Jasper County, Missouri Biographies, Milton Thurman

Our Ancestors Are Very Good Kind of Folks
The Rivals. Richard B. Sheridan

THE THURMAN FAMILY

THE FOSTER FAMILY

THE KILLMAN FAMILY

THE HIGHTOWER FAMILY

THE SALLEE FAMILY

THE KILMAN FAMILY

MEET YOUR ANCESTORS

Learning About History Through Your Family

Too often, we think of history as being about dates but it is really about
people---their inspirations, aspiration, frustrations, and recreations. Their inspirations
lift them up and are expressed in their religious beliefs, art, and values. Their aspirations
move them ahead, to reach out, to do new things to improve their lives. They become frustrated when
their aspirations are blocked, leading them to do something about the situation by moving,
changing work, or trying new ways. And, for recreation, they have games, music, parties,
get-togethers.

Did it ever occur to you as you studied history that your ancestors were
part of the people who helped develop our country? They were involved from the early days.

Abraham Salle came to Virginia around 1700, leaving France because of the
persecution of Huguenots by King Louis XIV. His great grandson George settled in
Kentucky some 30 years after Daniel Boone entered the region and about nine years after it became
a state. Wiley Sallee, George's grandson, was born before Lincoln became president and tried to
serve in the Civil War.

John Thurman from Georgia and Sterling Hightower from North Carolina were
in Tennessee about twenty-four years after it became a state. Milton Thurman, John's
grandson, served in the Civil War and moved west to Missouri by wagon train. Bob Hightower,
Sterling's great grandson, drove a stagecoach in Kansas in what you might call the wild west. Milton's
grandson Charles helped construct new communities in Oklahoma a few years after it became a
state.

They were all part of the history of our developing country.
You may hear that life is more complicated today than "Back then" and this
is "the most mobile generation" in history. Why, today people move so often that
children do not know their grandparents and other relatives as in "years past."

Perhaps it was simpler in the past, at least in some ways but in other
ways, it was very

complex. And if staying in one place was true for many families, it was not
for your ancestors.

It is fascinating to see how their lives became intertwined and all because
they moved many times.

In 1864, Sterling Hightower married Angeline (Hancock) Westbrook in
Montgomery Co.,

IL. About 1872, they moved with four children to Callahan County, TX where
the Comanche and

Kiowa roamed and there was still buffalo. The only way they could have
gotten there was by

wagon as the railroad had not moved that far west. By 1877, Sterling and
family were in eastern

Kansas raising sheep. About 1888, they moved by wagon to Aurora, MO. The
move took two

months and that was before the air-conditioned van with CD player and other
comforts. By 1890,

the family settled near Oakland, on the edge of Joplin.

Wiley Sallee, born in the central Missouri county of Phelps, married Louise
[Conn] Hill

in 1870. Later, he, Louise and four children moved to Mineral Township
north of Joplin in

southwest MO.

Milton Thurman moved his family from Clay County, TN, to the community of
Scotland,

MO, just east of Joplin, in 1873. The wagon trip took nearly five months
and no motels with

swimming pools were along the roads.

Elisha Foster moved from Pennsylvania to Fulton County, IL. where he
married Mary Ann

Farris in 1859. In the early 1870's, with children ranging in age from
about 11 to five years, Elisha

and Mary moved to Towanda, KS where she died in 1876. In the early 1880's,
the family moved

to southwest Missouri, settling near Carterville, northeast of Joplin.

Scotland, Joplin, Mineral Township, and Carterville were in a ten-Miles
radius.

Now comes the "rest of the story."

Robert, son of Sterling Hightower, met Mattie, daughter of Wiley Sallee,
when she was

visiting her sister in Oakland where Robert's parents lived. A short time
later they married. One

of their daughter was Frances.

George, son of Milton Thurman, lived in Scotland where he met Nettie,
daughter of Elisha

Foster, living in Carterville. They married and lived in Prosperity. One
son was Charles.

Charlie met Frances when his sisters introduced them. Her family lived at
Ada's Crossing

less than a mile from where the Thurman family lived. Charlie married
Frances and one of their

children was Robert, me.

Isn't it great that the families all got together? And, because they did,
you are you.

As you meet your family, try to figure out their inspirations, what they
aspired to, what

frustrations they dealt with, and, what they did for recreation. When you
do, you will better know

and understand them. Also think about what life was like for them, how they
had to rely on their

own ingenuity and the assistance of family and friends. Imagine how they
must have felt when

they moved from one part of the country to another knowing they probably
would never see their

family and friends again on this earth.

You see, you are part of this family history and as you know and understand
your families'

past, you can better understand yourself and your own world. You make sense
of the language

some people use; you find many "new" ideas and "new" songs are not new at
all, just brought up-

to-date; and you realize attitudes toward modern music, art, and literature
are little different from

views people held decades ago---some enjoyed them while others were
convinced they were

destroying our culture.

Learning Family History

At times, we know specifically what the families did. At times, we have to
guess using

information about when and where they lived. It is important we keep these
two kinds of

information--know and guess--clearly identified so we do not put our own
spin on their stories.

So, how did I learn about our families?

I knew Great-Granddad Sallee, great aunts and uncles, Granddad and
Grandmother

Hightower, Grandmother Thurman, aunts and uncles, and first, second and
third cousins. Boy,

did I have a hard time at family gatherings remembering who belonged to
whom. But I learned

stories about the family as they rehearsed the earlier years.

The Hightowers sat around the dining room table or in the living room and
someone would

say, "Do you remember the time when ..." and a story would unfold. Of
course, someone would

add here or there and while someone would have to correct a part.

Stories about the Thurman family came to life when Grandmother Nettie, Aunt
Osa or

Mom got out the photo album. As they looked at a picture, an event would
come to mind such

as the time our car caught on fire and Dad ran into the house to get one of
Mom's handmade quilts

to put out the flames. Or, they would talk about a funny thing someone did
at a picnic. It was

hilarious listening to them try to identify people in the photos.

I heard stories when Dad visited with friends he knew as a teenager. They
rehearsed about

working in the lead mines or things they did at Duenweg. Another time to
hear stories was at

"Homecoming" at Prosperity or "Old Settlers Day" when people came together
to see one another

(today this would be called a reunion).

I wanted more than names about families who lived in the distant past. I
wanted to make

them come alive just like family members I knew first hand. Quite often I
found material in books,

newspapers, court papers, and wills. Then, I found family members I never
had met or even heard

of and we swopped stories, photographs, and information.

You will note few family quarrels are described and few skeletons are
brought out of the

closet. Don't take this to mean the families were unique or unusual in
their behaviors. They were

not. I chose to omit these stories because I knew just one side. For
example, an aunt told about

her sister-in-law being hard to get along with even though she, my aunt,
was so nice to her. I have

a strong hunch there is much more to this story because I know my aunt. She
had a temper and

could be quite outspoken. Even when I was present when people were arguing,
I still knew only

part of the story. So, if I told one version, you might---would--- have a
distorted view. Similarly,

I heard family members talk about relatives who behaved in unseemly
fashion. To report these

stories affecting reputations would be to pass on gossip which would not
give a full description

of that person's personality. I prefer not to do this.

As with any story, there may be different versions about people or a
happening because

each member of the family brought a different view to each story and those
of us who listened,

listened selectively. To each of us, our particular version is 'the right
one'. Don't let this trouble

you when this happens. Rejoice. You are enriched by having several
different views!

I spent more time with the Hightower and Thurman families so I know more
about them

which explains why my stories about them are more detailed than those about
the Foster family

and Sallee family.

I hope these stories and photographs help you see your family as real
people who loved,

joked, and cared. People who helped make this country the wonderful place
it is. People who

contributed much to whom you are.

We start with Mom and Dad, Charles (Charlie) and Frances Hightower Thurman
and I

write about them in first person. The next two chapters will be about Dad's
parents, George

(Doss) and Nettie Foster Thurman, and Mom's folks, Robert (Bob) and Mattie
Sallee Hightower.

After that will come the major family groups of Thurman, Fosters,
Hightower, Sallee and Kilman.



Charles and Frances Hightower Thurman

Two Remarkable People

Dad and Mom were remarkable people. They finished only the eighth grade in
school but

each achieved far more than that level of education might imply. You see,
they were in that last

generation who developed their skills and knowledge through on-the-job
training rather than from

formal education. They didn't always pronounce words correctly which
embarrassed me when I

was in college. Dad pronounced resume (work record) as re-su'me (I read
later this was the Ozark

way to pronounce it) and Mom often used the wrong tense. Then, I came to
realize education was

more than correct pronunciation, grammar and spelling.

Dad was well educated when it came to building. On his last construction
job, he was the

project manager in charge of building an eight million dollar hydroelectric
plant. On the job before

that, he was assistant project manager on a 22.5 million-dollar Veterans
Administration Hospital

and he took over the operations of a subcontractor's business so the work
could get done.

Mom could have taught some home economics teachers or sales experts a thing
or two.

She was an artist in her own right just as Dad was in construction. She
pieced quilts, crocheted

doilies and made beautiful lace. And, she could cook! Nothing fancy, just
good food. Crisp

chicken, flaky pie crusts, and tender noodles.

As you read their story, try to understand how did they got to be this way.
More than that,

see them as people with personality and character.

Dad

My earliest memory of Dad is of a 6-foot 2 inches man who weighed about 220
pounds.

His black hair was combed straight back, pompadour style which he later
changed to a part on the

side. His voice was deep and his laughter a rumbling chuckle. His favorite
sitting position in his

easy chair was to drape his right leg over the arm. He enjoyed teasing much
to the discomfort of

some of us on the receiving end and, he didn't realize many times that we
didn't think he was being

funny. At the same time, he was very sentimental especially about his
family. He always kissed

me when I left on a trip or came home for a visit. And, he didn't like to
stay away from home.

He was named Charles Avery - Avery after his mother's brother - and called
Charlie. June,

one of my cousins, called him "Uncle Chalky." He signed his letters to
family members "As ever,

Chas." To Lois and me, he was Dad.

Dad was born on December 31,1898, the third child of George and Nettie
Thurman.

George was a farmer and lead miner while Nettie cared for the family. They
lived just east of

Prosperity, MO, cater corner from the farm his dad Milton bought just
before his death.

Around 1912, the family came on hard times when George was injured in the
mines.

Unable to work underground, he was hired by the company to be night
watchman at the Trinity

Mine and the family lived in the office building. Months passed without
George being paid and

Dad said, "We had a hard time. I remember one Christmas we got an orange
and the leavings of

hard Christmas candy. I never felt poor tho. We was just like all of our
friends."

So, after completing the eighth grade, Dad went to work to help support the
family. He

chuckled as he told about getting his first job. He and his brother George
applied for the job of

cutting grass at Atlas Powder Company. Dad, at age 14, was large for his
age while George,

almost two years older, was small and slender. When the foreman asked if
they were sixteen years

old, they both allowed they were. He looked them up and down and hired Dad,
telling George

to "come back when you are growed up." George got angry but Dad got the
job. He worked ten

hours a day cutting grass with a scythe.

He went from cutting grass to a job underground at the Athletic Mine
shoveling dirt into

cans that were taken up top to mills where ore was separated from the dirt
and rock. He walked

three miles to the mine and worked ten hours a day, six days a week. Dad
said, "It was when I

worked underground at the Athletic at Duenweg that I knew Elmer [Kibler].
He was quite a

kidder and a good worker. I was called Mockingbird because I whistled a lot
and he was called

Kib." A few years later, they became brothers-in-law.

Work in the mines was hard and dangerous. He quit when "I was working
underground

and there was a cave-in. Several buddies were buried and killed. I helped
dig them out and

decided I wouldn't go back down so I went out and worked as a carpenter."

The way he went about getting hired as a carpenter demonstrated his basic
belief in

himself. When asked if he was experienced, he said "Yes" so he was hired
but Dad said he

couldn't go to work until that afternoon. Taking the street car to Joplin,
some four miles away,

he went to a pawn shop where he bought all of the tools he needed. When he
showed up that

afternoon, he looked the part of a very experienced carpenter with
well-worn tools. He said he

watched the other men and did what they did so he got along fine. He had
confidence he could

do it even though he had never tried it before and he kept this confidence
throughout his lifetime

whatever the job.

One of his first jobs was working on ore mills where ore was separated from
rock and dirt.

Going up to the roof, he tied one end of a rope to a strong anchor and the
other end around his

waist. Then he slid over the edge and worked on the side some 100 to 150
feet above the ground.

His partner did the same on the other side. One day Dad yelled something to
his partner but got

no reply. That was unusual but he didn't think anything about it. At noon,
he pulled up to the roof

and saw that his partner's rope had broken, dropping him to the ground
below killing him. Dad

said he climbed down, quit and got a job with another construction company.

Dad grew up in Prosperity and Duenweg, two mining towns that were rough and
tough.

He said practical jokes were part of life between the men and I am certain
Dad gave as well as he

took. And I wonder why there wasn't a lot of killing because some of the
'jokes' were any thing

but funny. Many of them are described in the article, "Twas Only a Joke."

One escapade got him in trouble with his dad. "Dad made us go to church.
One time us

boys got some mustard oil [which can irritate the skin] and painted the
choir chairs with it. The

longer the women and men sat, the more they squirmed and the more they
squirmed, the worse

it got. Dad looked over at us boys laughing and I knew we were going to get
it after church. One

of the boys got an idea to slip out of the window instead of staying for
church to end. So one at

a time we went out. I don't know how Dad knew but when I went out the
window there he stood

waiting for me."

He said his Dad was very strict. At some point during the teenage years, he
and Granddad

Doss had a falling out so Dad decided to leave home. As Dad walked down the
road, he heard

his dad call to him. When Doss caught up, he handed his son a few coins,
all that he had, then he

turned around and went back home.

Dad and several friends rode the rails (in, on top or under boxcars of
trains) to California.

As they neared Needles, CA, an older hobo told them, "Boys, we better get
off before we get to

town. The bulls are tough here and if they catch you, they'll work you over
with their billies." (the

railroad police would beat them up). Dad said they jumped off the moving
train and walked

around town and got back on the next one going west. He never told where he
ended up or how

long he stayed away from Prosperity but by November 1918, he was back home.
World War One

was being fought and he received his draft notice to report to the army but
war ended a few days

before he was to report so he didn't have to go.

In 1919, he, Virge and John went to Pawhuska, OK where John started a
construction

company. George, his brother, died later that year and Dad returned to
Prosperity while John and

Virge remained in Pawhuska. A few months later, tragedy struck again when
his Dad died.

Grandmother was practically destitute after Doss' death and she and the
three girls were

totally dependent on the boys for financial support. This period made a
deep impression on Dad.

He said he worried throughout the depression about dying and leaving Mom
with nothing. He

bought nothing on credit except a truck and some property, both of which he
paid off before the

due date. In 1952, he started his own company and got a contract to build
an elementary school

but had a heart attack during the construction. After completing the job,
he sold off all of his

equipment and went back to work for other companies. I asked him why and he
explained he did

not want to die in the middle of a job, leaving Mom with the responsibility
of getting it finished

and perhaps going into debt. It was a realistic worry because he had a
massive attack just a few

years later and had to stop working.

The family - Grandmother, Dad, Virgil, and the three girls - moved to
Pawhuska after

Granddad's death. Aunt Ona, Dad's sister, explained about this move in a
letter. "I suppose Virgil

and Charley went to Oklahoma because of more work and better pay. It was
slow for all of us.

We went and stayed awhile then all of us went back to Prosperity and Osa
and I finished the 8th

grade in 1921 and went to work in the shirt factory. John stayed in
Pawhuska." Dad and Mom

married in February 1923 and later that year, joined his mother and sisters
who had moved back

to Pawhuska. Dad went to work for John.

Oklahoma had been a state for some fifteen years and John's company built
some of the

first buildings in small towns springing up all around the area. It also
did work for the Osage tribe,

building homes and making items such as papoose boards that mothers used to
carry their babies

on their back. Dad had many stories about this work. He laughed about the
time they were

building a home for Fred Lookout, the principal chief, and Mrs. Lookout
invited John and Dad

to eat dinner. When they sat down, Dad said his stomach was "queasy"
(upset) and he had better

stick to vegetables and skip the meat. John took liberal helpings and said
he really liked

everything. As they left the house, John turned to Dad and said, "I didn't
know you had stomach

trouble." "I don't but I sure would have if I had eaten that skunk Mrs.
Lookout fixed." John lost

his dinner there in the front yard. Seems when they started in the house,
Dad saw the skunk skin

hanging out back and knew what was going to be served.

In May 1945 Mom went to New York to be with Lois and I learned that Dad
could cook.

He fixed the best Swiss steak for supper. He sprinkled flour, salt and
pepper onto a thick piece

of round steak. Then, after he pounded the flour mixture deep in the meat
with a meat mallet, he

browned it in hot grease. When nicely browned, he added canned tomatoes and
onions and let it

simmer until tender. He said some people put in a lot of "junk like celery
and peas" but he liked

it simple. When I asked how he learned to cook, he told me that while many
jobs were not very

far from Pawhuska, roads and transportation were such that the men lived at
the work site during

the week and came home on weekends. "We were batchin' down in Oklahoma and
had to take

turns fixing meals. I was better at it than some of the boys so did most of
the cooking. The rule

was if anyone complained, he had to cook for a week. I always cooked pinto
beans with lots of

juice and one ole boy would skim off the juice and leave beans. I went down
to a Mexican

restaurant and got some hot red chili peppers. I ground them fine and
sprinkled them on top of

the juice and tapped them just enough to sink under the top. When he took
the juice, he got a lot

of the pepper. He took a spoonful and then spit everything out, swearing
and drinking water. One

of the boys laughed and said, 'Don't you like them beans?' Cussing some
more, he said, 'They is

too hot' and then remembering what happened if the food was criticized,
added, 'But they is just

the way I like them.' But that broke him of taking just juice."

Dad was resourceful and innovative. He was the kind of person who when
handed a

lemon, to redo a cliche, made a lemon pie (he loved pie so I use this
instead of lemonade). One

reason was his inventive mind. Take these figures (a favorite expression he
used to mean

‘example').

When the folks opened a store at Medoc, groceries were bartered for cattle
and hogs

which he fed out and sold at the stockyard or to meat packing companies.
There were times when

he made more money from these animals than from the store. When the Pet
Milk Company

opened an evaporated milk processing plant at Jasper, he talked with them
about getting the whey.

He was told he could have all he wanted at no charge if he hauled it. That
was no problem since

he was in Jasper once or twice a week to get feed at the M.F.A. Milling
Store. Then, he built a

pig house with a concrete floor and inside pens which farmers laughingly
called "Charlie's pig

house." He fed these shoats wheat bran and chopped corn mixed with whey.
Since his pigs

didn't run off the weight and had more lean, they brought a higher price at
the meat plant and

stockyard then what the farmers got on their animals. So, he got the last
laugh.

In 1937, we had a store in Webb City and "Spam," a canned ham product, came
on the

market. Dad, Uncle Clyde, and Uncle Lucien bought several cases for their
stores but it wouldn't

sell even at ten cents a can. Finally, Dad made a display with a sign
saying this new meat was on

sale at only two cans for twenty-five cents. It sold like hot cakes. The
other family members told

the salesman the meat was no good but he said "Charlie doesn't have any
trouble selling it."

Construction almost shut down because of the depression in the fall of 1931
so our family

moved back to southwest Missouri. For the next several months, Dad worked
for Granddad

Hightower in the grocery store.

Let me digress a little.

Dad and Uncle Elmer, Aunt Susie's husband, called Granddad Hightower "Dad"
and these

three men got along famously. Uncle Elmer was like a brother to him and
Granddad was like a

dad. These three men enjoyed being together fishing or trading stories
about the grocery business.

They spent many hours fishing and pulling tricks on one another. Dad and
Uncle Elmer bought

matching 12-gauge Winchester shotguns around 1936 and hunted for quail and
duck in the fall.

Now, Uncle Elmer was always on the look out for a good hunting dog so one
day, Dad called and

said, "Kib, I'm sending you a dog that is a good one. When he goes on
point, he doesn't move.

He will be on the Webb City Wholesale truck coming up tomorrow." Well,
Uncle Elmer was

tickled pink and told every man who came into the store what Charlie was
sending him. Several

men came to the store the next morning and when truck arrived, the driver
said, "Kib, Charlie sent

you a box." He climbed into the back and with great effort, lifted out a
large cardboard box that

had a rope hanging over the top. With great excitement, Uncle Elmer open
the top and, sure

enough, there was his dog---a porcelain bird dog on point (meaning it was
standing on three feet

with the fourth lifted up and its head out straight on point). The men had
a big laugh.

Dad relived the deaths of his brother George and his dad when Granddad
Hightower died

in January and Elmer died in April 1943. I saw Dad cry for the first time
at Uncle Elmer's funeral.

I don't think Dad hunted or fished again after their deaths.

Even though Dad was a good grocery man, construction was his main interest
and he

excelled at it. Remember earlier I mentioned Dad's expression of "take a
figure?" He got this

expression from his work in building. He might be talking about something
like politics and would

say, "Take as a figure a democratic. He supports the union but republicans
don't. They are for

the company."

With war on the horizon in the fall of 1941, Dad returned to construction
as a carpenter

at Camp Crowder just south of Joplin. In 1943, he returned to Crowder to
work for the Corps

of Army Engineers. It was at this time he came to realize the importance of
a college education.

Dad's job rating was equivalent to a captain in the Engineers and an
officer asked him why he

didn't enlist. Dad asked what rank he would have and the officer replied,
"With your experience

and a college degree, you can be a captain." Dad hadn't gone to college.
Then with a high school

diploma, Dad could be a master sergeant. But he had only gone to the 8th
grade. The officer

looked surprised and said in that case, he would be a corporal. Dad
remained a civilian doing the

work and getting the pay of a captain. He told me it was then he knew I
should go to college.

After the war, he worked in New York City, New Orleans, Georgia,
Mississippi,

Indianapolis, and Joplin. For nearly a decade, he was a superintendent for
Higgins Construction

in Joplin and built several naval armories, a church, and remodeled schools
and churches. In 1954,

he went to work for Peter Kewitt Company out of Omaha, NE but, as he lacked
a college degree,

he was hired job by job meaning he was laid off when a job was completed
but called back when

they needed him. Because of this, he had no retirement with the company.

Dad was a master craftsman, a term not common today. A man who worked with
him

said Dad could hang a door that fitted so well that a dime could slide down
between the door and

jam without binding but would not slide down on its own if let go. Now that
takes skill.

