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Looking Backward

25 years ago

Jerry Delcour and Randy Heriford, both of Ava, won first place in the 44th annual Missouri State Men’s Bowling Association Tournament which was held in March this year. The 1993 tournament was held at Battlefield Lanes in Springfield. 

Mr. and Mrs. Eben T. Smith, of Springfield, will celebrate their 50th wedding anniversary Sunday, Aug. 15.  Mrs. Smith is the former Helen Marian Curnutt, of Ava. They were married in Glendale, Ariz., on Aug. 15, 1943, by Evangelist Wilford Landes.   

Jim and Lucille Collins came out in first place of the Wednesday Night Couples Golf League that completed its season last week at the Ava Country Club. Finishing in second place were Ralph and Carol Brown, with Lou and Doris Prince taking third place honors. 

Benny’s Restaurant, 730 No. Jefferson, this weeks daily special, quarter pounder, French fries & 16 oz. drink, all for only $2.29.  Always a free refill on all soft drinks. 

The Wednesday Bridge Club met August 4 at Hutch’s Country Inn with Daisy Ellis, hostess.  Playing were Dorothy Maloney, Billie Sue McGill, Daisy Ellis, Betty Spurlock, Sammy Martin, Norma Pettit, Sandra Turley and a guest, Betty House. 

Ty Middleton, Ava, exhibited two blue ribbon Guernseys in the junior show at the Ozark Empire Fair, Springfield.  Nichlas, Stephen and Jami Stewart, Ava, also exhibited in the junior dairy show. The Stewart’s four Guernseys and eight Brown Swiss all received blue ribbons and three stood first in their classes. 

OCIE –– We sand happy anniversary last Sunday to Mr. and Mrs. Willard Hughes and Mr. and Mrs. Paul Thornton. 

Three weeks of Bible camping has been completed at Camp J-O-Y with 374 registered campers and many visitors that were there for one day or one night. Over 70 youth made decisions of various kinds and 40 for salvation with faith in Jesus Christ. 

STAR –– Dinner guests of India and Mabel Merritt Sunday were Mr. and Mrs. Homer Merritt and Iricka, Evelyn Merritt, Jonathan and Stacy Joe. Afternoon callers were Russell and Sue Loftin, Michele and David Stout. 

50 years ago

The new 5,400 square foot Ava Furniture Company will observe its grand opening beginning Friday. The firm will feature a complete line of carpeting, furniture and appliances.  Buddy Porter is manager, and Mr. and Mrs. E. L. Hesterlee are the owners. 

Mrs. Shirley Riley of Route 4, Ava, was notified this week by the Secretary of Army that her husband, Spec. Bill Riley, was wounded in action in Vietnam on July 24.  Spec. Riley was wounded as the result of hostile action. He received metal fragment wounds to both legs, neck and back from enemy mortar fire. 

A tent revival is scheduled to be held at the corner of Third and 11th Streets in Ava Aug. 5-18 with services nightly at 8 p.m.  Leslie Buckner will be the evangelist. 

Featured in this week’s Herald is a feature story on a visit to Europe by four local persons, Mrs. Freda Gray, her two daughters, Zora and Julia, and a friend, Miss Vanessa Davis. 

Two Gainesville High School graduates have returned to the school as administrators.  Benton Breeding and Mrs. Ida Huse have been named superintendent and elementary principal, respectively. 

Miss Jalanna Kay Fleetwood celebrated her fifth birthday with a patio party Tuesday afternoon hostessed by her mother, Mrs. Ronnie Fleetwood, at the family home, 320 NW 7th Street. 

Jim Campbell, one of the leaders in the recent 4-H fishing skills projects, presented awards to winners of the casting and fishing contest.  In the casting contest, first prize of a Zebco reel furnished by Gambles Store went to Jimmy Campbell, Jr.  Second prize of a fishing rod given by Western Auto, went to Jeff Farris and third Prize, a midge plug given by the Otasco Store went to Jeff Fleetwood. 

