. J.T. Singleton was the scene of a surprise birthday dinner last Wednesday in honor of their son, Homer’s 14th birthday. Those who enjoyed the occasion were masters Clifford Reynolds, Charley Carter, Floyd Fisher, Arthur Marler and Sam Curry.
Baths at Ozark Hotel, 25 cents.
Marriage License –– Forest Camp of Zenda to Florence Previtt of Ava; Frank Werle to Kate Lamb both of Cheney; Ellis Ronemer of Springfield to Lora Benet of Meritt.
- ZION –– Mr. and Mrs. Ira Yeisley returned to their home in Ava last Friday after a stay of several months among us, while Mr. Yielsey engaged in carpenter work on different buildings here.
HEBRON ITEMS –– Bud Bird of Oklahoma is in this neighbor-hood for the purpose of teaching singing school. He begins this week at Big Springs with about 30 students.
SILVERTON ITEMS –– We hear that Mr. J.L. Lobb has traded his farm near Silverton for land near Willard, New Mexico.
Opportunities to work for board. Expenses low. Operators receive from $50 to $150 month. Best equipped railroad school in the west. Positions guaranteed. Information free. Sedalia Telegraph School, Sedalia, Missouri.
CHAMPION ITEMS –– We are having some very bad weather at present.
DENLOW ITEMS –– Howard Proctor is building a new house. … J.R. Luttrell received a commission as Notary Public last week. … Mr. and Mrs. John Little are the proud parents of a new son.
125 Years Ago
December 5, 1889
The claim of the cattlemen that great financial disaster will follow the enforcement of Secretary Noble’s order for the removal of their stock from the Cherokee Strip by June 1, 1890, is not a reasonable one. They have been granted a sufficient time to adjust their affairs in a safe way and without any necessity of loss, and that is all they have any right to ask.
The objection to the site selected for the public building at Springfield is that the people do not like to go a mile into the country to get their mail.
The Grand Jury at Farmington returned 250 indictments for gambling as the result of the clever work of a nice young man who turned out to be a detective.
Keytesville has Lincoln Avenue on which the mud was two feet deep at last accounts.
A Jefferson City woman stopped the Tribune the other day because it made a note of her 54th birthday.
The great steel bridge at Cairo is in all over four miles long.
Rowland & McMahon of Buckhart will move into their new storehouse on January 1.
The Herald is rapidly increasing its circulation. Over forty new subscriptions secured during the last week. We have purchased a new job press and will soon be prepared to do all kinds of job work at this office.
The heavy rains of the past week have done considerable damage in the creek bottoms, washing away fences and ungathered corn crops. High water in Beaver Creek last week resulted in considerable damage to fencing. This is rather late for Indian summer but we are having a few days this week, which resemble that season.
Prisoners in the county jail are now compelled to work out their time on the streets of Ava.
The scheme for the formation of a big republic in Central America out of the five little ones in the region has virtually become a fact. The new confederation, if it hangs together, will undoubtedly be able to yield more influence in the outside world than the units out of which it is to be composed could or did, and at the same time government can be conducted more economically and efficiently than under the old system.
There is nothing that creates such fear in an untamed horse as man. Mountain lions and savage beasts will not alarm a wild horse like the presence of man.
The Mexican senate has approved the coinage of $300,000 worth of copper cents.
The appellate court of Illinois has decided that the mayors of cities have perfect right to forbid obnoxious parades by Salvation Army people.
Missourians located in Guthrie, I.T. have appealed to the Missouri delegation in Congress to aid them in quicking the titles to their land.
The first governor of Missouri was Alexander McNair and he received 6,576 votes.