He could look at a set of blueprints and see the finished building in his
mind. And, he

could anticipate how things should work or get done. As I said, he was very
inventive. Take the

time when he was project director on a hydroelectric plant at Hallam, NE.
Company engineers

projected a 700 cubic yard concrete pour would take 14 hours to complete
with trucks delivering

the concrete mix every forty minutes. The concrete would be dumped into
cans which cranes

would swing over and drop the load into the forms below. Dad looked over
the plans and said

he could pour it in ten hours but he needed the trucks every twenty
minutes. The engineers said

it couldn't be done that quickly and a lot of concrete would be wasted as
trucks waited to be

emptied. When Dad insisted he could do it, they told him that if the
company lost money on

wasted concrete, he would be fired. Without hesitation, he agreed. He put a
long flexible hose

he called "elephant's nose" at each of the four sides of the building so
when the truck arrived, the

load was dumped into the hose and the concrete ran down into the form
below. While men

worked on that area, the next truck went to the next side and so on around
the site. By the time

the fourth truck had arrived, the first side was ready again. The pour
actually took slightly longer

than the ten hours. Why? Because the second truck came on the original
schedule of forty

minutes. Engineers wrote a detailed description with photographs on how the
pour was done and

it became the standard procedure. Oh yes, Dad got no credit for it.

Another time he told two engineers to draw a plan for hanging forty foot
eye bolts in a pier

hole so concrete could be poured around them. The men worked all morning
but at noon they

told him, "Charlie, we can't figure a way to do it." He crooked his finger
for them to follow him

outside. He told the crane operator to lay two twelve by twelve beams along
two sides if the hole

and then to lay two more beams across them on the other sides. Next, the
crane operator dropped

a bolt in each inside corner where it was secured by cable to the beams.
Finally, Dad called for

concrete to be poured. The whole operation took less than two hours.
Afterward, he turned to

the two engineers and said, "Boys, you've had too much book learning." Dad
said the three of

them really made a good team. The two engineers had the theory and knew how
to use a slide

rule and other technical matters. Dad had the common sense approach based
on experience. Each

learned from and respected one another.

He gave a full day's work and expected men to do the same although he was
not a slave

driver. I never saw him lose his temper on the job even when a worker made
a costly error. I

asked him once why he didn't praise workers very much and he said "When I
look over a man's

work and nod my head and walk on, he knows he's doing good work. I don't
have to say

anything." Claude Bettis, a good friend and a carpenter who worked with
Dad, said, "The men

know they are hired to do good work and don't have to be told when they do.
They know when

Charlie says nothing. They did OK. They don't expect a pat on the back."

He strongly supported the Carpenters' Union and continued to belong after
he became a

superintendent or project director and part of management. This helped
whenever he was

involved in a dispute with the union such as the time he fired a carpenter
and the union called for

a hearing before the National Labor Relations Board where Dad had to
justify the firings. He

started out saying he had been a union member for many years and he knew
what the union

expected. Then, he asked if the union wanted men to work under safe
conditions. The union

representative said of course it did but what did that have to do with the
case. "Well, I found this

man asleep on a catwalk about forty feet in the air so I fired him to
protect him because he wasn't

taking safety precautions." The union rep just shook his head and the case
ended.

Then there was the worker who picked up a piece of lumber and walked
through a tunnel

to the other end where he put it down. He leaned over and picked up another
piece and walked

where he started. It was clear the man was loafing so, after seeing him do
this several times, Dad

called out, "Do you like to walk?" The man replied, "Sure do." "Well," said
Dad, "You walk up

to the shack and pick up your pay." The union backed Dad up. He said he
never fired a man he

had to rehire.

I worked for Dad in the summer of 1945 when he was superintendent for a
company

remodeling Old Rock Distillery that made industrial alcohol for the navy. I
was a common laborer

doing unskilled, dirty work and could get up a sweat just by thinking of
work. When Dad saw me

soaking wet, he'd think I was working hard and he'd say, "Take it easy,
son, don't fight it so hard."

I never told him any difference. Teenagers worked for him and he looked
after them making

certain they did not overheat or take chances where they could get injured.
He told me he did not

want to tell parents he caused their boy to get hurt.

The summer of 1950 was a learning time for me. Dad was superintendent for
Higgins

Construction Company and I worked with him building a church at Aurora, MO.
We left home

at 6:00 in the morning so we got on the job at least one half hour before
the men and got home

about 6:00 in the evening. I called him Thurman on the job and he called me
Bob. I guess we

were on the job for over a week before all of the men knew we were father
and son. One man

asked why he had me doing hard, dirty work and Dad told him, "The boy is
going to be a teacher

staying inside. I want him to know what it's like for the men who have to
work out in the

weather." That knowledge stuck with me.

The first week he had me working with other men digging piers and
foundation in hard,

dry ground with a pick and shovel. Then, I tied steel for the concrete,
cutting my knuckles to

shreds with sharp ends of the wire. Next, I pushed an Irish buggy filled
with wet concrete to fill

up the foundations. About the sixth week, he had me reading blue prints and
using the surveying

instrument to guide heavy machinery men as they dug the basement. He then
went to Bartlesville,

OK to start a remodeling job at another church and a new man came to run
the job. Dad worked

out a deal with him so I was in charge of the basement concrete pour,
seeing that the concrete was

the right mix, that it got poured just right, and so on. Things were doing
fine until the concrete

mixer broke down. When I told the boss, he reminded me I was in charge and
to get it fixed. I

was really sweating---but I did it. I sure was glad to see that week
finished and I could go down

to Bartlesville with Dad.

But, I knew he trusted my ability and I appreciated that.

His practical experience knowledge far exceeded his book knowledge which
made it

difficult for him to explain the why of doing something. He did the bidding
for Higgins

Construction Co. taking blue prints and figuring out how much material
would be needed and the

cost of materials and labor. Using this, he would submit a bid on how much
it would cost to build

the building.

I helped him take off plans on several jobs and I learned a lot. One thing
was just going

to college didn't make one smart. One night, he asked me to figure the
volume of concrete needed

for piers which go under foundations to provide stability. I got paper and
pencil and started

working using a formula I learned in math. I just got started when he asked
for the amount. "Hey,

give me time," I answered. He looked at the sheet of paper and asked what I
was doing.

"Figuring out the volume like you wanted." "Son, all you have to do is
square the diameter,

multiply it by .7854 (I think that was the figure) and the depth." When I
used my formula and

checked it with the answer using his figures, the results were the
same---his just got there much

faster. I asked where he got .7854 and he didn't know---he just knew it
worked. He then gave

me a hard time about having a college education and needing him to tell me
how to figure volume.

Oh well!

How that man enjoyed baseball. When we lived at Medoc, we spent many Sunday

afternoons at Cossville watching local boys play. Oh, that reminds me of
the time he was on the

receiving end of a practical joke that almost got him into trouble. Dad was
watching the game

from the cab of our truck when some boys parked their Model A Ford next to
the truck. They had

rewired the magneto in such a way that anyone who touched the car got an
electrical shock.

Without Dad noticing, they laid a metal tire tool from the running board of
the car to the truck so

they charged the truck, too. Cricket Goetz, a very large and rather
aggressive woman, walked up

and leaned on the truck tailgate and got the full charge. She let out an
oath and, seeing Dad in the

truck, decided he was the culprit who did the dastardly shocking deed.
That's when he got

shocked. She opened the truck door and invited him out to "fight like a
man." When the boys

saw what was happening, they quickly drove off. She calmed down after
another boy told her

what had happened but Dad sure was shaken.

He also liked to watch the Joplin Miners, a New York Yankee farm team, play
and our

family went quite often. He and Uncle Virgil went whenever Virge came up
for a visit. Around

1951, he took me to see "a new boy from Commerce, OK who just came up and
is a fair player."

This new boy played short stop but made plays behind third base, second
base as well as short

stop. When he came to bat, he hit every ball the pitcher threw to him. I
asked Dad "Who is this

show-off?" "Mickey Mantle." After Mantle became a famous player, Dad got a
big kick kidding

me about my show-off comment.

We were talking one evening and I asked what he thought he could have done
if he had

a college education. His answer was, "I don't think a college education
would have taught me as

much as I learned doing it the hard way. The college boys who worked for me
knew why

something was done. I knew how it was done." But there was something else.
He had belief in

himself. He told me one time, "I may not know how to build something but
give me a night to

study on it and I'll be able to do it the next day."

A remarkable man.

My Mom Frances

Narcissus Conn, on a fall October day in Oakland, MO, looked at the baby
girl in her

granddaughter's arms and said, "Mattie, you name this baby Frances E.
Willard and when you find

out what the E stands for, that's her name too." So, the fourth daughter of
Bob and Mattie

became Frances E. Willard Hightower. She learned what the E stood for when
she read a book

in the sixth grade about the great temperance leader Frances Elizabeth
Willard. In later years, the

Willard was dropped and she became "Frances Elizabeth," called Frances. She
was born October

12, 1903, in Oakland, MO. Lois called her Mother and I called her Mom.

Mom was about 5 feet 3 inches tall. In the 1930s she weighed about 115
pounds but

during the early 1950s, she gained about 15 pounds and her face was very
full. After Dad died,

she lost weight and at her death weighed about 110 pounds. She wore glasses
during her young

adult years but her vision improved after I was born and some ten years
passed before she wore

them again.

Mom was as quiet as Dad was talkative. Yet, this quiet woman could scream
like a

banshee when she and her sister Susie made Dad and Uncle Elmer go set at
cards or she and Mrs.

Bettis beat Dad and Claude Bettis at Canasta. You could hear them all over
the house, yelling,

laughing, and pounding the table. She had a good sense of humor and liked
to tell jokes or stories

yet she seldom laughed out loud. And, her humor came out at unexpected
times. One time when

we lived on Highway 43, she and Lois were at the table when they heard a
squirrel bark. Lois

took the rifle and the two of them set out to have squirrel for supper. As
they walked along, Lois

looked up in a tree and said, "There's its tail, where's its head?" Mom
wisely replied, "On the

other end." Then, she laughed so hard, she had to sit down. I don't think I
ever saw her "shake"

with laughter because her laugh was soft and quiet. She was on the
receiving end of many of

Dad's jokes and you knew when she was hurt by the look in her eyes.

She decided not to go on to high school after completing the eighth grade
because it meant

boarding away from home. Instead, she lived with Pete and Myrtle Shaunce,
her mother's sister,

taking care of the house and cooking. She said she baked at least one pie a
day and developed

quite a reputation for her flaky pie crusts. After Uncle Pete died In 1918,
Mom and Aunt Myrtle

lived in Waco, MO with the Pidcock family while they worked as operators at
the telephone

company. When Mom's folks moved to Duenweg, she returned home and worked at
Sterling

Drugstore. The family moved to Ada's Crossing and Mom rode the streetcar to
Carterville where

she worked as a piece sewer in a shirt factory. She was paid by the number
of pieces she sewed

each day It was at this factory she met twin teenagers, Osa and Ona
Thurman, who were also

piece workers, and because of them, she met Dad.

Mom came from a very tight knit group sometimes jokingly named "the
Hightower Girls."

They were fiercely protective toward their mother and, to a great extent,
toward one another. So,

family was very important to Mom whether it was her parents and sisters or
her husband and

children. She visited Grandmother several times a week and, in later years,
called Aunt Susie in

Baxter Springs every day. She had a similar feeling toward Osa and Helen,
her sisters-in-law.

During the 1930s, Mom, Lois and I drove to Pawhuska each summer to spend
several days with

them. The trip was 120 miles long and took the better part of a day. I
can't think of anyone else

I knew who drove that distance without the spouse to visit an in-law.

Although she was family centered like her sisters, she differed from them
in definite ways.

Unlike Susie or Ruth, she used no obscenities and her strongest word was
"Gracious." Unlike

Flora, Susie and Ruth, she was not very assertive especially toward her
husband. Yet she did have

a strong personality and often got her way with her quiet approach and
teary looks. Many times

I asked Dad why we were doing something and he answered, "Your Mom wants
to." The only

time I heard Mom say anything about Dad buying things without consulting
her was when he

bought a new Plymouth. I don't think it was buying it that bothered her, it
was the color. It was

a hideous two tone peach and brown. She let him know not to do that again
and he didn't.

While she enjoyed being around her family, she did not like to be in crowds
where she

knew few people. She went to a Sunday school party when she lived with us
and when I asked

how she enjoyed it, she replied, "I felt kind of unnecessary." That said it
all. Yet, when they

moved to a new construction job, she always made friends with three or four
women in the

community and often kept in touch with them for years later. Many of her
recipes came from

these friends.

Mom or Dad wrote me every day when I was in Germany in the army. It might
be just

a half page but I could count on hearing from them. After we married, she
wrote at least once a

week. When she sent a birthday box to one of us, she always stuck in a
little something for each

of the other members of the family. When Lois or I left after a visit, Mom
stood in the doorway

with tears in her eyes. It didn't matter whether we lived just 108 miles
away in Bartlesville or in

Washington, D.C. or in New Orleans. We were leaving. But, she cheered up
quickly after the car

pulled out of sight. Of course, we didn't know that as we drove off into
the sunrise.

The Pillsbury Dough Boy says, "Nothing says lovin like something in the
oven." That was

pretty much Mom's motto. She enjoyed cooking when there was family to eat
it and having the

whole family home to cook for made her joy complete. No sandwiches, thank
you. Beef roast,

mashed potatoes, noodles, green beans, slaw, biscuits, and coffee. That's
dinner. For supper, it

might be fried round steak, potatoes, creamed peas, slaw, biscuits and
coffee. When I came home

from college, the bus from Lexington came in at midnight and she'd have
something warm

waiting. One night it was warm cinnamon rolls, fresh sliced peaches, and
coffee all ready to eat.

Another time she had a delicious chocolate cake and canned peaches.

She canned green beans, piccalilli, tomatoes, sauerkraut, vegetable soup,
peaches, plums,

and all kinds of jellies and jams when we lived at Medoc and Nashville. A
customer at Medoc had

Jersey cream that was so thick we had to spoon it out of the jar. Mom put
it on our strawberries,

peaches, date load, and other desserts. She also made the best sweet butter
from it.

She had the knack of knowing just how much ingredient to put in -- a
handful here, a dash

there, and a smidgin more of something. She used a certain knife that was
sharpened on the

bottom of a crock to slice cabbage very thin for slaw. Then, without
measuring, she mixed Kraft

Mayonnaise (never Miracle Whip), half and half (never milk), vinegar and
sugar in a small blue

dish. When thoroughly blended, she poured the mixture in the cabbage. That
sweet and sour taste

was delicious. And for her to make a pie crust was something to see. She
started by taking a

tablespoon and dipping out as much shortening as she thought needed. Then,
she put several

handful of flour in the shortening and cut the mixture up fine. You notice,
I do not say exactly

how much of these---just what seemed right to her. Those crusts turned out
as flaky as could be.

One day I told her I wanted get the measurements when she made the crust
for two pies.

I stood next to the counter with a measuring cup, measuring spoons, and a
pad of paper. Mom

took a tablespoon and put several heaping spoonfuls of shortening into the
bowl. "Wait now so

I can measure how much you have." I took my measuring spoons and measured.
Then, she

cupped her hand and put several handfuls of flour in the bowl. Again I
said, "Wait a minute. I

want to measure the flour." She said, "You got me confused and I don't know
what I'm doing"

so I had to stop. I never did get the exact amount of ingredients and my
crusts never come close

to hers.

Another time I asked how to make egg noodles. She told me, "Take a cup of
flour and

make a well. Break an egg into the well and add an egg shell full of water.
Stir and then put on

a floured board. After you roll it out very thin, roll it up and then cut
with a sharp knife into thin

strips." Well, that sounded simple enough so I did just what she said. I
stirred the mixture but

it was so dry that it would not hold together so I could roll it out. I
asked her what was wrong

and she said, "Did you use an egg shell of water?" "Sure, I filled half of
the shell." "Oh, you

needed a shell full so if you used the half shell then you need to fill two
of them." "Why didn't

you tell me that?" "I thought you knew what an egg shell full meant." You
see, she broke the egg

at the end, not in half, so a shell full meant just that, a shell full.

'Burnt sugar cake' was one of Dad's favorites (actually, I think that all
kinds were his

favorite) and it took skill to make it because the sugar had to be softened
over heat until it spins

into thread. I never was able to do it but Mom could with great ease. She
also made a white cake

with pineapple filling that I liked. Peggy came home with me to meet the
folks in January 1950 and

Mom made this cake but when I cut into it, I noticed something was
missing---there was no

pineapple filling. Mom was very embarrassed but had a good excuse. She
reacted to a penicillin

shot and had broken out with hives. They bothered her so much, she forgot
to put in the filling.

She sent me boxes with cakes (packed in popped corn), jars of canned
peaches and glasses

of jams when I was in the army in Louisiana and Germany. Needless to say, I
was popular

whenever a box arrived. The only thing that got broken was a jar of jam.

We've heard about Jewish mothers who fix chicken soup for anything that
ails a person.

Well, Mom had her curative foods, too. She fixed homemade tomato soup for a
sore throat by

taking a cup of tomato juice mixed with about 1/8 teaspoon of soda and 2/3
cup of milk with

cream. The mixture was heated to simmer. Then, after adding a pat of
butter, she served it in a

cup. My throat always felt better after drinking it. For an upset stomach,
she toasted a slice of

bread and put it in a shallow dish in which she poured hot milk and put a
pat of butter along with

salt and pepper.

I think she did this because she disliked taking medicine and even had a
reaction whenever

one of us took some. The joke was that when one of us took a laxative like
Exlax or Syrup of

Pepsin or Castor Oil, it worked on Mom before it did on us. I do remember
one time when she

didn't mind taking medicine. She had a severe cold one winter at Medoc and
it became difficult

for her to breathe. As she said, her throat just closed up. Dr. Knott came
out and said to feed her

melted Vicks, a cold remedy made from thick petroleum jelly and camphor.
When Dad melted

it and fed it to her by the spoonful, she could breathe again. Today we are
told that the vapors

from Vicks can damage the lungs but it worked for her.

She and I did many things together. I learned to shop when she took me to
buy clothes

for her and Dad (she bought his shoes at the same store for years and I
never remember him

buying any) and in later years when she went to the grocery store. She
showed me how to do

comparative pricing and when a store brand was as good as the national
brand. She watched the

ads and stocked up when items were on sale. She taught me how to find wild
mushrooms, which

she fried in butter, and wild greens in the spring. It was in Vancouver, WA
that she taught me to

cook. The one thing she could do that I never learned--and didn't want
to--was how to kill

chickens. We raised chickens which she killed by wringing their necks. This
woman, who was so

gentle, would pick up a fryer by the neck, give the body a quick twist so
the body turned over

breaking the neck. Then with a snap, the head came off. Gruesome? I suppose
so but not

anymore than chopping the head off with an ax.

Mom was creative in an artistic way. She pieced and quilted beautiful
quilts. Our wedding

present was a beautiful "Lone Star" quilt. She crocheted doilies, made
lovely lace and

embroidered handkerchiefs, dish cloths and pillow cases. Dad said she was
very upset while I was

overseas and to keep busy, she made me a lace table cloth by crocheting
small squares and then

sewing these together to make the table cloth. It represents hours of work.
She made one for

Lois, too. Then, she pieced six quilts when she lived with us in 1974-75.

Like her dad, Mom was an outdoors person. She said she spent so much time
fishing with

him that people called her Little Bob. She enjoyed fishing, picking
blackberries and hunting

squirrels when we lived in the country. She hunted with my .22 rifle and
usually brought home

two or three squirrels--keep in mind, most men used shotguns. One time at
Medoc, she challenged

him a man who bragged on what a good shot he was with a rifle. They set up
a target on the ice

house and she won.

Although she liked to sing, she could not read music. She could, however,
play the piano

by ear. She enjoyed Johnny Cash, Tennessee Ernie Ford, Red Foley, and Andy
Griffith. The

Lawrence Welk Show was one of her favorite television show.

A surprising side to this woman was her ability as a sales person. She was
very effective!

When she worked in the men's department of a store, she averaged more than
$400 sales a week

and a co-worker said she was so good "Frances could sell a suit to a store
dummy." I think she

was effective because she treated customers the way she wanted to be
treated---letting them make

up their own minds.

Three experiences showed me a new dimension to Mom. The first was in the
summer of

1944 when we lived at Sunflower, near Lawrence, KS at the Sunflower
Ordnance Plant. Dad

worked in construction and after Mom applied for a job on the line making
rocket powder, she

went with me to apply for a job at the cafeteria. During my interview the
manager asked who the

woman with me was and I said my mother. He said, "Any boy whose Momma comes
with him

for a job must be a good worker" and hired me. I worked two nights and got
a message that he

wanted to see Mom. When she went in, he said, "Any Momma who has a boy who
works as hard

as Bob must be a good worker" and asked if she wanted a job as assistant
supervisor on the eleven

to seven night shift. She accepted and was responsible for seeing that
servers kept food on the

line. I saw how well she got along with those she supervised.

And, I learned something about race relations from her when we were at
Sunflower. This

was the first time I had ever had close contact with blacks and I watched
Mom develop a good

friendship with Mrs. Goldgate. We ate dinner around 3:00 A.M. and one
night, Mrs G. said she

wanted to fix something for Mom and me. She dipped pork chops in an egg and
milk mixture and

then in flour. Then, she fried them golden brown. After that, she and Mom
took turns fixing

dinner for the three of us. Mrs. Goldgate became ill and had to quit work
but Mom and I would

go to her home to see her.

Another time was at Vancouver, WA. when I bumped the fender of another car
while

backing out of the crowded parking lot of a small grocery store. The man
got out yelling about

careless kid drivers. Well, I couldn't say much because I had hit the
fender. Then, he started in

on how much damage I did and how much it would cost to repair it. Mom stood
listening, not

saying a word. Then in a quiet voice, she remarked, "That fender certainly
got rusty in a hurry,

didn't it?" I saw it was all crumpled and rusty from an earlier accident.
In fact, I couldn't see

where I had done any damage at all. He let out an oath, said something
about I shouldn't be

allowed to drive and drove off. I looked at her with admiration and
respect. That was an example

of I said earlier about her getting her way with her quiet approach. She
thought it was funny.

And, she never said a word about my needing to be more careful.

I taught at the University of Maine summer school in 1971 and Mom went us.
We had

over eight weeks together and this was the first time the girls had spent
this much time with her.

Mom fixed breakfast for me so Peggy could to sleep late and they fixed the
other meals together.

The only two things she had problems with were lobsters and clams. She
liked the taste of lobster

but didn't like to have them looking at her as she ate them. We dug a
bucket of quahog clams and

left them overnight in cornmeal and clean water. When she went into the
kitchen the next

morning, she let out a yell when she saw the clams squirting water.

She showed the girls how to pick blueberries and really liked Peggy's
blueberry muffins.