Come and enjoy yourself to the music of Gerald and Elnora Prock, stars of radio and television, at the American Legion Hall, Ava, 9-12 p.m., Saturday night, Aug. 3.  Admission is $1.00 per person.  Dance, round dance, circle dance, waltz, broom dance.  Appearing also, Sonny Pierce. 

ARNO –– Mrs. Irene Powers visited last Thursday with Mrs. Clarence Blakey and in Ava with Mrs. Roger Dale Ward and Mrs. E.A. Ward, and with Mrs. Walter Billingsley. 

PFC Dale Duckworth, son of Mr. and Mrs. Norman Duckworth of Route 4, Ava, who has been based at Ft. Benning, Ga., called his parents Thursday night last week to inform them he was scheduled to leave for duty in Vietnam.  

Russell Heath of Heath & Son Feed & Supply, Ava, has been recognized as a member of the Farm Store Merchandising National Dealer Panel.  

Miss Charlene Henrietta Van Camp, daughter of Mr. and Mrs. Robert Van Camp of Thornfield, became the bride of Cody Lambert, son of Mr. and Mrs. Bob Lambert of Wasola, June 29, in a 2 o’clock ceremony at the RLDS Church in Ava with Rev. Bill Hambilton officiating before an altar banked with candleabra and baskets of white gladiola. 

75 years ago

Men with children, classified 3-A by selective service, may be called to serve with the armed forces on and after October 1, Lewis B. Hershey, selective service director, has announced in memorandum to local draft boards. 

Taxes for 1943 are now payable, and County Collector Harry Martin is asking that, this year especially, tax payers pay their taxes early.  

Mr. and Mrs. John C. Eagan of Blanche have six sons in the U.S. Army, it was revealed here Tuesday when they visited the Herald office. That sounds a whole lot like a record for Douglas County, if not for the entire state.  All six entered the service from Douglas County. 

Two men went through a window of the Lloyd Friend tavern late Monday afternoon during a fight that is said to have started in the tavern and ended up on the sidewalk outside.  Warrants for the two were issued by the city Tuesday.  Jim Degase, hearing about the warrant for him, voluntarily appeared before Police Judge R.A. McJimsey, pleaded guilty to a charge of fighting and paid a fine of $10 and costs.  City Marshal Charles Scribner arrested Raymond Whitworth, who is said to live west of Ava between Goodhope and Arden. He too was charged with fighting. Whitworth pleaded not guilty and Judge McJimsey set trial for Monday, August 16. 

Superintendent C.W. Parker announced this week the resignation of two teachers from the Ava school faculty.  The two new resignations are Miss Vivian Uhlmann, fourth grade teacher, and Miss Zela Wilkerson, high school English teacher. Miss Uhlmann tendered her resignation in a letter written from Tucson, Arizona, where she is spending the summer. She has accepted a position teaching the fourth grade at Yelm, Washington next year, she said. She has taught here the past two years. 

CHICAGO –– Red-headed Patty Berg, in final round of golf at Tam O’Santer golf course near here where she won the women’s all-American open golf tournament, finishing with a 72-hole-medal total of 307.  

Mrs. E.H. Cooper and three children, Bobby, James, and Gaylene, returned to their home in Ava Friday after spending a few days in Melbourne, Ark., where they had visited with Mrs. Cooper’s mother, Mrs. Martha Hays. 

It’s nice and cool to sit in the shade and the breeze on the west steps of the courthouse in the mornings, but sitting there is an enjoyment that’s full of risks. Ray Singleton, courthouse janitor and deputy sheriff, was cooling off there Thursday morning when suddenly a bucketful of water, poured from the top of the portal splashed to the step beside him, barely missing him.  Being used to such capers, Ray was unmoved by the attempt to douse him. 

We don’t vouch for the truth of this, because Superintendent C.W. Parker tells it himself. He says when he passed that woman cooling off in a hammock south of town on Highway 5 Tuesday with his car horn blowing full blast, his horn was stuck and he really was not trying to attract her attention. 

100 Years Ago

The Stock Law election in Lincoln Township failed by seven votes. 