She especially enjoyed visiting Prince Edward Island, New Brunswick, and
Nova Scotia. On Deer

Island, N.B., she and Mrs. Lord, who was over ninety years old, got along
famously because both

liked to sew.

This quiet woman was remarkable in her own right.

Charlie and Frances

1923 was a very good year. "Yes, We Have No Bananas," "It Ain't Gonna Rain
No Mo',"

and "Charleston" were popular songs. Jazz bands with Jelly Roll Morton,
King Oliver, and

Fletcher Henderson. Employment was high. Yankee Stadium, the house that
Ruth built, opened.

Best of all, Charles Thurman and Frances Hightower married.

In 1922, Dad, living in Prosperity, worked as a carpenter. Mom, living at
nearby Ada's

Crossing, worked as a piece sewer in a shirt factory at Carterville. When
Osa and Ona Thurman,

two other piece sewers, invited her to a box supper at the Prosperity
Elementary School, she fixed

a box with good food and pretty tissue paper decorations for some young man
to buy. Who

should buy it but Charlie, Osa and Ona's brother. Although he had brought
another girl to the box

supper, his sisters convinced him to buy Mom's box. They began dating and
married February 11,

1923. Perry Shanks, a minister at White Hall near Alba and a friend of the
Mom's family,

performed the marriage ceremony and Grandmother Hightower was the only
family member

present. Dad may have been a practical joker but the tables were turned
during the marriage

ceremony. Perry came to the part, "Do you Frances Elizabeth Willard
Hightower..." and paused.

"I'm sorry but I cannot perform this ceremony." Mom asked, "Why not,
Perry?" "Because I do

not marry people who have been divorced." "What do you mean? I've never
been married." He

looked at her, "Well, your name was Willard and now is Hightower" and then
he laughed to let

them know he was teasing. Dad said he stood there wondering what in the
world was going on

and Mom said she got mad at Perry for doing something like that. Maybe that
is when she decided

to drop Willard from her name.

After the marriage ceremony, Mom and Dad went to Aunt Flora's who had baked
some

pumpkin pies but somehow or other, the dog ate a couple of them. After
that, the dog was called

"Punk." Sometime later, maybe a year or so, the folks and the Shaunce
family visited Aunt Sylvia

and Uncle Elmer Tender. Aunt Sylvia had an Ouija board and none of the
folks had seen one

before. They didn't know how to work it but some man who was visiting did.
As a joke, Dad told

him about the pie episode and asked him to find out who ate the pies. The
man worked the board

and it spelled out "Punk." Dixie said it made her tingle all over. She
didn't believe in that sort of

thing but there the word was.

The folks began their married life at Prosperity when they rented the Bud
Scott place. Bud

was the son of Julia, Dad's step grandmother. Dad was working as a
carpenter for one of the

mining companies. Then, they moved to Pitcher, OK where Dad worked as a
carpenter. Later

that year, they moved to Pawhuska, OK where Dad worked for his brother John
who had a

construction company and millwork shop. They built homes for the Osage
tribe as well as homes

and commercial buildings in and around Pawhuska. At the shop they made
novelty items such as

walking characters (like Maggie and Jiggs in the cartoons) and papoose
boards used by Osage

mothers to carry their babies.

Lois was born April 10, 1924, much to the surprise of everyone but Mom and
Dad. That

story is told in her section below.

I was born July 4, 1928, at the Pawhuska General Hospital and my birth
created much

worry and concern for both Dad and Mom. Mom had appendicitis late in the
pregnancy and had

to remain in bed for some time before my birth. When she went into labor,
the doctor told Dad

he was uncertain he could save both mother and child and he thought he
should ‘take' the baby,

meaning let the baby die. Dad said he couldn't do that because Mom had made
Dad promise that

the baby would not be ‘taken' so he wanted both of them saved. Fortunately,
the doctor was able

to do that. Dad said that was the hardest decision he ever made because it
was possible he would

lose both.

If my birth was not a surprise, my sex was. Mom thought I was going to be a
girl and

picked out Glennadale for my name. When Dad told her they had a boy, she
said, "Oh gracious,

we don't have a name for him." Dad said, "Yes we do. His name is Robert
Sylvester after Dad

[Mom's dad]." Unfortunately, they did not tell the hospital so fifteen
years later when I applied

for my birth certificate, it came back with the name "Baby Boy Thurman." I
had to get Aunt Osa

and the chairman of the school board where I started school to swear I was
Robert Sylvester.

Dad's character came out in the rest of this story. He did not like to be
in debt. The

spring before I was born, the folks bought a new car and bedroom furniture,
using up their

savings. Of course, the appendix episode and my birth meant Mom had to be
in the hospital and

this ran up quite a bill. Dad worked during the day and sanded floors all
night to make enough

money to pay the hospital bill when Mom was discharged.

In 1932, construction came to a virtual standstill in Pawhuska because of
the deep

depression so the folks moved back to Missouri to work for Granddad
Hightower in the grocery

store. The first store was in Golden City where they stayed just a short
time followed by a move

to Stark City. Next, they went to Nashville in a store with Elmer and Susie
Kibler, Mom's sister,

and finally to Galesburg. It was there they decided to move out on their
own.

In the spring of 1933, the folks used what little cash they had plus
seventy-five dollars

borrowed from Granddad Hightower to open a store in Opolis, a community in
southeast Kansas.

Business must have been good because they repaid Granddad the next day.
That was quite

an accomplishment considering the depression. Even so, it was a struggle.
In telling about it,

Mom ended, "Boy, those were rough times. I don't hardly like to think about
them." They would

buy a case of eggs, pay with a check, drive about ten miles to Jasper to
sell the eggs and then

another five to Alba to deposit the money so the check would clear the
bank. When President

Roosevelt closed all banks, they said they were lucky. While many people
lost their money, the

folks didn't have any money in the bank to lose.

Dad's practice of pulling practical jokes backfired at Opolis. Checks were
blank forms

back then and a person used an ink pen, an indelible pencil, or a regular
lead pencil to write in the

name and address of the bank along with the amount to be cashed. An elderly
man bought some

groceries and asked Dad to write a check out for him. Dad used a real
pencil to write the check

but gave the man a trick pencil with rubber lead to sign his name. The old
man wetted the tip

with his tongue, squinted his eyes, and signed the check. It was then Dad
realized the old man

could hardily see and didn't know a joke had been played on him. Rather
than embarrass him, Dad

tore the check up. Unfortunately or fortunately, Dad didn't learn much from
this and continued

with his tricks.

The dream of every grocery man was finding a good location. After a few
months in

Opolis, the folks found one at Medoc, a small farming community some six
miles east of Opolis

and twenty miles north of Joplin on the Missouri side. The community had
about fifty families,

a one-room school, and a broom factory. I don't know what they saw that
made them think it

would be a good location but it was. The main thing, I suppose, was the
nearest grocery store

was at Galesburg about three or four miles away.

The place the folks rented had the broom factory, a five-room house, and
five acres with

many fruit trees. Dad remodeled the broom factory building and opened the
store in August 1933.

A description of the store is found in the volume about Medoc.

The first thing they had to do was to bring in customers. With no money to
advertise in

print, they had to depend on a method which turned out better than print
--- word of mouth and

the party line telephone. Dad had what he called "The Thurman Personality"
which may have been

nothing more than the gift of gab and chutzpah. He talked wholesale food
companies into giving

food and coffee (one gave Jack Sprat coffee and a gasoline coffee maker,
another company gave

potted meat for sandwiches, and Markwardt Bread Company donated sandwich
bread.) Next, they

got a roll of theater tickets and gave one with each grocery order along
with a free bag of candy

for the children. On Saturday evening, the folks served sandwiches and
coffee followed by

drawing for sacks of groceries. Dad said it was not unusual to have 150
people counting children

inside and outside the building.

He wanted to sell gasoline but did not have money to buy the storage tanks.
He talked

with Ralph Rickman, the delivery driver for Dixcel Gasoline Co., who agreed
to put in two 100

gallon tanks, one for white gas and the other for regular. A short time
after they were put in, gas

sales boomed when the County began graveling the roads because the trucks
bought gas from the

folks. Rickman made so many trips out there that he replaced the tanks with
larger ones and,

saying the profit more than paid for them, gave Dad a "paid" ticket.

The federal 'relief' program helped many families in the community who were
in need.

Each month a truck delivered food and clothing to our store and the folks
distributed food and

clothing although they received no pay for doing this. The store was filled
on the day the truck

came and, of course, the people bought other items they needed so this
service helped business.

As store keeper, Dad had an unusual position in the community. He was often
called on

to settle arguments and he held the wagers when men made bets. Because some
people strong

feelings about politics, he steered clear of being identified with any
political party. In the 1936

presidential election, Edgar Swanson and Arthur ‘Peggy' [nickname for
having a pegleg] Smith

got into an argument over Roosevelt and Landon, the two candidates. When
they asked Dad

whom he favored, he thought for a minute and said, "Norman Thomas." That
was fine even

though Thomas was a socialist---at least he was not a Democrat or
Republican. Swanson and

Smith bet a Stetson hat on the election and Dad held the money.

The store was a gathering place for men who sat around the store and told
tall tales,

bought and sold land or animals, and dreamed up schemes. I guess it was
there that plans were

made that got Dad elected constable, a peace officer who served legal
papers and could arrest

lawbreakers. Well, at this election, Joe Ruth, who ran the store at
Galesburg, was constable and

the only name on the ballot. Dad didn't know a write-in campaign was
started and was in shock

when he learned he was elected. The next day, Joe came over to sell his
pistol and star but Dad

told him to keep them because he didn't want to be constable. He would lose
too many customers.

Joe thanked Dad and kept the job.

Dad and Mom put many hours in the store, opening early and closing late.
And, it was not

unusual for someone to drive up and honk the horn after we were in bed. Dad
would open up and

sell whatever they needed.

Mom did much of the buying of supplies. She drove the pick up truck loaded
with cans

of cream and crates of eggs to Joplin and returned with it loaded with
groceries, fruit and dry

goods from wholesale houses. Dad took livestock on Fridays to one of the
packing companies

or to the stockyards at Joplin.

In the fall of 1937, they sold the Medoc store to Granddad Hightower and
opened a store

in Purcell. We lived in nearby Alba where Lois and I went to school. One
thing stands out in my

memory about Purcell. Mom cut grocery ads on stencils and ran them off on a
mimeograph

machine in the store. I helped fold the ads which were mailed to people in
the community. I

remember it so well because sometimes the ink would still be wet when I
folded sheets and ink got

on my hands. Another memory is when a photographer took a picture of the
family standing in


front of the cash register. I was very impressed when the flash powder went
off and smoked filled

the room. In early spring 1938, we moved back to Medoc and Granddad moved
back to Alba.

No one I talked with later could remember the reasons either move was made.

Later in the summer of 1938, the folks opened a store in Webb City. As I
wrote earlier,

it was here Dad demonstrated his ability to be a top notch salesman getting
people to buy Spam.

The depression was still on and business was not very good in small towns
like Webb City

so, in January 1939, they sold the store and we moved to Nashville where we
had lived briefly in

1932. The community had two other stores, a post office, a two-room school,
the Methodist

Church, the Christian Church, and a blacksmith shop. Our store was the
typical country general

store with groceries, clothing, farm tools and equipment and feed. We lived
in an apartment on

the side of the store.

Business was good because Dad and Mom knew how to get along with people. Of
course,

having the two churches helped. One of the other stores was owned by Ernest
Beaty, a Methodist,

and the other by Gay Pope, a Christian. Loyal Methodists traded with Ern
and loyal Christians

with Gay. Since the folks did not belong to either church, both
congregations could trade with

them.

The folks used gimmicks here, too. A large empty lot next to the store was
put to good

use. Traveling medicine shows set up for a week's run at no cost. A
traveling circus with one

elephant, dogs that did tricks, and wild animals including a laughing hyena
came through and set

up on the lot. And, on fall and spring Saturday nights, the Hi-Y from
Minden High School

showed movies against the side of the store. All of these brought in
customers who traded with

the folks since they provided the entertainment.

Both Dad and Mom were popular with the teenage boys. The boys liked to work
on their

cars night so the folks ran an extension cord from the store outside so the
boys could work as late

as they wanted. Then, the folks sort of encouraged the boys in their
Halloween tricks. The boys

came over one night and said Ern Beaty had put something on his store
windows so they couldn't

be soaped. Mom gave them a bucket of hot water and a bar of yellow soap.
After washing the

windows, they used the remaining soap on Beaty's and Pope's store windows.
The following year,

Ern locked up early and went home without doing anything to his windows.
The boys left him

alone but when they started soaping windows of Pope's store, Gay chased
them down the street.

Where did they go? Why, through the large front doors of Thurmans' store
which the folks had

left open with the lights turned off. Of course, Gay couldn't follow them
inside so he stood

outside yelling the Thurmans housed bandits. Of course, the people in the
community had a big

laugh.

In 1940, the folks bought 30 acres south of Nashville on Highway 43 where
they moved

in a four-room house on which Dad built another bedroom. Mom and I papered
the new room

and painted the whole house outside. Dad also built a building and opened
the grocery store that

summer.

We needed water so Granddad Hightower said he would witch a well. Taking a
forked

branch from a cherry tree and holding a fork in each hand, he walked slowly
in a pattern. Soon,

the branch slowly twisted in his hands until the pointed end was straight
down. He walked around

once more and again the branch went down in the same spot. He told the
folks the well should

be dug right there, about eight feet from the southeast corner of the
house. And, he even said how

deep to dig---twenty-two feet. Well, farmers who lived around us just
laughed. None of the wells

around there was that shallow. Most had been drilled and were at least
sixty feet deep. Not only

that, the water was hard.

Dad hired Frances, Archie and Marvin, the three teenagers who hung out
around the store

to dig the well. At about twenty feet, there was a trickle of water; at
twenty-two feet, a small

stream; and, at twenty-five they quit because it came in too fast to scoop
out. Not only was there

water but it was extremely soft. Everyone but Granddad was amazed.

Business was good at first. Taking a cue from Webb City, the folks started
something new

for that part of the country by taking telephone orders and delivering to
the farmers' home. But

the upcoming war contributed to the store closing. In mid 1941, the country
was moving to war

status and Camp Crowder was started near Neosho, south of Joplin. Dad saw
his opportunity to

get back to his first love in work -- construction -- and got a job as a
carpenter. Mom kept the

store open from 1941 to late 1942 when she closed it because of food and
gasoline shortages and

rationing.

Dad worked at Crowder for about two years. When the job ended, he moved to
jobs in

far away towns -- Pratt and Coffeyville, KS and Oak Ridge, TN but he did
not like being away

from his family nor did we like for him to be gone. When he worked at Oak
Ridge, a man died

in the hut to his and Dad used this as an excuse to return home. He
chuckled as he told about that

trip back to Missouri. The train from Knoxville connected with one in
Memphis and as the train

was running late, he was afraid he would miss his connection going west.
Sure enough, as his

train was coming into the Memphis station, the train he wanted was pulling
out. Throwing his

suitcase and tool box off to the ground, he jumped after them. Now
remember, this was a man

who weighed about 230 pounds. As the train moved past him, he threw his
suitcase into the

vestibule of one car and his tool box into the next. The train was picking
up speed as he ran along

side and grabbed the hand rail of the next car. A porter reached down and
pulled him up saying,

"Mister, you must really want to catch this train." Dad told him he just
wanted to go home.

He didn't stay home long, going to Pratt, KS, but coming back to work Camp
Crowder

as an inspector for the Corps of Engineers. When that job finished, he went
to Coffeyville, KS,

and then back to Camp Crowder.

In May 1944, about a month before my school was out, we went to Sunflower,
KS. where

he worked as a carpenter at a plant making rocket fuel while Mom and I
worked at the cafeteria.

Our three-room apartment was in the defense workers housing project and we
furnished it sparsely

with a card table, three camp cots, and three folding chairs bought in
Kansas City. Dad worked

as a carpenter leaving at 7:00 A.M. and getting home around 6:00 P.M. while
Mom and I worked

at the cafeteria from 11:00 P.M. to 7:00 A.M. We ate supper together but
weekends were the

only times we saw much of each other.

When we returned to Nashville in late August, Dad went to work at Parsons,
KS. In late

November, Aunt Ruth Cook, who worked in the shipyards at Vancouver, WA,
came to Alba to

get her daughter, Ginger. She told how jobs were plentiful so the folks
decided we would go back

with her. We left with mixed emotions. Dad was worried about Grandmother
Thurman who was

not well and Mom didn't like the idea of going to the west coast while Lois
was going New York

City on the east coast where she would have a baby the next May. Me? I was
very excited about

taking my first long trip.

The journey to Vancouver was some trip. Our 1939 chevy was loaded with
three adults

in the front seat and two teenagers, food, and clothing in the rear. The
first day was filled with

laughter. Dad said there wasn't time to stop and eat so he drove while Aunt
Ruth handed him a

sandwich, then coffee, then something else. He saw some small pickled
peppers and asked her to

give him "a bite" only he took the whole pepper. Instead of being warm, it
was burning hot. As

tears streamed down his face, he pulled over to the roadside, reached for
the blackberry pie

Grandmother had baked, and ate almost all of it to ease the burning. The
four of us roared with

laughter but it was a long time before he saw any humor in it.

We stopped at a tourist court the next night and the three adults went in
to find out if a

cabin was available. The owner thought Aunt Ruth was the folks' teenage
daughter -- and nothing

was said about Ginger and me. We slipped into the cabin quiet as a mouse.

The car developed trouble going up a mountain and a wrecker towed us to
Green River,

WY. The mechanic told Dad the car needed a generator but since it was
Friday night, he couldn't

get another one until Monday morning. A fellow heard Dad say he had to be
on the job in

Vancouver on Monday, and got to talking with him. When Dad said he was from
Joplin, the man

asked, "What's the blind man's name who sells pencils on Main?" "You mean
Blind Tom?" Dad

replied. The man told Dad to wait a bit. He went to the telephone and
called his son-in-law who

was also a mechanic. "Are you still working on that '39 chevy? Well, take
the generator off and

bring it over. A fellow from Joplin needs it for his car." Then, he told
us, "Walk on up to Green

Feather Motel and Cafe and get a bite to eat and tell the woman to give you
a room." Come to

find out, he owned it. The mechanic worked all night and we left early the
next morning.

The drive along the Columbia River Gorge was unforgettable. I had never
seen waterfalls

and these were spectacular. Dad was in a hurry to get to Vancouver but he
slowed down and

stopped frequently so we could admire the view.

We arrived in Vancouver late Sunday and spent the night at Aunt Ruth's
apartment in

Ogden Meadows, a row apartment housing project for shipyard workers. The
next day, Dad went

to work, Mom got us an apartment and I started to high school. Our
apartment had a dining-living

room area where I slept, a small kitchen, bath, and bedroom. Uncle Clyde
and Aunt Ruth lived

in an apartment at the end of the row.

Dad hired on as a steam fitter at the shipyard but Mom decided she
preferred to work in

a meat market. This was an excellent decision because meat was rationed and
she was able to

keep us well supplied. Chocolate was in short supply so she would trade a
pound of bacon with

a grocery clerk for a dozen of Hershey bars or a sack of sugar. Fish was
plentiful and we ate so

much salmon we grew tired of it.

As spring approached, each one of us wanted to return to Missouri, though
for different

reasons. Dad was worried because Grandmother Thurman was ill. Mom wanted to
be closer to

Lois who was to have her first child in May. I didn't like school. One day
I told Dad I wished we

could go home and he replied, "Would you like to leave this weekend?" We
did.

That trip home was memorable. Dad did all of the driving going out but
shortly after we

left Vancouver, he got sick so Mom and I drove the first two days. I guess
I did a good job

because Dad and I traded off the rest of the trip. Since we were not in any
hurry, Dad stopped

along the way so we could read historical signs and visit museums.

I was driving when we arrived in Lawrence, KS late at night. The folks were
on the

lookout for a hotel and as we got downtown, Dad called out, "Son, you just
passed a hotel back

there." Without thinking, I did a U-turn and headed back. Dad said, "Son,
look over and see

where you turned around." I had made that U-turn in front of the police
station. Luckily, the

police were all inside.

We arrived in Alba and stayed with Grandmother while Dad began job hunting.
He found

one in Joplin and the folks moved there. The war ended in August 1945 and
Dad continued to

work for a small construction company that had jobs in and around Joplin.

I went into the army in April and shipped overseas in late July. Since Lois
and Ed lived

in New York, the folks decided to see them so they drove up after I left
from my leave. Not

knowing they were coming, I got a weekend pass to see Lois and Ed so was
thrilled to see the

folks. Dad got a construction job and they stayed until Ed was transferred
to New Orleans a few

months later. The folks drove them down and Dad worked there for a short
time.

They moved around while Dad worked for construction companies in Georgia
and

Mississippi. It was in Georgia that Mom had her first corn grits. She
usually ate bacon and toast

for breakfast and if she did eat an egg, she wanted it fried hard. Well,
one morning they ate in a

small cafe and she ordered bacon and toast but the order came with an egg
all sunny side up with

a yellow center. She called the waitress over and said she had not asked
for an egg. The waitress

smiled and said, "Honey, them's grits, not eggs." White grits with a pat of
melted yellow butter

in the center -- looking like a sunny side up egg.

After the job ended, they returning to Joplin where Dad went to work
building a naval

armory for Higgins Construction Co. In 1948, they bought a five-room house
at 2136 Princeton

Avenue with a five-year note but paid it off in less than three years --
which was in keeping with

their views about being in debt. These are excerpts from a letter Dad sent
me in Germany about

the house.

Dear Bob,

Here comes again this morning. We are all ok. Well we finished up the

deal on the house yesterday. And will get moved Thursday. Now don't get mad

because you are not here to help cause it will be as usual just a lot of
hard work.

I have drawn a rough sketch of the house so you will have an idea how it
looks.

Did not have a rule or anything here so it is not to scale. As Bob use to
say, a

little crude on the drawing but you know...will have to build some more
cabinet

for Mom...Will be nice to live in a house again. But nicer when you can
come

home for a few days and have a bed to sleep on. And we got an inner spring

mattress for your bed...As ever your Dad



Higgins sent him to Natchez, MS. to build another armory and after it was
finished, the folks

stayed in Jackson, MS for several months. They were there when I was
discharged from the army.

We returned to Joplin in the winter of 1949 and during the next three
years, Dad ran jobs in Joplin,

Aurora, Bartlesville, Ok and several other places for Higgins.

Moving around to different towns where Dad worked was hard on Mom. Even
though

she made friends easily and kept in contact by mail with several for years,
she missed being with

her sisters and mother. They lived in furnished apartments and, as she
could take only those

household items and clothing that fitted into the car, she had to leave
many things behind. In

Natchez, she worked as the bookkeeper for the company and in other towns
she worked as a store

clerk.. She was a good sales person and worked in the men's department at a
department store

in Waverly, OH. She consistently had the highest sales record. I asked why
she was so good and

she said, "When a man comes in, I ask him what he is looking for. If he
says a suit, I ask what size

and then show him the rack. I tell him to look it over and when he finds
what he likes, tell me and

I will help him. I don't try to push him." One week she sold over four
hundred dollars. One of

the other clerks said, "Frances could sell a suit to a dummy."

In 1952, Dad started his own company and built an elementary school in
southeast Kansas.

He apparently had rheumatic fever as a child that damaged his heart but it
didn't cause any problem

until November 1952 when he had a minor heart attack while building the
school. He finished

the school but afterward sold all of his equipment. He was afraid he might
have an attack while

doing another job and it would fall to Mom to get it completed.

Jobs were scarce around Joplin so one day, he packed the car and told Mom
he would call


when he found work. Several nights later he called from Indianapolis saying
he had been hired to

build a high school. Mom joined him and she worked as a clerk at a Martha
Washington candy

store. Later, Aunt Susie and Uncle Ted Jarmin moved there and Ted worked
with Dad.

Dad's next job was for Peter Kewitt Construction Company working on a
nuclear plant

at Portsmouth, OH. He had another heart attack on this job but was able to
return to work.

When Kewitt transferred him to Topeka, KS, he worked as assistant project
director on a 22.5

million-dollar Veterans Administration hospital while Mom worked as a
cashier for Krogers. One

of the interesting side lights of this job was his taking over the company
of a subcontractor. Seems

the subcontractor couldn't get the job done so Dad was asked to run the
company and finish the

work. He did and on schedule. He continued having heart problems and the
doctor had Mom

make several changes in the way she cooked especially cutting down on salt.
I thought Dad would

complain but he said he liked steak better without salt and the salt free
hot rolls tasted sweet as

though they contained sugar. He was supposed to cut back on smoking but he
couldn't.

Kewitt had a policy of hiring permanently only superintendents who had a
college degree

so Dad was laid off when the Topeka job ended and the folks returned to
Joplin. He applied for

jobs with no success but one day he received a call from the Kewitt Company
asking if he would

like to be project director on a hydroelectric plant to be built in Hallam,
NE. The folks moved up

there where he directed construction of an eight million dollar plant. It
had to tie in with a nuclear

power plant being built on the same site and Dad said when the job was
finished, the connecting

tunnel between the two plants tied in just as they were supposed to do.

He suffered a massive attack during the Hallam job and, although he saw the
job to

completion, he had to stop working. This was a very hard time for him.
Since he could not do

much physical activity, he just sat for long periods of time---and he was
not a sitting man. With

no retirement income except social security of $119 a month, money was a
concern. One month

his medical expenses were more than he received in social security. Mom
worked as a cashier for

Aunt Ruth at Pittsburg, KS driving twenty miles daily even when the roads
were covered with

snow and ice. This hurt him very much for to him, the husband supported the
wife, not the

reverse.

Christmas 1960 was the last time our entire family was together. We with
our three girls

came from Emporia, KS and Lois with her three children came from Kenner,
LA. Mom was in

seventh heaven with all of us there for dinner but it was very difficult
for Dad. Come to think of

it, that was a lot of people for that small house. The noise and activity
were almost more than his

nerves could take.

A friend invited him to join the Masons each week he drove to Alba where he
went

through the training period. He was very proud the night he was initiated
into the Lodge.

One of his most difficult times came when he took Lois for a drive and the
car weaved

back and forth because his vision and coordination were not very good.
Finally, he pulled over

and, with tears streaming down his face, told her to take him home. That
was the last time he

drove. When he told me this story, he said he was useless.

I was working in Washington, D.C. during this time and visited them several
times a year.

I saw just how much emotional and physical courage and strength Mom had.
And, I saw how it

hurt Dad to have his wife work when he couldn't. He was unable to do almost
any physical

activity so Mom had to have the car serviced, take care of all banking
matters, and do all of the

shopping. He taught her what needed to be done to the car and where to get
it done but she had

to see to it. Whenever I visited, Dad would tell me how well Mom was
handling things and she

talked about decisions she had to make. He went over their financial
matters each time I visited

saying, "Doing this won't make anything happen but I want you to know what
we have."

Dad had his final heart attack in the evening of January 15, 1964 and died
around midnight.

He was buried on a bitter cold and windy day at Oak Park Cemetery in Webb
City with full

Masonic rites.

We were concerned about Mom living alone but she said she had to get use to
it before

she could leave. She did not want to be like Grandmother Hightower who
would say she wanted

to stay in Alba but then would call to say she wanted to visit Frances or
Flora or Ruth or Susie.

After just a day or two with that daughter, she wanted to go back to Alba.
A week later, this

cycle began again and it was hard on everyone. Anyway, Mom stayed at home
every night for

about six months and then spent weekends with Aunt Susie at Baxter Springs,
KS. It wasn't until

Christmas 1965 that she took first long trip away from home and her first
airplane trip by going

to Miami, FL to visit Lois and her family. Mom said she got really confused
because Joplin was

snowy when she left and Miami was very warm when she arrived. After Lois
moved to Georgia,

Mom would spend a week with her at Christmas and then come to Knoxville to
spend a week or

so with us.

She continued working for Aunt Ruth and went on trips with Aunt Susie or
Aunt Ruth.

One that she greatly enjoyed was to Colorado Springs.

Mom's back and leg bothered her quite a bit during the summer we were in
Maine so when

she returned to Joplin, she went to Dr. McPike who found nothing much wrong
other than arthritis

of the spine. When she continued to have problems, I asked Dr. McPike to
put her in the hospital

for a complete physical examination. He found a lump and, after exploratory
surgery, told us she

had Hodgkin Disease, the illness that killed her sister Flora some thirteen
years earlier. The illness

seemed to be in remission until late fall 1973 and she entered the hospital
a few days after

Christmas. A few days later, she went into a coma and Aunt Susie called to
ask if I could do

something. After talking with a doctor who had a research project on
Hodgkin Disease at UT

Hospital, I brought her by air ambulance to the University of Tennessee
Medical Hospital on

January 15, 1974. During the trip, I carefully read her medical records and
realized the coma was

caused by the pain medication. After it was changed, she awoke and after a
few days, was

released from the hospital to continue treatment as an outpatient.

The eighteen months she lived with us were filled with blessings. We had a
two level

house called a split foyer with a full kitchen and bath on each level so
she had an apartment with

her own furniture downstairs. She usually fixed her breakfast of coffee,
toast and bacon

downstairs then ate lunch and supper with the family. She and Peggy got
along famously. They

worked together on fixing meals--Mom would fix slaw or noodles or other
food while Peggy did

the rest. She also fixed desserts. When Mom's hair came out from the
chemotherapy, Peggy took

her to Penney's where she found a wig that looked just like her real hair
including the style. All

of the girls got to spend a lot of time with her. At night when I didn't
have a night class, I would

go down after she was in bed and sit with her. At times we talked about
when she was young or

about my childhood. At other times, we listened to records of Tennessee
Ernie Ford, Red Foley

and Andy Griffith singing hymns. It was a very special time for me.

When she and I went to Joplin for a visit in the summer of 1974, I drove
her car back to

Knoxville while she and Aunt Susie were to return by airplane. When the
plane landed, they were

no where in sight. After checking, the airlines people said Mom and Aunt
Susie had been diverted

to Dallas/Fort Worth Airport, which had just opened. I knew it was a huge
place and imagined

these two women being overwhelmed. Around 5:00 P.M. they arrived on Delta
and I expected

to see two tired, frantic women getting off of the plane. Instead, I saw
two women laughing like

teenagers. They had been put in first class and treated royally. Mom said
if she had known how

nice first class was, she would have always traveled that way. So much for
my worrying.

Her last trip to Joplin was in June 1975, when she and Peggy flew back.
While there, she

developed pleurisy and told Dr. McPike, "I want to get better so I can go
home" meaning

Knoxville. That was the first time she had indicated Knoxville was home. In
August, she visited

Lois but when she returned, she said she did not feel well. A few days
later she broke out with

shingles and large, painful blisters formed over her body. She entered the
University of Tennessee

hospital and died at midnight on September 26, 1975. Grave side services
were held at Oak Park

Cemetery in Webb City.

What Where They Like?

Outwardly they were not religious people. Mom told about an incident in
Pawhuska when

she was going forward to join First Baptist Church and she heard someone in
the audience make

an unkind comment about her (she had her hair bobbed and I have wondered if
the comment

related to that). Anyway, she turned around and sat down never to go back
to church. In 1959,

they returned to Joplin and started going to the First Christian Church
where Lois' in-laws, Claude

and Lillian Wyrick, attended. A short time later, the folks were baptized
and became members.

Dad was too ill to be immersed at church so he was baptized in the bath tub
at home.

Mom and Dad loved each other, their children, and their extended family.
They expected

family members to be considerate of one another. I believe nothing upset
them more than to have

a family member take advantage of another family member---and they saw it
happen on both sides

of their families.

Their family values were very much like those of others in the community.
Dad was the

head of our family -- no doubt about that -- but so were most other
husbands except in the

Hightower Family where Grandmother, Flora, Susie, and Ruth were boss. Aunt
Susie and Aunt

Ruth told me several times that Dad dominated Mom and they didn't like it.
That was

understandable since they were the dominant person in their own families.
Mom was like

Granddad Hightower, though. In her quiet way, she got her way on many, many
things.

They were in agreement about many things such as how Lois and I should
behave. Some

things were done and others were not. Why? Because nice people did them or
did not do them.

Being in a small community, neighbors were aware of what people did so this
was a factor. Of

course, Mom stood up for us. One time in Nashville a woman said something
about Lois coming

late from a date and Mom let her know it was none of her business.

Back then, boys generally had more freedom than girls so the folks were
more strict with

Lois than with me. Dad bought me a bicycle when we lived in Medoc but would
not buy her one.

Why? Girls didn't ride bikes. Of course, she wasn't being singled out
because no other girl in

Medoc had a bicycle either. They set a time for her to be in from a date
just as many other parents

did but never told me what time to come in. Perhaps they didn't think they
had to because I was

in by the time they had set for Lois.

Mom said she hoped I never started drinking alcohol until I was at least
twenty one and

maybe not then. I never did. Dad talked to me about smoking when I was
about fourteen. We

were out behind the store out on Highway 43 and he said, "Son, I hope you
never start smoking.

It really isn't good for you but if you do, don't go slipping around. Come
in and ask me for a pack

from the shelf." I took his advice -- I never started.

Dad's views toward money and not buying things on credit were shaped by
childhood


experiences. His family had financial problems from the time Dad was about
ten and he went to

work at fourteen to help support the family. He remembered Christmas times
when they had

nothing for presents or special food as well as the time when Granddad ran
up a huge bill at the

grocery store. When Granddad died, Grandmother had no money at all so the
boys supported

her and their three sisters until the girls were old enough to work. Osa
and Helen never married

but lived with Grandmother until her death. Dad told me many times he never
wanted to leave

Mom like his Maw was left.

Dad and Mom had a joint account at the bank. That doesn't seem unusual to
you but to

his generation, that was uncommon. More than that, both Lois and I were
added when we went

to high school. When a friend asked why he put me on it, he said, "When the
boy needs money

at school, I don't want him to have to say I have to ask my Dad."

Dad wasn't interested in new furniture or clothes but he didn't mind
spending on food.

Some family members said Mom would like to have bought more furniture but
Dad wouldn't let

her. Perhaps but I have my doubts. She did not rush out to buy a lot of new
furniture after his

death. She bought only two pieces between 1964, when he died, and 1974 when
she came to live

with us. She replaced a refrigerator in 1968 and a new sofa in 1969. She
had a very difficult time

making decisions about both of these. I was with her the day she bought the
refrigerator and she

went to bed that night with a severe headache worrying over whether or not
she should have

gotten it. It took nearly six months of looking before she made the
decision to buy the sofa.

Actually, she was more interested in buying clothing than in furniture.

They considered Ed and Peggy as son and daughter, not in-laws.
Grandchildren were to

be enjoyed, not fussed at. Dad and Mom were willing to watch over
grandchildren while their

parents went shopping or visiting. Although this was not something most
older men did, Dad took

it very seriously. One time he was watching over Lois' two children, four
year old Beth and two

year old Cathy. The girls were running in the house when Cathy fell and
jammed a tooth up in the

gum. I think it hurt Dad more than it did Cathy. They liked him and one of
their favorite games

was to tell him, "Push your teeth out, Granddaddy" meaning for him to push
his upper false teeth

out of his mouth. Mary Beth was about 18 months old when the folks came to
see us in Nashville,

TN. Dad had a severe headache and his heart was acting up but he held her
in his arms as they

swung back and forth on a swing out at the park.

Lois, the Big Sister

As I said earlier, Lois came into this world in Pawhuska, OK on April 10,
1924 to the

surprise of the rest of the family. Seems Mom did not put on much weight
and no one in the

Thurman family except Dad knew she was expecting. Aunt Kate, John's wife,
who was expecting

at the same time, made a big deal out of it. She stayed in bed much of the
time saying she just

wasn't able to do anything. Mom took care of their son, Jack, and fixed
meals for them quite

often. There were times when Mom didn't feel well but kept her trips to the
doctor secret. When

asked, Dad said something like "Oh, it's nothing. She'll get over it soon."
On the morning of

April 10, John told Dad it was time to quit fooling around and to take Mom
to the doctor to find

out her problem. Well, that afternoon everyone learned what it was---a baby
girl who was born

at home. Mom said Aunt Kate was angry about not being told and never did
get over it.

I use to say Dad was born on New Year's Eve, Mom on Columbus Day, I on the
Fourth

of July and Lois was ten days from being a fool. She was anything but that
in real life.

Throughout our childhood, we were very close beginning with sharing the
same bedroom

to games we played to enjoying the same movies. I remember no rivalry
between us although

there were times when she thought I got to do things because I was a boy.
Much of this had to

do with where and when we lived. I learned to drive a car when I was about
eleven years old.

Why her boy friend taught me but didn't teach her is something I don't
know. Dad taught her

when she was sixteen years old and being a smart alec brother, I was not
very supportive or

helpful. She loved to read and sometimes this activity got her in trouble
with Mom. Take the time

Mom put some beans on to cook and told Lois to watch them while Mom worked
in the store and

add water if needed. Lois got so interested in her book that she let the
beans burn. Mom was very

upset as she put on another pot of beans, again telling Lois to watch them.
You guessed it. She

let that pot burn. I'll let you imagine what Mom said and did.

Lois, cousin June Kibler, and I were a threesome. Our families spent so
much time

together that June seemed like a second sister to me. Lois was about twenty
one months older

than June and June was about thirty months older than I was. For the most
part, they got along

great although each one thought the other one bossed her. And, being the
youngest of the three,

I knew they bossed me. We went to movies together, played games together
and fussed together.

We even sympathized together. One time we were visiting June and when she
had to take some

kind of medicine we got just as upset as she did -- and we just watched!

Lois became an accomplished speaker to church and other groups in later
years and I guess

she got her start at the one room school at Medoc where she gave the
reading, "Betty At the

Baseball Game." It was about a young woman who went to her first baseball
game with her boy

friend and she knew absolutely nothing about what was going on. She
couldn't understand why

people got excited when a player "caught a fly." She became so upset with
her boy friend that she

decided to leave and, as she was going down the steps, he yelled, "Go home,
you fool, go home"

and she thought he meant her. To add insult to injury, he called out
"Slide, you fool, slide" and

slide she did, all the way down the steps. Of course, the audience got a
big laugh out of her

performance. She was valedictorian of the eighth grade and gave that
address also.

She was a popular young woman when we lived at Nashville. One time she was
voted the

most popular girl in a contest held by a medicine show at Nashville. She
also took part in both

the junior and senior plays at Minden High School.

After graduating from high school, Lois worked a short time as a secretary
at Camp

Crowder. She said she could not take dictation using shorthand and after a
particular difficult

session, she was asked, "Miss Thurman, just how did you get this job?" She
answered, "My Dad

got it for me." The man laughed and never asked her to take dictation
again. She enjoyed

practical jokes as much as her Dad and one day she sent a telegram to her
Uncle Clyde who also

worked at Crowder that went "Happy Birthday, Cookie. Love Lois." How was
this a practical

joke? Why, because she sent it collect. During that year, she was in a play
put on by the young

people of the Nashville community.

In the summer of 1943, she attended summer school at Joplin Junior College
and then

taught grades five through eight at Nashville during the 1943-44 school
year. That fall, Midge

Foster, who lived at Webb City and was her best friend, married Bud Wyrick.
Ed, Bud's brother,

was best man and Lois was maid of honor. We went to the Foster house after
the ceremony and

I tried to talk to Ed but he kept watching Lois. One evening, she came into
the house and said,

"Ed called and asked me for a date." A couple of weeks later, she went with
Mr. and Mrs.

Wyrick, Ed, and their other two children on a weekend trip to Neosho. It
wasn't long after that

they became engaged and then married January 3, 1944. She continued
teaching until the end of

school in April when she joined Ed at Stanford, TX where he trained air
force pilots.

MEMORIES , MEMORIES

Each family has its own family stories and jokes that lose something when
told to people

not around when they occurred. Risking that, I will tell some of the more
common stories and

jokes of our family that may give a flavor of our family life and
relations.

***

Mom said our cars had something against her. She was driving the Dodge when
the drive

shaft dropped down. When she called Dad, he asked what was wrong. She
didn't know the parts

of the car so she said, "If it was a wagon, I'd say the coupling pole had
dropped" (the pole where

horses were hitched to pull the wagon). Another time, the motor caught fire
and then the tie rod,

the part of the front steering that allows the wheels to turn, came loose.
I guess the scariest time

was in Joplin. I was with her when she was taking a pick-up truck load of
cream to the creamery

at 17th and Main. Just as we came up to 7th and Main (7th was Highway 66, a
very busy highway),

the traffic signal turned red. She put on the brakes to stop and the truck
crossed 7th Street -- the

brakes had failed. Maybe she did have a jinx!

***

Dad was a good pool shooter and taught me to shoot pool and snooker when I
was about

12 years old. We'd stop at a pool hall and shoot several games when we went
to Joplin. One

summer we worked at Sunflower, KS and I was shooting pool at the recreation
center with a group

of friends. Some man made fun of us, saying he needed some competition.
Dad, who was standing

by the wall, said, "Son, let me have your cue" and nodded his head for the
other boys to step back.

Then, he said to the man, "Why don't you break?" The man did and Dad ran
the table (put all balls

in pockets). Then when he broke, one ball went in so Dad continued shooting
and again he ran the

table. The man broke, Dad missed and the man took his turn. When it was
Dad's turn again, he

ran the table. He handed me the cue saying, "Son, I don't like playing with
amateurs. Why don't

you play with him?" The man looked at him and walked out. The other boys
were bragging on

Dad and I sure was proud.

***

Dad liked warm cake and, sometimes when Mom baked, he would do something to
make

the cake fall. Then, he would say, "There's no need to ice it. Let's eat it
now." On the other hand,

he didn't like warm pie. One time Mom baked a gooseberry pie and Dad said
he would wait until

it cooled. He watched as Uncle Elmer Kibler, Aunt Susie, Mom, and I each
cut a slice and he said,

"Well, I don't like hot gooseberry pie but if I'm going to get any, I
better get it while it's hot." That

became a family joke to be repeated over the years when a pie was taken out
of the oven.

***

Dad did not like to stay away from our family. One of the jokes was that he
would drive

down to visit his mother in Oklahoma and say he would be back on a certain
day. We knew

without doubt he would be back at least a day early

***

Dad liked to be early rather than late. If the train was scheduled to come
in at 6:49 P.M.,

he would be at the station at 6:00 P.M. Shortly after we married, we got a
card from Mom on

Wednesday saying they would be in Lexington on Thursday. I rushed to the
University to tell

Peggy so she could hurry home and clean up the apartment. When she got
there, they were sitting

in front of the apartment -- a day early.

***

Dad had a kindred soul in Uncle Elmer when it came to practical jokes. One
Sunday after

dropping June, Lois and me off at the Civic Theater in Webb City, Mom and
Aunt Susie drove one

truck while the men took the other one, agreeing to meet later at the West
End Drugstore. Back

then, the West End had carhops who came to the car and took orders. Both
couples got there on

time and parked next to each other. The carhop took the order from the
women and then she went

over and got one from the men in the other truck. When it came time to pay,
the women realized

they didn't have enough money so they told the carhop, "The men in the
truck over there will pay

for ours." She went over to the men and said, "The women in that truck said
you'd pay for theirs."

The men just looked at her. Uncle Elmer said, "I don't know what they are
pulling but I don't know

them. Do you, Charlie?" "Nope," said Dad. And with that they paid for their
ice cream and drove

off leaving a puzzled carhop and two angry wives. Of course, they just
drove around the block,

came back, and paid but it was a long time before the women could see any
humor in what

happened.

***

I took Peggy to Joplin in January 1950 to meet the folks and while we were
there, I gave

her an engagement ring. The next day she lifted her left hand and showed
out the ring. Dad

looked at it and then looked at me. "It doesn't look like the ring you gave
that other girl." Peggy

looked puzzled. I was dumbfounded. There had been no other girl. Then he
added, "Of course,

he was just five years old and got it out of Cracker Jacks." So much for a
loving father!

***

Dad bought a Model T Ford in Pawhuska and the engine caught fire while he
worked on

it. He rushed in the house for something to put it out and the first thing
that caught his eye was a

quilt Mom had made. Without a word, he picked it up and rushed back to the
car where he used

it to smother the flames. The quilt was a total loss as were the many hours
Mom had spent piecing

and quilting it. Dad said she was not a bit happy with him.

***

We lived a few blocks from Grandmother Thurman and Aunts Osa and Helen in
Pawhuska.

I guess Grandmother called each night. One Thursday in November 1928, the
folks decided to have

a family picture made for Christmas and Mom cautioned 4-year-old Lois not
to tell anyone about

it. Grandmother Thurman called Friday morning and when Lois answered, she
asked, "Where did

your family go last night?" Remembering what Mom said, Lois told her,
"Momma said I'm not to

tell you." Silence on the other end of the telephone line. Mom said
Grandmother was very hurt

for the next four weeks until Christmas came and the folks could explain.

***

Our cars had names. One was "Tin Lizzy," another "Leapin' Lena."

***

Dad taught Mom to drive the car and told her "when going through an
intersection and you

have a stop sign, the vehicle on the right has the right of way." One day
she came to a stop sign

and just sat there. Finally, Dad said, "Frances, why don't you go on?" "You
told me that a vehicle

on the right had the right of way and I was to wait until it passed. I'm
waiting for that wagon to

pass." Dad said the horse and wagon was about a quarter of mile down the
road.