Three American fishing vessels were sunk by German submarines off Seal Island, Yarmonth County, on the Nova Scotia coast yesterday. The crews landed on the Nova Scotian coast today. 

Mr. and Mrs. Jesse Mitchell and family attended the Barnum-Bailey Circus in Springfield last week.  

Mr. and Mrs. C.C. Coffeen moved into the Judge Dyer property on Quality Hill this week. 

Mr. and Mrs. Lloyd Reynolds had as dinner guests last Friday Miss Minnie Curnutt of Broken Arrow, Okla.  

A new office was opened this week in the Citizens Bank building by Phillips & Phillips, Chiropractors. They are both graduates of the National School of Chiropractic of Chicago which fact speaks for itself in the Chiropractic World. Consultation is free. They will be glad to meet any one who is interested in drugless work. 

Mr. and Mrs. Lee Dyer returned Wednesday from a weeks trip to Eureka Springs, Ark. They made the trip in their car and visited many places of interest enroute. They stopped at Blockade Hollow made famous by the wonderful spring of cold water and the enormous bluffs of solid rock on one side. They report the crops are almost burned up by the winds and the unusually long drought.  

Ava Milling Company will be closed until October 1, 1918, during which time repairs and improvements will be made. 

America’s war expenses are running about 50 percent higher than those of Great Britain.  

TIGRIS NEWS –– August 26 should go down in history as the day when every school district in Douglas County made up their quota of W.S.S. [War Savings Bonds] as required by the Government. 

Otis Riggs, who is in Camp Dodge, Iowa, is in the hospital with the measles. 

OAK FOREST NEWS –– Agents are busy about here now trying to lease the farms for mining purposes, or rather prospecting. Its all right if the farmers get the right kind of a lease, otherwise better stay out. Bad job to lease to men to speculate on property.

Several of the Dora boys have landed “over there.” 

125 Years ago

Sedalia has a policeman named Shackled. 

The grasshopper has become a burden around Cameron.  The grasshoppers reported in Missouri are natives, and not Kansas red legs. 

Eggs are lower in Nevada than before in three years, at seven cents a dozen. 

The first steamboat to land at St. Louis was the General Pike. It was on August 7, 1817. 

Seattle has a club composed of former residents of Missouri. It is called, of course, the Missouri Club. 

It is charged that the Female Hospital in St. Louis, in six months, consumed 102 gallons of whiskey. 

There is said to be an increased demand for widetired wagons since the new state road law went into effect. 

Ste. Genevieve is the oldest town in Missouri and was 31 years old when American independence was declared. 

A scientist who recently visited Monegaw Springs (Osceola, Mo.) is unable to classify the local chigger as animal, insect or devil. 

The first circuit judge to hold a court west of the Mississippi River was David Barton, after whom Missouri’s Barton County was named. 

The wonderful “merry-go-round” designed by Engineer George W.G. Ferris of Pittsburg, Pa., is now completed and forms a most remarkable and attractive object.  This curious piece of mechanism carries 36 pendulum cars, each seating 40 passengers; thus one revolution of the wheel carries 1440 people to a height of 250 feet in the air. 

A curious anesthetic used in China has recently been made known. It is obtained by placing a frog in a jar of flour and irritating it by prodding.  Under these circumstances it exudes a liquid which forms a paste with the flour. This paste, when dissolved in water, has well marked anesthetic properties. After the finger has been immersed in the liquid for a few minutes it can be cut to the bone without any pain being felt. 

DENVER, Colo.  –– The Sailor Kid whose correct name is differently given as Bobby Taylor and Lon Turner, who fought a draw last night in a pugilistic encounter at the Ramblers’ Club room, river front park, died this afternoon.  

The police last night raided the Topeka Club, the fashionable resort of the city, seized some whiskey which was found in private lockers and arrested seven members of the club. Instead of being allowed to give cash deposits for the appearance of the arrested persons in police court this morning, all arrested men were  compelled to go the police headquarters and give bond, although they are men of recognized social and financial standing and some of the high to political ad railway circles. 

Lieutenant Otto Elders, the German explorer, made an Asiatic journey of 7,300 miles on a Himalayan pony.