***

When Lois was little, she had a white substance in her mouth so the folks
took her to the

doctor who said he didn't know what it was but she might die. A little
later, she wanted some

chocolate candy and Dad called the doctor to see if it was ok to give it to
her. "No," the doctor

said. "It will kill her." Dad said, "Well, if she is going to die anyway,
she is going to be happy" and

gave the chocolate to her. The folks took her to another doctor who said it
was a fungus called

thrush and not to worry. It was not serious.

***

Just as the folks put me on their checking account, I also put them on my
checking account.

I was visiting June in Jasper one spring day when Dad called. "Son, don't
write a check until

tomorrow. I just wrote all of your money out." In 1949, cars were still
hard to buy but R and S

Chevy dealers promised Dad a new car and told him to come after it. When he
got there, the

salesman said it had been traded to another dealer for a truck that another
customer wanted. This

made Dad angry so he drove to the Plymouth dealer, walked in, pointed to
the sedan in the

showroom and said, "How much is that car?" Told the price, he said, "I'll
take it" and wrote a

check using all of his money and my money in checking. The next day, he
took money out of

savings and replaced it but I sure gave him a hard time that night.

***

Memories of the 1930's

--For valentine day and Easter, the folks bought a chocolate heart or
rabbit for Lois and me with

our name written on it. I always hoped it would be solid chocolate. It
never was. But, it was still

good.

--For Mother's Day, Dad would buy Mom a "house dress" or print dress. I do
not remember Mom

buying Dad anything for Father's Day. I wonder if it was even celebrated
out there.

***

Although the folks did not read much at Medoc, we took a daily and a weekly
newspaper.

Dad liked to read detective and western pulp magazines but Mom read very
little. They liked for

me to read, tho, and gave me money to buy Big Little Books and comic
magazines. Considering

how hard times were, I was fortunate.









GEORGE (DOSS) AND NETTIE FOSTER THURMAN

George Washington, known to family and friends as Doss, was born on May 26,
1862, in

Sweet Gum Plains, Overton County (now in Clay County) Milton and Milie
Thurman. His mother

died when he was nine years old and the following year his father
remarried. A year or so later the

family moved by wagon to the Prosperity area, east of Joplin, MO.

Life in southwest Missouri must have been an eye opener to this young lad
from the

Tennessee Cumberland Plateau. Sweet Gum Plains was in the hills on the
Tennessee-Kentucky

border in the Cumberland Mountains and his Thurman and Kilman relatives
lived all around him.

The Prosperity area, on the other hand, was flat rolling landscape near the
Ozark foothills. The

town itself was a bustling, thriving mining community of some 500 people
living in houses and

tents. Doss probably was not among strangers as a number of families from
Overton County

moved to the area.

Four miles away was Joplin with some four thousand citizens and growing. It
might have

been a mining boom town but it was going modern. By 1881, telephone lines
connected Joplin with

surrounding communities so people could talk on what one little girl
called, "goer-asker, teller-and-

comer." A race track lay just south of town and occasionally a circus came
to town.

Nettie Foster, born in 1876, had traveled to new country also. She was born
in Fulton

County, IL but her family moved to Kansas before settling near Carterville,
MO.

Doss was thirty-one years old when he married Nettie Foster on December 31,
1893. They

moved to a farm cater corner from his dad about one mile east of
Prosperity. Eight children blessed

their home--John Milton born January 16, 1895; Lula Bell January 24, 1896;
George William

October 17, 1897; Charles Avery December 31, 1898; Virgil Leroy May 26,
1902; Osa Melvinia

and Ona Viola June 19, 1906 (twins); and Helen Alice January 20, 1911. Lula
Bell died December

5, 1898 at age two.

During the 1890s, Nettie could buy 10 1/2 pounds of granulated sugar or 12
pounds of

brown sugar for $1.00; a suit for Doss cost $6.65 and pants $2.00. Denim
overalls went for 65

cents and Jersey shirts for 40 cents. An Easter hat for Nettie could cost
$1.48 while print material

cost 2 1/2 cents a yard and percale for 7 1/2 a yard. A dozen of hose cost
90 cents. If this sounds

like things were cheap, keep in mind Doss probably made less than ten
dollars a week working in

the mines.

Doss farmed and worked underground in the lead mines while Nettie kept
house and cared

for the family. Around 1912, he injured his leg at the old Trinity and
could no longer work as a

miner. The mine closed and was involved in a law suit when the company went
bankrupt. Aunt

Ona remembered those days. "Dad had been hurt and couldn't work so they
hired him to be a night

watchman. We lived in the office building of the mine. I was six years old
and we had a birthday

party there."

Charlie told about the time his Dad was injured and worked as a night
watchman. "Times

got tough because the mining company kept saying they would pay Dad but
never did. We traded

at Froggy Flannery's grocery store and Dad ran up a big bill and he worried
about it but Froggy

told him that it was all right and not to worry. I think it got up to over
$400 which was a lot of

money in them days. I can remember the day he got paid. He got the check in
the mail and took

off down the car tracks to pay Froggy."

The Thurman and Flannery families were close friends. Virgil said Jim was a
big, fat friendly

man who often just sat in a chair, letting customers wait on themselves. He
would let a woman

make up her own order and write her own bill. Charlie chuckled about the
time "Maw went to the

store to get some meat but came home without anything. She said the cheese
was on the meat

block along side a cat." Charlie and Benny Flannery were school mates and
got into all kinds of

mischief and 'Aunt Halie' (pronounced hay'ley), as the Thurman children
called Jim's wife, cared for

Doss during his final illness.

Halie lived alone after Jim's death and at age 98 still took care of her
needs such as bringing

in buckets of coal for the cook stove and to heat the house. During a visit
with Charlie in 1959,

she recalled "Young George" dying at Jane Chinn Hospital from appendicitis
and sitting up with

Doss when he was sick. And, she laughed as she rehearsed how Jim liked
Virgil. "Virgil was a

favorite of Jim's. One time Virgil asked Jim, how much all the broken
pieces of hard Christmas

candy in the case would be and I think Jim said 'bout a quarter. Virgil
scraped up all the pieces and

got a big pile and asked Jim for a bag. 'Humph', said Jim real comical
like, 'I didn't say nothing

about you having a bag in that quarter.' He laughed and laughed but Virgil
got the paper bag.

Another time Virgil asked Jim how many cookies he could have for a nickel.
'Oh, take a handful,

Virgil.' Well sir, Virgil, he stretched out his left hand as wide as he
could and stacked cookies up

four high. Jim fussed at him but Virgil knew he thought it was real funny."

Doss moved the family to Yale, Oklahoma, about 1907 where they lived about
four years.

He farmed and raised tomatoes as a crop.

It was in Yale where Nettie developed leg ulcers. Ona explained how this
happened. "We

lived in Yale, OK. I was probably four years old and Helen wasn't born yet
so that would make five

children. That's where Mother's legs got sore. I think she was hit with a
shinny can then she got

tomato poison in the sores." Shinny is similar to hockey in which players
hit an object toward a

goal. The object in shinny is a tin can and it doesn't take long for the
can to become a lethal missile

with sharp points. Charlie told a similar story about his mother being
outdoors when the can hit

her legs inflicting deep cuts below the knees on both legs. Before they
healed, she worked in the

garden and the cuts became infected with lead arsenic, a poisonous
insecticide used on potato and

tomato plants. She had running sores which she treated each morning and
evening with salve and

then wrapped her legs with bandages for the next twenty five years. About
1937, she went along

when Frances, Charles' wife, went to see Dr. Gregg, her doctor. He asked
Nettie what was wrong

with her legs and, when hearing the tale, told her to sprinkle zinc oxide
powder on them. In just

a few months all but one sore healed and it was reduced to the size of a
quarter.

The family kept alive a tradition of a Cherokee ancestor. There was no
proof because, as

Charlie said, papers which proved this connection burned in the cabin of
some older relative. This

tradition took on a reality when applications filed with the Guion Miller
Commission in 1907 were

found. This commission was responsible for distributing monies to Eastern
Band Cherokee

members forced to move to Indian Territory and their descendants.

On August 26, 1907, Doss and his Kilman cousins filed applications showing
their

connection to the Eastern Cherokee Band. He claimed his connection through
his mother Milie

Kilman Thurman, his grandfather Leven Kilman and his great-Grandmother
Jensie Broadhead (or

Brandhead) Kilman. A second letter was filed July 1, 1908. In his
application, Stephen Kilman, a

cousin, described how the papers were burned in a relative's cabin fire
during the civil war.

A careful reading of the application and letter suggests Doss might not
have personally

completed the form or have written the letter. The application contained
wrong birth dates for

Doss and several children, an incorrect middle name for sons John and
George, and an X signature

which indicates the person cannot write. Charlie said his dad could write
and could read print

although he had some problem reading cursive writing. Another problem is
the handwriting in his

application matches the one completed for Stephen Kilman, his cousin. In
any case, the claim was

denied for lack of evidence.

Charlie said his Dad was tall and slender while Ona said he was a big man
who had white

hair at 35. She said he was a wonderful Christian and he belonged to First
Baptist Church in

Prosperity.

Doss was strict but he had a good sense of humor according to Charlie. "Dad
didn't like

tobacco. Well, one day George and me was walking down the car tracks,
thinking we was real

grown up and chewing tobacco and trying to see who could spit the
furtherest. I don't know where

he came from but all of a sudden there was Dad walking next to us. Well, we
couldn't spit so we

kept the juice in our mouth. I didn't know what to do because I sure didn't
want to swallow. Dad

didn't look right or left but kept walking. Then he said, 'Boys, it's
better to spit than to drown.' We

got rid of that chew real fast. And, I never chewed again. Dad never
brought it up."

Young George died April 19, 1919, from peritonitis at Jane Chinn Hospital,
Webb City, and

Doss died at home January 7, 1920 from an intestinal disorder. Charlie said
it was some kind of

cancer where the intestines grew together and stopped functioning. His
death at age 57 bore out

the family legend that Thurman men did not live to age 60. This legend grew
out of the deaths of

Milton, Milton's son Bob, and their brother George. Granddad's surviving
sons thought they would

die before reaching age 60 but John lived to be 62, Charlie 65 and Virgil
79 years.

John and Virgil moved to Pawhuska, OK, around 1919 where John started a
construction

company. After Doss died in 1920, Nettie, Osa, Ona, and Helen, moved to
Pawhuska but they and

Virge returned to Prosperity in 1921 where Osa and Ona finished the eighth
grade in school.

When the girls went to work as piece sewers at a Carterville shirt factory,
they became

friends with Frances Hightower, another piece sewer. When they invited her
to a box supper at

Prosperity Elementary School, she fixed up a box and went with them. They
introduced her to

Charlie who was with another girl. When Frances' box came up, he got the
bid and ate with her.

He never said whom he took home that night but he and Frances started
dating and married

February 10, 1923.

Charlie and Frances moved to Pitcher, OK, where he worked as a carpenter.
When Nettie

and the girls returned to Pawhuska in 1923, Charlie and Frances soon
followed. He and Virgil

worked for John while Osa and Ona worked at the telephone office. Helen
also worked at the

telephone office after she finished school.

Pawhuska, with a population of some five thousand, was the Osage tribal
capital. The town

was named for the famous Osage chief, Pahu-cka or White Hair. He got this
name in the late 1700s

when, as a youth, he wounded an officer wearing a powdered wig. He started
to scalp his quarry

when, to his amazement, the whole scalp came off and the victim escaped
leaving Pahu-cka

standing with a white wig in his hand. He wore it on his roach after that.
There was still a strong

traditional Indian atmosphere in town when the Thurmans moved there.

John's company constructed buildings in new towns springing up around the
area. It also

built homes for the Osage tribe and made papoose boards used by mothers to
carry their infants on

their back.

A depression came in the late 1920s and construction declined so in 1932,
Charlie and

Frances moved back to Missouri to work for her dad. John and Virgil
continued working in

Pawhuska until the late 1930's when they moved to Bartlesville some twenty
miles northeast. When

John began building for the Phillips Petroleum Company, he moved the
company to Borger, TX

where Phillips had a big oil field. Virgil moved there after 1946.

Nettie, Osa and Helen continued to live in Pawhuska where they were very
active in the

First Baptist Church. She died in 1948, and was buried in Carterville
Cemetery next to her husband

and son.

Nettie had many sorrows throughout her life time. When she was about six
years old, her

mother died and the family was split up. She lived with an uncle for
several years. In December

1898, her Dad died on the 3rd and Lula, her baby daughter, died on the 5th.
One good thing

happened when on the 31st, she gave birth to Charles. Then, in 1919,
George, her second son, died

and a short time later, her husband died in 1920. These sorrows did not
diminish her devotion to

God or her spiritual strength.

John Milton

John married Kate Kennedy and their three children were Lola (1915), Owen
but called Jack

(1918), and John Earl (1924). Jack said "I spent so much time with Uncle
Charlie and Aunt

Frances when I was little that it was like my second home." He and his wife
Imogene visited

regularly when Charlie and Frances returned to Joplin in 1959 and became
such a part of the family

that in 1972, they came to a Hightower family reunion (Frances' family). A
Hightower grandchild

asked why her dad's brother wasn't invited and her mother said, "He's not
part of the Hightower

family." Jack was so identified with the folks that no one questioned his
being there.

Charlie and John had a falling out over some money John owed him which was
one reason

Charlie left Pawhuska. Even tho John came to Medoc to go hunting, the two
men were not close.

In 1956, Charlie decided he should put aside whatever the problem was so he
took the train from

Topeka, KS to Borger, TX where he spent several days with John. He said
later it was like old

times. John died unexpectedly a short time later from diabetes.

Lula Bell

Lula Bell was born January 24, 1896 and died December 5, 1898.

George William

George was born in 1897. Charlie said he really enjoyed life and the two of
them were very

close. Charlie said when he was fourteen years old and George was sixteen,
they went to Atlas

Powder Plant and applied for a job cutting weeds. The man in charge of
hiring looked them over

and pointed to Charlie, "I'll hire you but (pointing to George), you come
back when you've growed

up." George went home fuming while Charlie went to work.

George was ill much of his life and Charlie told a story about George and a
cousin called

Humpy, son of Robert Milton Thurman. "Humpy and George was digging the gas
line at Duenweg

and George was sick. Each man was given so many feet to dig each day---I
don't remember how

much but take a figure of 40 feet. George couldn't do it and the foreman
came over and cussed him

out for not working harder. Humpy was standing behind the foreman and told
him to turn around

slowly and when he did, he saw Humpy standing there with his pick ax raised
over his head.

'George is my cousin and 'I'll kill you, you *@#!+* if you say one more
word to him. George and

me will get our part dug and you get away from me afore I get mad.' Well,
Humpy dug his own

part and helped George do his. The foreman never said anything more to
George again."

George was engaged to be married when he became ill in 1919. He died of
peritonitis at

the Jane Chinn hospital in Webb City and was buried at the Carterville
Cemetery in the Thurman

plot. A friend gave him an orange day lily during his illness, and his
mother kept it growing after

his death. Her daughters kept it after her death and following their
deaths, Bob Thurman gave

"Uncle George's Lily" bulbs to his Thurman cousins.

Charles Avery

Charles Avery was born December 31, 1898 and is described in another story.

Virgil Leroy

Virgil, better known as Virge, was born May 26, 1902. He married Dorothy
Campbell

August 27, 1927 and their children were (George 1928), Virgil (1930), Ruth
Ann (1932), and Rita

(1946). Virge died in April 12, 1980 and Dorothy in 1966. Both are buried
in Bartlesville.

Virge was a carpenter and quite a craftsman but baseball was his love.
Charlie said, "Virge

was a good ball player and he probably could have been in the big leagues
if he hadn't had to go to

work as a teenager. There was a big amusement park at Lakeside between
Prosperity and Carthage

and Virge would take a quarter with him. He would take a nickel and throw
at the milk bottles and

if he knocked them over, he got his nickel back and another one. Every time
you saw him, he had

a soda in one hand and a coney (a hot dog with chili) in the other--and he
always took a quarter

home. There were times when they wouldn't let him throw cause he always
won."

Virge became good friends with Susie and Ruth Hightower. He dated Susie and
Ruth said

she really liked him--perhaps because she got to drive his car when she
visited her sister in

Pawhuska.

The families of Virge and Charlie were very close. In Pawhuska, Dorothy and
Frances spent

much time together when the men worked away during the week. The women had
even more in

common when George was born on July 1 and Bob three days later on July 4.

This closeness between the two families continued after Charlie moved to
Missouri.

Charlie's family stopped over in Bartlesville to visit with them on the way
to Pawhuska and Virgil's

family spent summers with Charlie's family. The two men shared a love of
baseball and

construction so they had a lot to talk about. Virge came up when Charlie
died and went to the

funeral home with Frances and Bob to plan the funeral. After the funeral,
He stayed with her for

about a month after the funeral and was a great help.

Ona Viola and Osa Milvinia

Twin girls, Ona and Osa, blessed the Doss Thurman family on June 19, 1906.
They strongly

favored one another in appearance throughout their lives. Both girls worked
as telephone operators

in Pawhuska.

Ona worked the night shift at the telephone office and she met J.B. (Bud)
Fowler who

worked nights at the light plant. They married June 17, 1928 and he died
just three months before

they celebrated their 52nd anniversary. Bud had one daughter, Eva Mae, by a
previous marriage

while Bud and Ona's children were J.B., Betty, and Ronald (Ron).

Ona and her family moved to Odessa, TX where she and Bud ran a motel. After
Bud died

in 1980, she moved to San Antonio to be near her daughter Betty. Ona died
in 1995.

Osa (called Osie) lived with her mother and sister Helen. She said one time
she would like

to have married and had a family but she felt obligated to care for her
mother. She dated some and

was serious about one man but he was divorced. Since her mother and other
family members

opposed a marriage with a divorced person, she soon broke off dating him.
She was a most

enjoyable person to be with and had a great sense of humor. She died in
1958 with cancer and was

buried in Carterville Cemetery.Helen Alice

Helen was born in 1911. Like her sisters, she was a telephone operator with
the Bell

System. She was very active in the First Baptist Church. She was very
creative in making table

favors, decorating the room, and making table favors for church banquets.
She died in 1960 with

the same type cancer that killed Osa and was buried in Carterville
Cemetery.

Helen's inner strength came out when Osa was ill and became more evident
following Osa's

death. She did not retreat into the house but took trips to Colorado with
friends and continued

being active in First Baptist Church, planning banquets, teaching, and
serving in other ways.

The Thurman Extended Family

I only knew Uncle Lenard Sidney or Len, Granddad's half brother. He lived
at Diamond

and we visited him often when Grandmother and the girls came up from
Pawhuska. We attended

his funeral in 1940 and something made quite an impression on me. Osa and
Helen owned a

Plymouth with the gear shift on the steering wheel. Although Dad was not
very familiar driving this

car, he drove it in the funeral procession. Being a member of the family,
we were near the front of

the procession. The car started laboring when going up a hill and Dad
shifted into second gear--

except he shifted into reverse and killed the motor, stalling the
procession behind us. I thought he

would never get the motor started again! In later years, his grandchildren
and I visited back and

forth.

We spent a lot of time with Dad's cousin Lew Stailey and his wife, Laurie.
Lew was the son

of Kate [Catherine] Thurman Stailey. He worked for John in Pawhuska for
several years and then

returned to the Pepsin area near Diamond. Laurie and Mom were good friends
and she was a joy

to be with.

MEMORIES AND STORIES

Visiting Grandmother and Aunt Osa and Aunt Helen was a pleasure and
delight.

Grandmother was the typical stereotype grandmother -- a short, plump, gray
haired woman

in an ankle length dress who left no doubt that she loved me. We couldn't
play cards (too often

used for gambling) but she did have Chinese checkers and dominoes. Dad
warned me not to tell

her that men at the barbershop played dominoes for money because she might
quit letting us play

with them. She was a good cook except for cream gravy. It was very thick
and made me think of

wall paper paste. I especially remember fresh fruit and fruit salad she had
in the summer

My earliest memory of Grandmother and Aunt Osa and Helen was visiting them
when they

lived across from the First Baptist Church and the public library. Later,
they bought a house farther

out from the center of town and lived there until their deaths. It had a
grape arbor at the second

house with sweet concord grapes.

***

During the 1920s, Mom's hair reached to her waist and it took a lot of work
to care for it.

She wanted to get a 'bobbed' cut, a popular style, in which the hair was
cut short but didn't quite

have the nerve. After she and Aunt Osa talked it over, she took some money
given to Lois, her

young daughter, and went to the beauty shop. When she got home, Grandmother
Thurman was

not pleased and just said, "You look just like those women on the street,"
she said. Dad took his

mother's side but later when they were alone, he admitted he did like it
better. I guess Grandmother

T. did too because she got her hair cut about two years later and wore it
short for the rest of her

life.

***

Osa and Helen were never aunts to me in the way Mom's sisters were. They
were always

referred to as "the girls" by Dad and they seemed so young. Osa had a
delightful sense of humor

and knew how to make me as a boy and young man feel at home. I could count
on their taking us

to the G&L Drugstore (nicknamed Gag and Like It) for a walking sundae made
of vanilla ice cream

topped with chocolate syrup and nuts in a paper cup that we took out---thus
the name 'walking'

sundae'. Ah, they were good. Or, we would go on a picnic at nearby Osage
State Park. Or, just

sit and talk at home.

***

Osa and Helen worked for the telephone company when things were much freer.
When they

took us to the office and operators, women I knew waved to us as they sat
at the switchboard with

headphones and a speaker hanging from their neck, plugging lines here and
unplugging them there.

Workers got to make free long distant calls from home so when we visited,
some distant family

member would be called and everyone would line up to talk. If we wanted to
know the time, we

picked up the receiver and asked the operator. Quite often Osa or Helen
would answer with "Hello

Sug" meaning sugar, a term of endearment.

***

In 1936, these three women drove to Colorado visiting Colorado Springs and
the Garden

of the Gods as well as driving up Pike's Peak in their new Plymouth. That
may not sound like much

but back then it was unusual for three women to go across country traveling
some 600 miles one

way. In addition, Pike's Peak has a very steep, winding road that
challenges the best of drivers and

cars. They stopped by to see us on the way back. They made the place sound
so exciting that I

wanted to see the balanced rock and other sights in the Garden of the Gods.
It was some forty

years before I was able to go and they were right. It is quite a sight.

***

The following year, Dad and Grandmother drove to Towanda, KS, where she
lived as a

child and where her mother was buried. When they returned, Osa, Helen, Mom,
Lois, and I went

to the Ozarks in southern Missouri for several days. We stayed in a cabin
on a small brook and

visited the small communities of Noel and Ozark. I vividly remember Bluff
Dwellers Cave. I was

about eight years old and it was my first cave. Oh, the sights were
wonderful---the stalagmites and

stalagmites, transparent fish, hollow rocks that sounded like bells and the
colors. Then we came

to the "Fountain of Youth" where the guide said if we drank of the water,
we would become ten

years younger. I believed him and wouldn't drink it because then I wouldn't
have been born.

When they came to visit us in the summer, we would drive to Prosperity
(they called it

'Pross') to visit folks like the Jones or Lacys. I thought these folk were
friends but realized later

they were Uncle Avery's daughters. Or, we attended homecoming at Prosperity
where people came

from all over the country to gather in reunion at the elementary school.
Several times we went to

"Old Settlers Day" also a homecoming event. In those days, some of the
original settlers were still

living and would be there along with friends who visited and showed off
their families.***

Grandmother Thurman and Aunt Helen taught me about God and Jesus. They
never

pressured me in anyway but just talked with me and read to me from the
Bible. I spent a week with

them before school started in 1945 and made a decision to accept Jesus on
September 2. Cousin

George and I were baptized that afternoon. During Easter week 1946, I took
the bus and spent

a week with them before going in the army. They took me to a pig stand for
pork bar-b-que

sandwiches, had teenagers over for a party, and made it a special time. I
then spent part of my leave

with them in July before shipping overseas.

***

In the spring of 1949, after I was discharged from the army, I spent two
weeks with Osa

and Helen. For several days the house was filled with the sounds of
teenagers --- George, Virgil

(Oboy or Snow), Ruth Ann (all Uncle Virgil's children); JB, Betty (Aunt
Ona's children); and I ---

were there, sleeping on the floor in the dining room and living room. One
evening while we were

playing games, the phone rang and one of their friends said they had two
gallons of home made ice

cream, one peach and the other banana for us. We emptied both containers in
no time.

***

Peggy and I went to Pawhuska in June before we married in August, 1950 so
my favorite

people could get acquainted. They hit it off famously.

Our first teaching job was in Bartlesville, just 20 miles from Pawhuska, so
we were together

quite often. We did not have a car that first year so in early December,
Osa and Helen drove us to

Joplin to see Mom and Dad. Mom wanted to buy some clothes at Ramsey's
Department Store and

all of us went with her. The store was having a great pre-Christmas sale
and Peggy saw a red coat

she fell in love with. It had been $60 but was reduced to $30. She tried it
on and it did look good

on her. Mom, Osa and Helen said she should buy it but she said we didn't
have the money. Then

they started on me. I agreed with Peggy. When Mom went to try on a dress,
they went with her.

I told the saleswoman to put the coat aside and Mom would get it the
following week. Of course,

I had to tell Mom but not Osa or Helen. All of the way back to Bartlesville
they fussed at me for

not buying the coat and all the way. Peggy defended me. I didn't say
anything, just listened. Of

course, when she got it on Christmas, they laughed and said I pulled a good
trick.

***

Uncle Virge was very tall with a droll sense of humor. He was quite a
baseball fan and had

a voice that carried throughout the park. He liked to yell at the umpires
or the players and one time

an umpire threatened to throw him out of the park. I went with him to a
game at Bartlesville and

as we walked in, fans called to him from all over the stands.

The Joplin Miners had a center fielder called Doc Grey who was a good
player. One

evening Uncle Virge kidded me how Doc Grey couldn't hit or catch the ball
but that evening Doc

got a hit each time at bat and made some spectacular plays. I got a big
kick out of kidding him

back---and for a 12-year-old that was a good evening.

I saw him for the last time in the summer of 1976 when we passed through
Bartlesville. We

had a lot of fun looking over old photos and rehearsing stories about the
folks, Froggy Flannery,

and baseball.

***

Halie Flannery was not related but Dad said she and her family were so
close to his family,

they might as well have been. Dad and I visited Aunt Halie in 1959 at her
home in Prosperity. She

reminisced about Prosperity when she and Jim moved there around 1890
saying, "It was a real town

back then." There weren't enough houses so many people lived in tents. The
school was built

around the turn of the century with first through tenth grade and was
closed around 1958 and she

was still upset. She said, "My boy Bennie went there and you did too,
Charlie. It was a good

school and I miss it. I hated to see it closed." To her, it represented the
end of an important era

of her life.



ROBERT (BOB) AND MATTIE SALLEE HIGHTOWER



Robert Sylvester was born February 20, 1869, the sixth child of Sterling
and Angeline

Hightower. He was Robert to Mattie but friends called him Bob. Daughters
called him Dad.

Bob had lived with adventure. By age 22, he had traveled from Illinois to
Texas, on to

Kansas, settling in Missouri. In Kansas, as a teenager, he drove a six
horse hitch stage coach

between Cedar Vale and Arkansas City and one year when work was scarce, he
made his living as

a pool hustler and playing poker.

Nancy Madison Sallee was born in Phelps County, MO in 1876. By the time she
met Bob,

she was acquainted with life beyond her years. She was eleven years old
when her mother died.

In 1890, at age fourteen, she married William Hulsey, some ten years older
than she, but realized

shortly after they were married it would not work. They separated and
divorced sometime in 1891.

Shortly after the divorce, she found she was with child and gave birth to
Guy on December 12,

1891.

Bob was living in Seneca in 1892 when he came up to visit his parents on
Range Line in

Oakland. Hearing about a square dance at the elementary school, he decided
to go.

Mattie and her young son were staying with her sister Flora in Oakland and
she also went

to the dance. And, so it was they met. They started courting and were
married January 8, 1893.

Divorces were very uncommon at that time and divorced women were not well
received in

society. Bob's parents must have been very caring people because they fully
accepted this young

woman and her baby into the family. Bob treated Guy like his own son. While
Guy was listed in

the 1900 census as Guy Hulsey, by the 1910 census he was Guy Hightower, the
name he kept.

Little is known about Robert and Mattie between 1893 and 1908 other than
they lived in

southwest Missouri. Flora was born in Prosperity in 1894 and Robert
Sylvesta in Aurora in 1896.

They also lived on an Indian Reservation around 1898. Mattie would laugh as
she recounted an

incident on the reservation. "We were living in a cabin and Robert was away
one evening. A friend

was visiting me and we heard a noise outside. We decided it was Indians and
we just knew they

were going to attack us. I put Sylvie who was a baby on my lap and brought
Guy and Flora up

close around me. I reached over to pick up the shotgun and it went off
setting the curtains on fire.

Robert came in about then and had to calm us all down and put out the fire.
He teased us because

there weren't no Indians out there."

In the 1900 census, the family was listed

Hightower, Robert 1869 miner

Mattie 1876

Flora 1894

Robert S 1896

Guy Hulsey 1891

The Robert S confused some folk who thought Robert Sylvesta (one record
shows Sylvester)was

a boy so they referred to her as Robert Jr. She was called Sylvia.

Returning to the Joplin area from Oklahoma, Bob continued to prospect and
work in mines.

Hazel was born at Oakland in 1900, Frances in 1903 at Oakland, and Susie in
Joplin in 1907.

During this time, he had a pool hall and Bob Shaunce said his Dad Lucien
played pool there.

Bob and Mattie started a new venture in 1908 when they opened a meat market
on Range Line.

He teased Flora and Sylvia saying he was going to advertise Flora as a
"soup bone" and Sylvia as

a "rump roast." It was here they opened the first of many grocery stores.
Ruth was born in 1910

and Birdie Mae in October 1913, but she died in December from a heart
defect.

When several of the children married, three generations of Hightowers lived
along Range Line--

-Sterling and Angeline, Bob and Mattie, and their three married children.
Guy married Lelia

Faukner in 1910, Flora married Lucien Shaunce in 1912, and Sylvia married
Ellsworth Hall in 1913.



Bob and son-in-law Lucien became partners in the first of many joint
ventures in 1915. Susie,

Bob's daughter, described two of these enterprises. "Flora and Lucien lived
near Lone Star School

at Jasper and he had about forty acres with apples and wanted Dad to help
him. We went up there

in a wagon and had to sleep out at night on the way. They had to hire
pickers to pick them. Dad

and Lucien sold apples and made barrels of apple cider. Mom couldn't
understand why they were

selling so much. People, mostly men, would come all hours of the night to
buy it and then she

found it was past the cider stage and was hard. I think we lived there with
Flora and Lucien for a

while. After the cider deal, we moved to Dadeville--you heard your mother
[Frances] tell about

that--near Greenfield and they each built us a house--just a short distance
apart. Now, don't

confuse it with the White House. It didn't quite look like it. No, take
that back. We was living in

a tent until we got the log house built. Not being able to rent a house, we
had to live in a tent until

they could get the house so we could live in it. Lucien was building one
and Dad was building one.

And there were some people who lived in a log house along there. I believe
I was eight years old.

I stopped and talked to some little girls living in the log cabin and I
don't remember if it was your

mother or Ruth--I think it was your mother--told Mom not to let me play
with them because they

just lived in a log house. Course we were living in a tent. I can remember
yet how Mom laughed.

And Lucien had built their bed high so they could put 20 sacks of feed
under it. Flora came in and

saw it and made him make it lower. Lucien and Dad had opened up some mines
there and

supervised the men who worked there."

In 1916, the family moved to Galesburg, a small farming community north of
Joplin with two

stores, a one-room school,a church, and a grist mill on Spring River a good
fishing river. Bob

bought a farm behind the school and worked in the mines during the week,
coming home on

weekends. The girls remembered this as a very difficult time for them and
their mother.

Leaving Galesburg in 1918, they rented a house in Duenweg owned by Bud
Scott. Bob laughed

as he rehearsed the day he signed the lease. "We sat down at the kitchen
table and Bud told Fannie

he had to have his glasses. Well, she brought them and Bud put them on and
signed the paper.

There weren't no glass in them."

Little did Bob and Mattie dream that in five years their daughter Frances
would marry Bud's

step-nephew Charlie Thurman.

During the next four years, the family moved back and forth between the
Duenweg area and

Galesburg. In 1922, they lived at Ada's Crossing and opened a café at
Duenweg where Mattie

developed chili as one of her specialties. Angeline Hightower, Bob's
mother, lived with them was

during this time and Ruth remembered, "When we moved to Duenweg and had the
restaurant, we

had to carry her meals to her from the restaurant." Frances married Charlie
Thurman in 1923 and

Susie married Elmer Kibler.

Bob and Mattie sold the cafe to Lucien and Flora in 1924, and returned to
Galesburg where

they bought the Webb general grocery store. They handled everything from
food to clothing to

horse collars. Eggs, cream and chickens, the farmer's form of bartering,
were exchanged for

groceries and farm needs. And, as was the custom, when purchases went
beyond their produce,

customers charged them with the promise to pay "when the crop comes in."
For some, the crop

did not come in but Bob seldom made an effort to collect. He believed
people would pay if they

were able. When he closed the store at Medoc, over $1000 on credit was
never collected.

They opened a second store in 1926, this one at Duval and Elmer and Susie
operated it. Selling

the Duval and Galesburg stores in 1928, they opened and closed stores in
rapid succession over the

next four years -- Neck City, Alba, Purcell, Golden City, Stark City, and
Nashville. Several stores

were open at the same time and operated by members of the family.

In 1932, they returned to the store in Galesburg. It was typical of the
country general store.

The left front half had shelves of groceries with canned goods, tobacco
(cigarettes, cigars, chewing

tobacco, and sacks or cans of tobacco for roll-your-own cigarettes or
smoking in pipes), and bulk

food of sugar, peanut butter, cookies, crackers, and coffee. On the right
side were the dry goods

such as clothing, bolts of cloth, thread, boots, as well as farm items of
horse collars and blankets,

horse shoes, and nails. A counter was in front of each set of shelves. In
the center of the building

was a wood stove with a box filled with sand used as a spittoon where men
sat around the fire on

a winter's night. At the rear was a room with sacks of feed for animals -
chops (chopped corn),

bran, mixed feed (several grains mixed together), Pig Starter for young
pigs, Chick Starter for

chicks, and sacks of oyster shell to provide chickens with coarse materials
for digesting the feed.

Between the front and rear sections were two small rooms used for testing
cream and to candle

eggs. Bob had a money drawer under the grocery counter and a large tobacco
can on one of the

shelves where he kept change.

Ruth remembered the night the store was robbed. "Mom and I had just left
for the house when

two masked men with guns came in. They told Dad and the other men to lie
down on the floor and

they searched all but Sam Storms and they got Dad's tobacco can with the
change. Dad said they

thought the two men were local men because they knew about the tobacco can
and they did not

search Sam Storms that everybody knew never had any money. I think they got
less than fifty

dollars but that was a lot of money back then. They were never caught."

Driving a motor vehicle was not Bob's favorite way of getting around and
given a choice, he

preferred to walk or use horses. Walking miles was nothing to him. One time
he caught a twenty

five-pound cat fish and walked from Galesburg to Duenweg, a good 20 miles,
to show it off.

Although he owned two Model A Ford trucks over the years, he never really
mastered driving and

when he drove, he sat up with his back very straight. One time he wanted to
back the truck out of

the garage but couldn't get it in reverse. Then, when he finally did get it
out, he couldn't get it in

forward gear. He usually had his son or son-in-law drive it to town to get
supplies for the store.

Selling the Galesburg store in 1937, they bought the Medoc store owned by
Frances and Charlie

Thurman. Bob impressed the locals when he installed a Delco light plant
which provided electricity

for lights and a meat case for fresh meat. People came in just to see the
new additions. About six

months later, they sold the store back to the Thurmans and returned to
their home in Alba.

Around 1941, Flora's daughter Dixie took Bob and Mattie to visit Bob
Shaunce in Brownsville,

TX where Bob had a new experience, deep sea fishing. He hooked a very large
fish and tied to a

dock over night to show off to the family next morning. When he pulled the
line up, he was

disappointed to find a shark had eaten much of it.

Change came to the family in 1941 when the nation went to war. Some members
moved away

for war work, grandsons went into the armed services, and grand daughters
followed husbands to

far off service camps. Some family members moved such a distance that
visits became once or

twice a year instead of weekly. Yet, in spite of being separated by the
distance of miles or time, the

sense of family lived in each person, nurtured by memories and traditions.

In 1942, Bob and Mattie took over the store in Purcell that had been
operated by daughter Ruth

and Clyde Cook. During the fall, Bob became ill and was diagnosed as having
stomach cancer.

After several days in the hospital, it became obvious he would not recover
so they closed the store

and returned to their Alba. A short time later, Bob suffered a stroke which
left one side paralyzed.

Mattie and Bob celebrated their fiftieth wedding anniversary on January 8,
1943. As usual, he

remembered his beloved Mattie with a card signed, "Sincerely, Robert S.
Hightower," (the same

signature for her birthday cards). Six weeks later, Tuesday, 23 February,
Bob died at 3:30 p.m. and

was buried 26 February at Weaver Cemetery. Songs sung at his funeral were
"Sweet Hour of

Prayer," "City Four Square," "Beautiful Garden of Somewhere."

Mattie continued living in Alba but she spent time with different
daughters. She died Saturday,

30 June 1963 around 6:30 p.m. and was buried July 3, 1963. Songs at her
funeral were "O Come

Angel Band" (this had been sung at her mother's funeral), and "Precious
Memories."

According to a writer, every person has one characteristic that is so
dominant that all others

revolve around it. The same is probably true for every family. For Bob and
Mattie, this

characteristic was love for their family. They were family centered and
gave their love unstintingly.

Their home became the temporary home for one or another of the married
children and their

families, for Mattie's dad, brother Clift, and sister Sue's family during
the depression and after

Luther death, Sue lived with them until her death; and for Bob's mother.
They raised

Granddaughter Grace after her mother died. Three grandchildren --- Ginger
and Jacque Cook and

Bob Thurman, stayed with Mattie for while they attended Alba High School.
Bob provided jobs

for Luther, Clift, Guy, and several sons-in-law. Money was loaned or given
when a family member

needed it.

Some 80 of Bob and Mattie's descendants had a reunion in summer of 1989 at
Chicken Annie

in Frontenac, KS. Family members included daughters Hazel and Ruth and
grandchildren down

to the sixth generation. Regretfully, Mary Ann (Susie) was in a health
center and could not come.

A most enjoyable time was had with good memories. Shortly after the
reunion, Hazel died and

three years later Ruth entered the health center where sister Mary Ann was
and they shared the

same room.

Bob and Mattie's Children and Grandchildren

Guy (1891-1953), Mattie's son by her first marriage, was tall and had a
good sense of humor.

He married Lelia (called Lela) Faukner in 1910 and their five children were
Bessie, Violet, Dorothy,

Ruth, and Mildred. Guy worked in the mines, in one of the stores owned by
Bob and Mattie, had

a cafe in Alba, and ran a liquor store in Webb City. He suffered immense
pain from rheumatoid

arthritis and was confined to a wheelchair during the last years of his
life.

Flora (1/12/1894-7/12/1960) married Lucien Shaunce in 1912. Dixie and
Lucien Jr (later took

the name of Bob) were their children. Lucien was a friend of Bob's before
he and Flora married.

Together, they prospected and had other business dealings.

Lucien and Flora ran a store in Carthage and he was quite a salesman. When
a new size of

canned vegetables and fruit came on the market in the late 1930s, Lucien
bought several cases. The

cans held just enough for two people and he had a hard time selling them.
One day when some men

were going on a fishing trip, they came into the store to get supplies.
Lucien showed them the

smaller cans and told them "these are to take on fishing trips and
vacations." The men were so

impressed that they bought a mixed case. He had hit upon a grand scheme and
sales took off.

During the depression storekeepers sold groceries "on the books" or on
credit. Lucien kept a

pad or book for each customer and when a person got a load of bread and
said, "Put it on the

books" it would be added to the book and totaled up later on. Then, at some
point, the person

"settled up" or paid whatever was owed. When the store was crowded, it was
hard to know just

who bought what and to whom it should be charged. One day when Lucien was
waiting on a

customer, a woman came in. She got a loaf of bread and said, "Put it on the
books, Mr. Shaunce"

and went out the door. Lucien couldn't remember who she was so he picked
out a book and said,

"I think it was Mrs. So and So but if it wasn't, she will tell me when she
gets ready to pay."

He was very easy going which set him up for practical jokes by his brothers
in law Charlie and

Elmer and he always took them in good humor. Soon after Charlie married
Frances, they moved

to Pawhuska, OK, so Lucien really didn't know him very well. One time they
bought a new Dodge

and drove up to see her folks. Lucien had a store with gas pumps on Oak
Street down toward the

park and it had been so time since he had seen Charlie and had never seen
the car. Charlie drove

up and sort of ducked his head and said, "Fill'er up." Lucien filled up the
tank and when he put the

cap back on, Charlie drove off, leaving Lucien standing there with the
nozzle in his hand, looking

puzzled. Charlie drove around the block and came back---with Lucien still
standing there. Frances

was afraid he would be mad but he thought it was a good joke.

One Sunday after dinner, Lucien sat down in a large leather rocker and soon
was asleep, snoring

with his mouth open. When Elmer put some salt on Lucien's lips, he licked
it off and Elmer

sprinkled more on. When Lucien woke up, he couldn't understand why but he
was real thirsty.

Lucien Junior "Junior" spent a lot of time with his Granddad Bob, learning
to love the outdoors.

He decided to change his name to Bob when he was a freshman in high school
and would not

answer to Junior. When he entered the army, he put his name as Robert
Lucien and that became

his legal name. He was still known as Bob to family and friends. Crediting
his love of nature and

belief in conservation to his granddad, Bob worked as a conservation
officer for the state of

Missouri from the late 1940s to the early 1970s when he retired.

Robert Sylvesta or Sylvester (not known which) [Sylvia]
(2/15/1896-7/23/1925) was called

Bobby until her teen age years when she changed her name to Sylvia. Her
family called her Sylvie.

Susie enjoyed telling a story Sylvie when she was about five years old.
"Mom had went to see

Aunt Sue in Chattanooga when Guy was little and after Flora was born. One
day she was talking

about the trip and Sylvie started crying. Mom asked what was wrong and she
said Mom didn't take

her. Mom told her she wasn't born yet and Sylvie stomped her foot and said,
'No and you never

tried to born me neither.'"

Sylvie was described by Ruth, her younger sister, as a person who "enjoyed
the bright side of

life" and who had a great sense of humor. One Christmas the younger
children wanted olives but

there weren't any. Ruth said, "Sylvie took a jar of canned red plums and
put them in the olive dish.

Then she passed the dish around and said, 'Have some olives'. We laughed
and ate them." Frances,

seven years younger than Sylvia, told about the routine Sylvia followed
when the girls went to bed.

Sylvia called out, "Good night, Flora" and Flora would say, "Good night,
Sylvie." "Good night,

Hazel." "Good night, Sylvie." "Good night, Frances." "Good night." Then to
herself, "Good

night, Sylvie." "Good night. Now hush up and go to sleep." Of course, the
girls giggled until their

folks came in and hushed them up.

The September 13, 1914, Joplin News Herald carried the announcement of
Sylvia's marriage.

"The marriage of Miss Sylvia Hightower and Elsworth Hall, which took place
Saturday afternoon,

was announced this morning. Both Mr. and Mrs. Hall are well known in Webb
City. They will

make their home here." Actually they lived in Oakland. They had three
children, two babies who

died at or shortly after birth and Grace who was born August 23, 1915. Ruth
said Sylvie and baby

Grace were on a streetcar and a woman asked when she was married and when
the baby was born.

Without thinking how it sounded, Sylvie answered, "Grace was born in August
and I was married

in September." The woman looked shocked and said nothing more.

Sylvia experienced much tragedy. Susie told of the death of her first
husband and infant baby.

"We moved out to Galesburg when Dad bought a place right behind the school
house. That was

the first time we had lived in the country where we really owned a place.
And we lived there, well,

it was sometime during the war. And they had the flu, I don't remember what
year. Sylvie was

living down in Pitcher, OK and she was pregnant and had been in bed almost
all of the time. She

had lost her first baby and then she had Grace who was about three years
old at that time. She

came and stayed with Mom and Dad at Galesburg. Well, her husband
Elsworth---boy, he was a

swell person---would come from Pitcher to see her each weekend. He'd
brought Sylvie up in an

ambulance and she was in pretty bad shape. Well, she had the baby and he
had come up once or

twice. He'd ride the streetcar out and we'd meet him. And, he didn't come
for two weeks and we

worried about him but at that time we didn't have no telephone but our
neighbor did. One Saturday

night it was raining he called and wanted us to meet him. There wasn't
anybody at home who could

meet him so Mr. Mitchell said he would go meet him in his horse and buggy.
And so, on the way

there he seen him laying down in the ditch along the side of the road. He
had been sick for two

weeks with the flu and his temperature was high. Mr. Mitchell said he got
him in the buggy and

thought he must be drunk because he wasn't making any sense but he knew he
didn't drink. So they

came on home. He got up the next morning and ate breakfast and walked down
to the barn and if

I remember right he came back and died around eight o'clock.

"We moved to Duenweg soon after he died and the baby wasn't too well so Mom
stopped at

Granddad Sallee's. Sylvie and the baby and Grace stayed with him, too. We
went on to get the

house ready. The baby went to sleep and just didn't wake up.I don't
remember just when but

Sylvie took care of the house for Elmer Tender and then they got married
around 1923 or 1924.

He had two girls, Treva and Creeda, and she had Grace. Then they had Junior
and Sylvie died

when he was born. She died in August before June [Susie's daughter] was
born so that would be

1925. It was August 23 that was Grace's birthday when she died. She had
come to the house and

when she started home, she asked Mom to go home with her. She took bad and
Elmer [Tender]

called the store and told Elmer [Kibler] that we should come cause she was
so bad. She had the

feeling she would not live. Before the baby was born, she asked Mom to take
Grace and raise her.

When the neighbors came to the house after Sylvie died, they found she had
sorted her things with

names of family members who were to get them."

Hazel (10/4/1900-5/16/1992) married Harry Minkler of Galesburg in 1912.
Their children were

Helen Frances, Margaret, Raymond, Max, Ralph, Nadine, Robert and Gary.

Hazel had many qualities of her mother. Like Mattie, family was all to her
and she instilled a

love for family into the children. And, like Mattie, there were times when
money and food were

scarce but she could prepare a good meal with what she had. Hazel was fifty
years old when she

went to work in the kitchen at the Conner, the main hotel in Joplin. Even
tho she had no formal

training, she was responsible for preparing the salads and pastries and
they were delicious. She

worked there until she had a stroke fifteen years later.

Margaret wrote a cousin after her mother died, "I told Mom so many times we
were the richest

family in the country. I would not take anything for the closeness of our
family--I'm so rich!"

Echoing these words, her brother Ralph said, "Mom use to play the pump
organ a lot at night when

all the chores were finished. We would all gather around Mom and the organ
and sing. I believe

this is what made us so close, and living on a farm most of the time and
having chores to do,

everyone would help the other brother or sister with the chores they had to
do. They didn't have

to but they did."

This closeness stretched to extended members of the family, also. Robert
Minkler was working

in Detroit when he received word of the death of his Aunt Frances, Hazel's
sister. He finished his

shift and immediately drove all night to Joplin, MO, arriving just in time
for the funeral. Afterward,

he got back in his car and returned to Detroit. He told Lois and Bob,
Frances' children, "I just had

to be here for Aunt Frances' funeral."

Frances (10/12/1903-9/26/1975) married Charlie Thurman. Their children were
Lois and Bob.

Their story is told in Chapter One.

Mary Suzanne(4/29/1907- 1998) went by Susie for many years but then was
called Mary Ann.

She married Elmer Kibler and June was born December 1925. Let Susie
describe how she met

Elmer. "Mom and Dad opened a restaurant in Duenweg about 1923. I worked in
it and Elmer

would come in to talk. He was a clerk for Johnny Hauck in a grocery store.
I really liked him and

one day after he left, I told a friend that I was going to marry Elmer
someday. Well, he laughed and

said 'Why Elmer has a wife and six children.' Now that surprised me because
he told me about his

parents but had never mentioned any wife. Later that day I told a girl
friend how strange it was that

Elmer never mentioned his wife to me and she just laughed and laughed. She
said it wasn't strange

at all since he had never married. A few evenings later Mom sent me to
Hauck's store to get some

things for the restaurant and Elmer asked me to ride out to his house to
meet his folks. When he

did that I completely forgot why I had gone to the store. He brought me
back maybe an hour or

so later and Mom was really put out. We got married a few months later."

Elmer and Susie ran the Duval store when Bob opened it in 1926. Then, in
1928, they ran his

store at nearby Nashville where they remained until about 1940 when they
moved to Medoc.

Susie and France were very close as children and teenagers. Elmer and
Charlie worked together

in the mines before either of them knew the Hightower family. Not
surprisingly, then, the Kibler and

Thurman families were very close. Throughout the years while the Kiblers
were in Nashville and

the Thurmans were at Medoc (and later when they exchanged communities), the
two families spent

many evenings and Sundays together playing cards, going on picnics,
fishing, baseball games,

making ice cream, and eating. Charlie and Elmer bought matching 12-gauge
Winchester shotguns

to hunt quail. Lois, June and Bob were more like brother and sisters than
cousins.

Elmer had surgery for prostate cancer April 1943. He was very apprehensive
about the surgery

because his dad had died from it years earlier. The afternoon of the
surgery the folks took Lois,

June, Ginger, Jacque, and Bob to a movie while they went to the hospital.
Part way through the

show the children were paged and when they got to the foyer, they saw
Charlie and Frances and

could tell they had been crying. They were told Elmer had died during the
operation.

Elmer's death came two months after Bob Hightower's death and was a blow to
Charlie

Thurman. These two men were like a brother and dad to him so their death
was a repeat of his own

dad and brother twenty-three years earlier.

Susie and June moved to Joplin where they worked in a dry-cleaning plant.
June married Tom

Williams from Medoc. Tommy was in the army and was sent overseas so June
continued to live

with her mother.

In 1944, Susie married Ted Jarmin from Neck City, a man she had known since
childhood. Ted

and Charlie hit it off from the beginning. In 1954, Charlie and Frances
moved to Indianapolis where

he worked for a construction company in building a school. Ted and Susie
closed the grocery store

they had been running and joined the folk so Ted could work for Charlie.
Over the years, the two

men became very close friends. Ted died in Baxter Springs, KS around 1970.
Susie remained in

Baxter Springs living across the street from June until 1988 when she
entered a health center in

Galena.

Ruth Trilla (11/21/1910-) married Clyde Cook in March 1928. They had two
daughters,

Glennadale and Jacqueline. Glennadale changed her name to Ginger and
Jacqueline was called

Jackie or Jacque.

The Cooks first ran a store in Duval for her dad and then they had stores
in Alba, Purcell, and

Webb City. When World War II came, Clyde worked as a security guard at Camp
Crowder, MO

and Parsons, KS. The two of them moved to Vancouver, WA. where they worked
in the shipyards.

After the war, they ran a store in Carthage and finally in Pittsburg, KS.
They lived in Frontenac,

KS until Clyde's death in the 1980s. Ruth moved to Carthage where she
remained until 1995 when

she went into a health center where Susie was living. They shared the same
room.

Birdie Mae (10/1913-12/1913) was a blue baby meaning she had a hole in her
heart. She was

buried at Forest Park Cemetery at the foot of Sterling's grave. There is no
headstone.

Family Traditions

"Going home" became a Sunday tradition for the children from about 1932
until 1943. There

was no formal invitation or planning---they just came. Frances, Susie, and
Ruth came with their

families nearly every Sunday. Flora, with teenage children, came less
frequent but always at

holidays. Hazel seldom was able to come. Guy came whenever possible.

The house would fill with appetite building smells. Always there were the
familiar foods.

Mattie's crock of pinto beans with red peppers, "light" rolls,
orange-pineapple Jello salad, and her

lemon cake or apple pie (flavored with red hots--just lightly). Each family
brought its food

specialties and favorites. And, soon the tables were loaded. There might be
fried fish if Bob had

been on the river or wild birds, either quail or duck, if Charlie and Elmer
had been hunting and, of

course, roast beef or chicken fixed with home made noodles.

In summer, family members fixed freshly killed chicken fried to a crisp
golden brown, mashed

potatoes with a puddle of butter in the center, cream gravy, wilted lettuce
with hot vinegar and

bacon bits, sliced garden fresh tomatoes, Mom's salad, sliced cucumbers and
onions in vinegar, and

new potatoes in creamed peas. For dessert, in addition to Mattie's sticky
lemon cake there might

be home made vanilla ice cream (never any other flavor) served with home
made sauces--chocolate,

pineapple, butterscotch--(with grandchildren fussing over "licking the
paddle"), or fresh baked

blackberry cobbler. Or, there might be a warm gooseberry or rhubarb pie.

Bob was very particular about his coffee and only wanted a half cup at a
time. If someone

poured him a three quarter cup, he would pour some of it out. He also had a
thing about margarine

and wanted only butter on his table. Back then margarine was sold white and
had to be mixed with

color from a package so it was yellow. Lois, Frances' daughter, told the
story about the time

"Grandmother took some margarine and mixed it so it was yellow like butter.
Then she worked

in water like she did with butter and pressed it in her butter mold and
served it. Granddad never

caught on and Grandmother loved it. Her eyes just twinkled."

From these dinners came traditional recipes prepared perhaps with some
slight variation by a

daughter or later by a grandchild (both boys and girls). And everyone knew
the names and recipes

so when Frances said she would bring "Mom's Salad" a tomato, bell pepper,
onions, and vinegar

mix first served by Angeline at a family dinner around 1909, they knew what
she was bringing.

Sometimes, someone brought a new dish that was so well received that soon
it was thought "to

have always been served."

Grown ups ate at the big table in the dining room. Grandchildren ate
everywhere, depending

on the weather---in the kitchen, on the stair steps to the second story, on
the front porch. After

dinner, the men sat in the living room, talking over fishing or the grocery
business while women

were in the kitchen cleaning up and talking about family matters. The
grandchildren swung on the

front porch swing or went upstairs to pretend they were movie stars and put
on shows. On nice

days, they might go outside because the grassy yard was great for playing
games like "Pretty or

Ugly" (also called Statue) or rolling down the hill.

Christmas was a sort of a game for the Hightower girls. They would draw
names for Christmas

and promise not to give each other presents. Yet, on Christmas Day, they
had gifts for one another.

Then, they would promise again, "Next Christmas we will just draw names."

Family Harmony

How well did the family members get along? Well, the answer depends to whom
you talk or

listen to---and when. There was no doubt that the parents loved their
children, that the children

loved their parents, and that the children loved one another (in spite of
various falling outs). There

was an especially close relation between Mattie and the three youngest
daughters--Frances, Susie,

and Ruth. They formed what some called the "Hightower women's circle" where
they kept their

secrets just between the two or three or four "girls." This almost became a
game. You could often

find them standing close to one another talking in a soft voice about
something and if you listened

carefully, you'd hear "Now, don't you tell..." When Frances was living with
her son Bob, Susie

would call and say, "Now don't tell Frances that..." or "I'll ask you how
she is and you just say yes

or no." Of course, Frances was never fooled.

Flora was closer to her dad. Perhaps this was because of the years Lucien
and Bob worked

together. Perhaps it was because her children fished and did many outdoor
activities with Bob.

Guy, being much older, had girls almost the ages of many of his
half-sisters. His daughters had

their own activities when they became teenagers so during the 1930s his
family did not spend much

time with the whole group on Sundays.

Hazel was unable to attend many of the family dinners. Harry, Hazel's
husband, was a farmer

and a very friendly person but not a good provider. As a result, the family
members helped them

out with food and money.

The sons-in-law and Bob got along with no difficulty. Charlie and Elmer
thought of him as their

own dad and called him "Dad." Lucien, being only sixteen years younger than
Bob and having

worked with him for years, considered him more as a friend than
father-in-law. Clyde, being much

younger, called him both Dad and Mr. Hightower.

Fierce competition existed between Charlie, Elmer, and Clyde over whom was
the best grocery

man. Clyde had a temper, Charlie and Elmer liked to kid. Put these two
elements together and

sometimes conversations and tempers got rather hot with exaggerations
flying fast and furious.



There was an acceptance of one another in spite of the usual quarrels, hurt
feelings, and strong

disputes. Why? Because they were part of the Hightower family. That was
enough. And, they

quickly came to the defense of any member criticized by outsiders.

Bob, The Outdoorsman

Bob was about 6 foot 3 inches with thick white hair and much patience. He
would sit in a large

rocking chair and let grandchildren comb his hair while he talked to other
family members. He

chewed tobacco until his late 60's but quit because he said he had seen so
many old men with

tobacco stains on their chins and clothes.

He was an agreeable person. Talking with two friends one day, one reminded
him that he

moved a lot and "a rolling stone gathers no moss." Bob agreed. The other
friend said, "But, Bob,

a sitting hen lays no eggs." Bob agreed with him, too. "I do not remember
his losing his temper,"

a daughter said. There was one time he may not have lost his temper but he
probably got sort of

put out. He and nephew Bob Shaunce were camping out and fishing at Osceola.
Mattie, Lucien,

Flora, and Dixie went up to see them but the men were not in camp. Finding
a live-box filled with

fish, the women decided to be helpful by preparing supper so they cleaned
and fried the fish,

expecting the two Bobs to appreciate their hard work. In the words
attributed to a British queen,

Bob was "not amused". The fish in the live-box was his bait.

While Bob was a natural in business, he was an outdoorsman at heart. He had
a love of the

outdoors--fishing, horseshoes--and he respected nature. Bob Shaunce said,
"Granddad was a

natural conservationist. He stressed that we should never take more from
nature than we needed.

This meant fish bait, fish or whatever. After he died, I wanted to fish on
some private property near

Alba so I introduced myself to the owner and said I was Bob Hightower's
grandson. The owner

told me, 'Bob was a man of his word. He fished a lot here and he always
left everything as he found

it. You couldn't tell that he had been here. You go ahead and fish.'"

According to family tradition, he always managed to find a store location
near one of the good

fishing rivers that abounded in that part of Missouri and his cane fishing
poles were always leaning

against the building, ready for use. Interesting enough, he did not care to
eat fish. He claimed he

could not paddle a boat but it came out that the real reason he got someone
else to paddle was so

he had more time to fish.

Daughter Ruth laughingly recalled the time at Galesburg she was mixing up
biscuits in the

kitchen. She said, "Dad came to the window and asked me 'to come help your
old dad in the store.'

I wiped my hands and went to the store but he was nowhere in sight. Looking
out the window, I

saw him going down the road toward the river with his fishing poles."

Another time a salesman for a wholesale company came to the store and Bob
asked if he would

watch the store while he stepped out. When Mattie went to the store about
an hour later, Bob was

still out. Seems he had gone fishing leaving the salesman in charge.

His fishing reputation was built on such stories as the time he was fishing
on Spring River at

Galesburg and a woman asked where she might catch some fish. He pointed to
a nearby spot and

within minutes she caught several nice catfish. Hurrying back to the store,
she told everyone, "Mr.

Hightower really knows where the fish are biting." Guy, his stepson, told
about the time he and

Bob went gigging for frogs on Spring River. "Dad told me to row the boat so
he could gig the

frogs. He sat there in the end of the boat holding the gig across his lap
looking for frogs when a

bass leaped out of the water next to the boat. I guess without thinking,
Dad jabbed out and gigged

that fish in the air. We weighed it when we got back to the store and it
weighed over five pounds.

He got real put out when he told the story and no body believed him."

Bob liked to noodle. Easing into the water, he'd feel in holes for fish.
Finding one, he stroked

it carefully and gently put a thumb in the mouth and a finger in the gills.
Then he'd move his other

hand slowly down the body of the fish, bringing it close to his body, and
walk out to the bank. One

of the largest fish he noodled was a 28-pound catfish on Spring River at
Galesburg. Since that was

not a legal way of fishing, Bob told everyone he had landing it with a cane
pole. His description

of the battle was so vivid no one doubted his word but the scratches on his
arms and fingers told

another tale. He told son-in-law Charlie he threaded a cord through the
catfish's mouth and gill and

after tying the other end around his arm, he started for the bank.
Something startled the fish and

it went downstream pulling Bob with it. He had quite a battle getting to
shore and landing the fish.

When he put the fish on a 300-pound cake of ice, its head was at one end
with the tail hanging over

the other end and touching the ground. That same day, he caught an eel at
the millrun. He called

the family to come to a big fish fry that night. Well, they ate the catfish
but he had a hard time

getting anyone to try the eel. That was in part because of the lore that
eel turns raw when it gets

cold and in part because it looks like a snake.

Bob was like a father to sons-in-law Charles Thurman and Elmer Kibler.
Elmer operated stores

for him and he helped Charlie to start his own grocery business. The three
men fished together, told

tall tales to one another, pitched horseshoes and enjoyed one another's
company. He was Dad to

them, not Mr. Hightower.

One of Bob's pleasures was to take the two men fishing in Spring River. The
river had a swift

current, cutting here and filling there so a person never knew just what
the bottom was like from

one day to the next. Bob would study it carefully and when the men came to
the house, he'd say,

"Boys, how about helping me seine for some bait?" Right then they knew one
or the other was

going to get ducked. They just didn't know who or when. Down at the river,
Bob might take one

end of the seine out into the water, Charlie would be in the middle, and
Elmer next to the bank.

Slowly they would walk, feeling the bottom carefully with their feet to be
sure they didn't step in

a hole--- and suddenly Charlie or Elmer would disappear under water.

One day, they decided to beat Bob at his own game. Before going to his
store at Galesburg,

they scouted the river carefully. When Bob said they needed to go seining,
the two men said they

saw a spot that looked pretty promising. Unsuspecting, he agreed. They took
up their positions

with the seine and maneuvered Bob just right. He was walking slowly in
waist deep water when

suddenly he went under. Coming up sputtering and laughing, he said, "Well,
boys, you got the old

man once but you won't do it again." According to Charlie, they never did.

Bob's love of fishing equaled only his love of pitching horseshoes and he
excelled at both. He

maintained a tournament clay horseshoe court at Alba and many a horseshoe
player learned to his

chagrin that when Bob complained of his shoulder acting up, he actually was
in good form. He

would rub his shoulder, stick out his tongue and throw a ringer. Such was
the time when he threw

forty-nine ringers out of fifty pitches.

Mattie, The Homemaker

Work may have been hard for Mattie but family love and nurturing were easy.
During these

years, she did what most women did...kept the home and family together.
Money was not always

easy to come by but joy and laughter were. She filled her life with her
love of God, family, music,

and laughter. Her strong faith in God supported her through tragic as well
as good times. And

tragedy she knew full well. When she was eleven years old, her mother and a
baby sister died and

her home burned, all within two weeks. Her mother combed and fixed Mattie's
hair in the morning

and died that evening. Days passed before Mattie would let anyone touch her
hair. Her first

marriage was not successful. And, her youngest child died in infancy.

She always became a member of a church regardless of the denomination
whenever they moved.

At one time she attended the Baptist Church, at other times the Mennonite,
the Methodist, and at

her death belonged to the Alba Christian Church. Bob, who was not as
interested in church, said

he did not like for her to go to the Mennonite Church but she continued
going until one day she

heard a sound outside. Looking out, she saw Frances on a tree stump
preaching to her two

younger sisters. Mattie said she sounded just like the Mennonite preacher
and she decided right

then she needed to change churches. Mattie knew hard work and hard times.
At one home,

she carried water one-half mile for family use. When times were good,
Christmas meant a personal

gift for each child. When times were lean, they each got an orange and some
nuts. One Christmas

she told Bob to buy presents for the children and gave him all the money
they had, $3.65. He

returned later with no presents but decorations because he wanted to make
the tree and house look

pretty.

She remembered songs and poetry from her youth and taught them to her
children and

grandchildren. One song was "Te Niggity, Te Neggity" (an Ozark version of
the "Wee Cooper

o'Fife") taught to her by a Scottish housekeeper who had worked for her
Dad.

she liked to recite a poem she learned as a child



In speaking of a person's fault, pray don't forget your own.

Remember. Those in house of glass should never throw a stone.

If we have nothing else to do but talk of those who sin.

Just better we commence at home and from that point begin.

We have no right to judge a man until he's fairly tried.

If we don't like his company, we know the world is wide.

Some may have faults, and who has not, the old as well as young.

We may, perhaps, for ought we know, have fifty to their one.

I'll tell you of a better plan. I find it works full well.

To try my own defects to cure before I other tell.

So think of the harm to those we little know.

What one word may do when we slander friend or foe.

And, too, I sometimes hope to be no worse then some I know.

My own shortcomings bid me let the fault of others go.

Remember, sometimes our curses, like our chickens, roost at home.

Don't speak of others' faults 'til you've none of your own.



She had quite a reputation for timely sayings. A favorite when someone
acted up was "The

nerve of some people's grandchildren". One day she got put out with a radio
announcer and

turned off the radio with "That shut him up". These and others were picked
up and used by her

children and grandchildren.

Mattie always seemed old to her grandchildren because she wore long
dresses, used no

makeup and put her hair up in a bun on her head. Grandchildren loved to
watch her comb her

waist long hair, twist it, and then wind it into the bun held in place by
large hair pins.

She worked in the store side by side with Bob and met people well. And, she
had a quick and

sharp wit. One time she had a boil on her nose and a loafer in the store,
trying to entertain the

other loafers, asked why her nose was so red. "It's just blushing with
pride for staying out of other

people's business," she answered to the delight of the others.

Bob's quiet grin and twinkle in his eyes let it be known he had a sense of
humor, too. Indeed,

he had quite a reputation for practical jokes and teasing. He enjoyed
teasing his grandchildren,

sometimes to the consternation of Mattie. One time some grandchildren spent
the night with them

and the next morning when the sun was coming up, Bob crowed like a rooster.
Mattie said,

"Robert, be quiet, you'll wake the children." Of course, they were already
awake and giggling. He

crowed again. This time she said, "Robert Sylvester Hightower, be quiet."
When she spoke his

full name in "that kind of voice," he knew she meant business so he laughed
and stopped. At

supper that night,

he stirred some butter into the sorghum. Putting some of the mixture on his
knife, he picked up

peas with it, winked at the children and ate the peas off of the knife. She
skipped the Robert and

went straight to "Robert Sylvester Hightower, you stop that." He winked
again but stopped.

Mattie was a teetotaler who did not like the use of alcohol but she faced a
dilemma. About

1925, a doctor said she had a heart problem and prescribed a daily toddy
made from whisky,

sugar, and water. She was embarrassed but she drank it. Adding to her
embarrassment was

having to buy home brew during prohibition so she could make the toddy. In
later years, Guy had

a liquor store in Webb City and Jimmy Busby, Guy's grandson, laughed about
going "to

Granddad's liquor store to get Granny's whisky and bringing it to her in a
paper sack so no one

could see the bottle."

She really was embarrassed around 1950, when a different doctor announced
her heart

perfectly healthy. Charlie said she really knew that all of the time, she
just liked her drink. She

didn't think he was a bit funny.

Food was not always in abundance but Mattie could "make do" and "do" well.
One of her

recipes called "pore do" was made from crumbled corn bread, crumbled cold
biscuits, onion, salt

pork drippings, sage, eggs, and milk. As Mattie said, "It's pore but it
will do."

She wanted everyone to have enough to eat and she was sure to say "Take
some more," not

forcing but encouraging. Grandchildren knew they could go to the ice box
and get whatever they

wanted without asking. This bothered Wiley Sallee, her dad, who lived with
them. One day as

he watched children run into the kitchen and get food out of the ice box,
he thumped his cane in

rhythm as he said, "Thunderation, Mattie, they're eatin' us out of house
and home." She smiled

and never said a word.

Mattie was known for her potato water "light" bread and hot rolls that rose
about 4 inches

high, chili, delicious pinto beans, and cake with sticky lemon icing. She
did much of her cooking

on a wood-heated or coal-heated cookstove that had no thermometer on the
oven door. She'd

open the door to test the heat with her hand and announce "It's not hot
enough" or "It's just about

right."

MEMORIES AND STORIES

I vividly remember the store building, house, and barn in Galesburg. It was
there when I was

about four years old that Granddad gave me a terrier he found caught in a
log jam on the river and

I named him Lindy. One day when I was exploring the barn with Lindy,
Granddad sneaked in

around the side door and rattled a chain. He said I looked around but
didn't do anything so he

rattled it again. I started running and when Lindy got under my feet, I
told him, "Lindy, get out

of the way and let a man run who can run."

***

For a number of reasons, Dad and Grandmother H. did not get along too well
but when she

got the flue in 1953, she told her daughters she wanted to go to "Charlie
and Frances." Slowly,

she became weaker and weaker and had a difficult time coming to the table
to eat. I was teaching

in Bartlesville, OK. at the time and we went to Joplin for a visit.
Remembering Grandmother

really liked fried catfish, we bought some fresh catfish at Chetopa, KS.
Mom was frying it and

Grandmother called in a weak voice from her bed, "Charlie, is that catfish
I smell?" He said it was.

"Would you bring me some?" "No. If you want some, come to the table." I
fussed at him saying

she was too sick but he said that if she didn't get up soon, she would die.
Then I heard a weak

voice say, "Charlie, will you help me get up?" He went in, gently put a
robe on her and helped her

walk to the table. I was impressed with how much fish she ate. Her voice
got stronger and she

sat up in the living room for a bit before returning to bed. The next
morning she got up for

breakfast and soon she had recovered.

Guy died while she was staying with Mom and Dad and she wanted to go to the
funeral home

in Webb City to see him. The girls thought she was too weak so discouraged
her from making the

trip. Dad sat in the living room but did not take part in the discussion.
Then he went to the

telephone and called an ambulance. When it came, he told Grandmother he was
taking her to

Webb City to see Guy. She made the trip with no difficulty.

***

Grandmother and Granddad kept my dog Lindy when they bought the store in
Medoc. She

made biscuits each day so she fed him biscuits with cream gravy every day
(leftovers from the

morning and evening meals). He got so spoiled that when we got him back, he
wouldn't eat our

food for several days.

***

Granddad gave me a .22 rifle when I was in the fourth grade.

***

In the fall of 1942, I spent several nights with Aunt Flora and Uncle
Lucien while Granddad

Hightower was in the hospital. I enjoyed staying with them in part because
of the food. Aunt

Flora kept a cup of pancake starter in the refrigerator and every morning
she mixed up a few

pancakes that were so light and fluffy. She fixed me sandwiches for lunch
and one of my favorites

was boiled ham with Miracle Whip on a toasted bun. I slept in Bob's bed (he
was in the army and

she had kept his room just as it was when he left) that had a down
comforter. The first morning

I got up to find it had fallen to the floor. I said something about it and
she said that is how it got

its name---it always ended "down" on the floor. When I went to the store,
Uncle Lucien gave me

candy or fruit to eat. I always felt at home.

***

Aunt Susie was a second mother to me and I was as much at home with her as
in my own

home. I almost spent my first night away from home at her place. I was
doing fine until about

dark and started complaining about "having a fever in my throat." The folks
came after me.

Uncle Elmer gave me a 410 shotgun and took me fishing.

***

One time when Granddad was sick, Lois, June and I stayed with the Cooks.
They lived in an

apartment above a drugstore in Webb City. Ginger, Jacque, Lois, June, and I
saw a Bob Wills

movie at the Civic movie house. Afterward, we played games until around
midnight when Aunt

Ruth scrambled eggs and served them with canned tomatoes and toast.

***

When my folks and I came back from Vancouver, WA, in 1945, I stayed with
Grandmother

Hightower during April and May so I could finish the year at Alba High
School. I felt like I was

at home, which I was.









THE THURMAN FAMILY

John Thurman moved from Georgia to the Cumberland Plateau region of Overton
County,

TN, arriving in the early 1820s. He settled in an area that became part of
Clay County following

the civil war. Today, there are small farms ranging from good land to very
hilly or low mountain

land. Few people can make a living on these small farms today and it was
probably little different

back when John was living there.

According to the 1830 census, John's family included a wife and four
children--a daughter and

three sons. Two sons were Allen and John. Some evidence suggests the
daughter was Elizabeth

who married John Arms. Based on this record, John was born around 1790,
Allen in 1811, and

John in 1816.

Allen Thurman

Allen W. Thurman (c1811-1883) was born in Georgia. He married Judy Martin
(c1815-1844),

his first wife, around 1830. She was the daughter of Robert Martin who
moved to Overton

County from South Carolina sometime after 1820.

Allen owned 166 2/3 acres of land according to 1836 and 1837 Overton County
tax rolls but

lost it in 1843, "going security." He had co-signed a note for someone who
did not pay it off so

his land was sold to redeem it.

Allen and Judy had six children-- Milton (1831-1885); John (1833-1888);
Lavina (1835-);

Courtney (1836-); Robert Franklin (1840-1922); and Martha Jane (1842-).

After Judy died in 1844, Allen married Sarah Coulson. Their six children
were Juda (1846-),

Allen W. (1948-), Susan (1853-), George (1855-), Mary E. (Oct. 15, 1857-
Feb. 24, 1923)

married Albert Stockton, Thomas (1859-) and America Ellen (1863-).

Allen was a member of the Campbellite Church, a Whig and later a Democrat.
He was a

hardworking, industrious man and an example of his strength was at age 72,
he rived out or split

1400 boards from three foot long oak logs in one day. The severe labor
caused his death several

days later.

Milton and John, Allen's sons, moved westward to Missouri.

John

John, Allen's second son, moved to Missouri in 1852, and farmed in Henry
County. In 1855,

He married Agnes Thompson, daughter of Samuel Thompson who moved to Henry
County from

Virginia. Their son, John F. lived in Carthage, MO and worked as a foreman
in a printing office.

He had two daughters, Osie and John F. Jr.

When Agnes died in February 1858 and John married Mary E. Burress, daughter
of Robert

and Mary E. (Naell) Burress, of Henry County. The Burress family had moved
from Kentucky

and Virginia. John enlisted as a private for three years in the Seventh
Missouri Cavalry, Missouri

State Militia and fought in the battle of Lone Jack. He was discharged
after serving eighteen

months on account of disabilities.

He and his family moved to Illinois and ran a store at Zenia. A year later,
they moved to

Otterville, MO where he was in business three years and then to Warrensburg
where he had a

mercantile business. The following year, they moved back to Germantown,
Henry County, and

then to Appleton City, Saint Clair County for seven years. In 1879, the
family moved to

Carterville in Jasper County and in 1884 to Sarcoxie. Finally, he settled
in Richey where they lived

until his death in 1888.

John and Mary were respected members of the community according to the 1888
Newton

County, Missouri History. They belonged to the Methodist Episcopal Church,
he was a

Republican, and served as a justice of the peace.

Milton

Milton, the oldest child of Allen and Judy Thurman, was born in Overton
County, TN about

1832. About 1850, he married Milie (Mi pronounced with long i) J. Killman,
daughter of Evan

Killman. Their children were Mary Ann [Polly Ann] (1851), Judia (1854),
John (1856), James

(1858), Robert (1861). George W (1862), Rebecca Catherine [Kate] (1866),
and Elizabeth [Ellie]

(1869).

Family tradition tells that Milie's grandmother was full Cherokee and this
story is supported

by a claim #40486 filed by Milton's son George with the Guion Miller
Commission. George wrote

that his great grandfather's first wife was Cherokee. The claim was denied,
however.

He farmed in the Sweet Gum Plains Community in 1860. The Cumberland Plateau
was in the

Cumberland Mountains and consisted of rolling hills. Farms were small with
limited tillable land

in the valleys. In 1870, the region became part of Clay County.

On September 5, 1861, he enlisted as 2 Sergeant in Captain George W.
Russell's Company,

the 2nd Mountain Regiment Tennessee Volunteers, the Confederate Army, to
serve for twelve

months. Ill during much of his tour of duty, he was discharged July 21,
1862.

Milie died in June 1871 and was buried in the Thurman Cemetery on Pea
Ridge.

Julia (Davis) Scott lived on a farm adjoining the one where Milton and his
family lived.

Doubtless they knew one another when children as her father, Matthew Davis,
had a farm next to

Allen Thurman in 1840. Julia married Reuben W. Scott and William was born
in 1855. They

moved to Missouri around 1857 where two more children were born---Allen
(Bud) in 1858 and

Frances in 1861. When Reuben died, she and the children returned to Overton
County.

Milton and Julia took out a license to marry February 13, 1872. Four months
later, July 22,

a license was issued to Judia, Milton's daughter, and William, Julia's son.

About 1873, Milton, Julia, and their children ranging from 15 years to four
years in age,

moved by wagon to Scotland near Prosperity, MO. Although roads were opened
up or improved

after the civil war, one hazard of travel was crossing the streams which
had to be forded or ferried.

According to family tradition, their small dog traveled to Missouri with
them but soon after they

arrived in Prosperity, it returned home to Clay County.

They were not going among strangers in making this move. Some fifty other
families from

Overton and nearby Rutherford Counties had already settled there. Webb
City, some three miles

from Prosperity, was settled by John Webb from Overton County and the local
hospital was named

after Jane Chinn, named after the daughter of a family from the county.

Leonard S., born in 1875, was the only child of Milton and Julia. He lived
in Diamond and

died in 1940.

Milton bought the NW quarter of the NW quarter and west half of the NE
quarter of section

26, Township 28, range 32 just east of Prosperity on November 28, 1881. He
farmed this land

until his death on June 7, 1885. He was ill for about five months and death
resulted from uremia

poisoning with dropsy as sequel.

Judia, his daughter who married William Scott, died in 1881 and a short
time later, her sister,

Polly, married William. She died in 1897.

Milton was buried at Harmony Grove Cemetery, on Highway 66 between Joplin
and

Duenweg. In the same plot are his two daughters, Judia and Polly. Strangely
enough, they do not

have grave stones although there are stones for Julia and William, her son,
who are buried in the

same plot.

Julia sold the farm to William and moved about four miles south toward
Duenweg. One

evening while on the way to visit her stepson, George, she was severely
injured in a buggy

accident. According to a report in the Joplin, September 4, 1906, page
nine.

Funeral of Aged Woman

Rev. Orion E. Vivion of this city [Webb City] conducted the funeral of Mrs.

Julia Thurman, aged 73, at the South Methodist Church in Duenweg Sunday

at 2 p.m. and interment was made in Harmony Grove Cemetery. Mrs.

Thurman's death was the result of being thrown from a buggy Friday evening

about 6 o'clock while driving near her home in Duenweg to Prosperity. She

was driving a young horse which became frightened at a cow running under a

clothesline on which some quilts were suspended and coming toward the
horse.

She was taken to her home which was only a short distance away, and was
able

to enter the house unaided, though she told them she was seriously injured

internally and her death at 7 o'clock Saturday evening proved her words
true.

She was a widow and a sister of S. B. Daugherty of this city.

Milton's children and spouses were:

Catherine (Kate) and William Stailey

Lewis

Elizabeth (Ellie) and Laurence De Mill

George Washington and Nettie Lucinda Foster

John Milton

Lula Bell (January 24, 1896 - December 5, 1898)

George Washington (1897 - 1919)

Charles Avery (December 31, 1898 - January 15, 1964)

Virgil Leroy (1902 - 1980)

Twins

Ona Viola (June, 1906 - 1995)

Osa Milvinia (June, 1906 - 1958)

Helen Alice (1911 - 1960)

Judia Thurman and William Scott

Polly Ann and William Scott (married William after Judia's death)

Robert Milton (June 11, 1861 - July 19, 1915) and Martha Black.

Precuna J. b. Jul 22, 1895 Jasper Co., MO;

Frank b. Mar 1889 Jasper Co.

Isaac Henry b. Nov. 23, 1890 Jasper Co.;

Roy b. Dec 1894 Jasper Co;

Willie b. Aug. 1898 Jasper Co.





THE FOSTER FAMILY

Elisha Foster was a farmer in the Granville Township of Bradford County,
Pennsylvania.

In 1850, his household consisted of fourteen members: Elisha 56; Hannah 50;
Avery 19; Elisha

18; Alfred 17; Horace 15; Mary 14; Abbey 10, Thomas 8; Angevine 4; Daniel
25, Lucinda 24,

and Thomas Lucas 3; and Cynthia Nithey 81. Lucinda was possibly a daughter
(Elisha Jr

named a daughter "Nettie Lucinda") and perhaps Cynthia Nithey was Hannah's
mother.

At any rate, Elisha Jr was born October 14, 1832 and died December 3, 1898.
On March

5, 1859, he married Mary Ann Farris but her maiden name is a puzzle.
Several of her children

and grandchildren said it was "Mosier" while others said it was Farris. A
marriage license was

issued to Elisha Foster and Mary Ann Farris in 1859 but it is possible this
was her second

marriage and her maiden name was Mosier. She was born February 2, 1841 and
died July 11,

1877.

The 1860 census showed

Elisha27FarmerPennsylvania

Mary A 20Illinois

Avery2/12Illinois

By 1870, the family had increased with the addition of three girls-- Cora
Ada (October 22,

1862 - December 1925), Louisa (February 21, 1865 - 1942) and Nettie Lucinda
(December 10,

1869 - May 13, 1948).

Avery's son Elmer said his dad told him Elisha and the family moved to
Texas and then to

Kansas where Dora Bell (October 28, 1874-) was born. They lived in Butler
County, near

Towanda and northeast of Wichita. Life was different from what they had
known in Illinois.

Tragedy struck the family when Mary died on July 11, 1877. As told by Hazel
Jones,

"Grandma Foster was pregnant and was kicked by a cow. They lived seventeen
miles from

town and Dad [Avery] had to go by horseback for the doctor. Grandma bled to
death before

Dad and the doctor could get home." She was buried in the Towanda city
cemetery.

The family was separated for a brief period after Mary's death. The 1880
census showed

Nettie living with William Pierce, Dora with John Clark in Butler township,
Butler County,

while Elisha and Avery were with Marvin Foster, Elisha's brother according
to family tradition,

in Howard township, Butler County. The whereabouts of Cora Ada and Louisa
are unknown.

Elisha moved the family to Jasper County, MO around 1884, settling on a
farm near

Carterville. About the same time, according to Elmer, Avery's son, another
one of the Foster

families came down from Iowa and settled around Carthage.

Elisha bought a farm near the community of Lakeside between Webb City and
Carthage.

The farm was on the left on the Carthage side of the river. According to
Elmer, the one thing

Avery remembered most about the farm was building stone fences. Elisha also
worked for

James Leroy Carter for whom the town of Carterville was named.

After his son Avery married, Elisha lived on his farm with daughters Nettie
and Dora until

the girls married. He then lived with Avery and his family until his death
December 3, 1898.

Hazel, Avery's daughter, said Elisha was at the dining table when he had a
heart attack and

died. He was buried in the Carter Cemetery.

Avery married Ardora Florence, James Carter's daughter, on November 1,
1885, and they

lived in a log cabin near Lakeside. Later on they moved near Perservence
(between Prosperity

and Carterville) and then to a farm at Jasper. Their five children were
Elmer E, Raymond A,

Hazel (m Carl Jones), Ora (m. Henry Woodward) and Grace (m C. M. Keith). In
1910, Avery

and family moved to a farm near Jasper, MO where Ardora died in 1920. He
then married Mrs.

Maggie Keith of Carthage. He died February 1942 and was buried in Carter
Cemetery.

Ida (Cora Ada) married George Downs who died in 1920. They had four
daughters, three

children who died in infancy and Ethel who married Frank Michaels.

Louisa married Henry Lacy. Their children were Avery, Lidia, Della, Ed,
Stewart, and

Dora. She died February 1, 1940 and was buried in the Carterville Cemetary.




Nettie married George W. Thurman. Her story is described in another
chapter.

Dora married Frank Ashley and their three children were Ernest, Raymond,
and Gladys.





MEMORIES AND STORIES

We use to visit them when Grandmother Thurman and Aunt Osa and Aunt Helen
came up from

Pawhuska during the 1930s. Avery had a crystal radio made by Carl Jones,
his son-in-law, and

it was great fun listening to it. My memory of him as a person is that he
usually wore a three-

piece suit (trousers, vest, and coat) and he reminded me of President
Arthur.

***

When Dorothy, Virgil's wife and Nettie's daughter-in-law, gave birth to
George, her Aunt

Dora came to help out. I was born three days later. Everyone said George
was such a good

baby because he seldom cried but I cried a lot, which embarrassed Mom very
much. After

Aunt Dora went home, Aunt Dorothy wrote that George missed her because he
just cried and

cried (now remember, he was just a few days old). Aunt Dora back saying
"give George a

teaspoon of paregoric each morning and evening and he won't cry." That was
when everyone

realized the reason George had been so quiet was that he had been doped up.
Paregoric is a

soothing syrup made with codeine. Mom didn't feel so bad after that. THE
HIGHTOWER FAMILY

You ask, "Where did our Hightower family come from?"

As Tevye in ‘Fiddler On The Roof' would say "I'll tell you. I don't know!"

The Hightower origin has been sought by many people without much success.
The New

Dictionary of American Names says the name is English but, as far as three
Hightower

researchers have determined, it has not been found on any deed, census, or
tax roll in early

England, Scotland, or Ireland. One of the earliest references was in 1787
when Andrew

Hitower married Elizabeth Baird at Leuchars, Fife, Scotland.

Stories abound, however, about the first Hightowers who came to the shores
of the new

world.

John Hitower arrived on the good ship "Friendship" in 1653 but records do
not show

whether he remained in the new world or returned to England. Then there is
the story of two

Hightower brothers, Joseph and Benjamin, who came from England to Virginia
during the 17th

Century. Benjamin's son Joshua married Susannah and died in 1772 in Amelia
County, VA.

Another version has a Joshua Hightower (born ca 1670) marrying Eleanor
[Charnold?] and

they lived in Richmond County, VA. Their oldest son John was born around
1692. Joshua Jr,

another son, was born around 1698 in Richmond, VA. Joshua Jr married
Susannah Tavenor

and he died in Amelia County, VA in 1772. When considering these two
stories, it seems

unlikely two Joshuas were born around the same time, married wives with the
same given

name, and died in the same year. The second version, Joshua Jr the son of
Joshua, is probably

the correct one as it is well documented.

To further confuse matters, one source suggests Joshua came from Ireland! A
fourth

variation comes from Great Aunt Hamma, sister to Grand Dad Bob Hightower,
who said two

or maybe three brothers from Scotland or perhaps Ireland landed in North
Carolina or South

Carolina around 1702. Where she got this story is unknown and no evidence
of these men has

been found.

Was there a connection between John Hitower who was here in 1653 and Joshua
born

about 1670? Perhaps but if Joshua was born in England as is thought, then
John must have

returned there and his son came to the new world in later years.

What it all comes down to is this, we don't know who or when or from where
they came

from. What appears probable is Joshua and Eleanor Hightower is the Adam and
Eve of the

Hightower clan in the United States.

Sterling Hightower

The earliest Hightower ancestor in our line on whom we have proven
information is

Sterling. That he is our ancestor comes from the histories of Andrew King's
family living in

Illinois. Hang on because the story gets complicated but that seems to be
the legacy of being

a Hightower.

Andrew King, a North Carolinian who became a Tennessean, had two sons,
James and

William who married sisters of Hugh Hightower. James married Sarah and
William married

Nancy. The biography of John King, the son of William and Nancy, said his
maternal

grandparents were Sterling and Beersheba (Davis) Hightower of Tennessee.

Where in Tennessee did the Kings and Hightowers live? Here indefinite
information rears

its confusing head. John King's biography stated Sterling Hightower's
family left South

Carolina and "removed to Shelby County, Tenn., where they passed the
remainder of their

lives" and Andrew King's family, John's paternal grandparents, lived Shelby
County, TN until

1832 when they moved to Montgomery County, IL. Records in Shelby County
between 1814

and 1832, however, do not list a King or Hightower family.

Three hundred miles to the east of Shelby County, however, the 1820 census
listed an

Andrew King in Lincoln County and a Sterling Hightower in neighboring
Franklin County. The

1830 census lists Andrew with a male in the family who fits the age bracket
for William while

Sterling has two females who fit the ages of Nancy and Sarah. In 1829, Hugh
M. Hightower,

Sterling's son, also lived in Lincoln County and family records show
several of his children

were born in that county. King genealogical records as well as the
introduction to the King

Cemetery Book on file at the Montgomery County History Society put Andrew
King in

Lincoln County, TN where at least one son, Samuel, was born around 1825.
Andrew moved

to Montgomery County, IL around 1832.

It seems reasonable to conclude that Sterling and Beersheba Hightower lived
in Franklin

and Lincoln Counties rather than Shelby County, TN.

Who was Sterling? In all likelihood, he was the son of Austin Hightower (ca
1698-1784)

of Orange/Chatham County, NC and later of Edgefield County, SC. Austin and
his second

wife,Martha, had three children, Henry, Amelia and Sterling. Austin in his
will made in 1782

in North Carolina, named John from his first marriage and Sterling from his
second to be

executors.

Austin moved his family to Edgefield County, South Carolina between 1782
when his will

was made and 1784 when he died. About the time of Austin's death,
Sterling's half brothers,

John and William, moved to Georgia, living in present day Elbert County.
Sterling and his

mother Martha were in Elbert County in 1793 when Sterling served as a
witness to a sale

between his mother and his first cousin John of Buncombe County, NC. She
also sold land on

Richland Creek in Buncombe County to John that same year.

Sterling was born around 1768 based on a memorial filed with the North
Carolina General

Assembly in 1798 in which he claimed he was one of the executors of
Austin's will when he

was sixteen years of age. Later, when he became of age, he petitioned the
Chatham (NC)

Court to have the will moved to Edgefield County, SC but the court refused
his request. He

had a memorial filed with the General Assembly to order the Chatham Court
to release the will

to the South Carolina court but whether or not he was successful is
unknown.

Although he moved back and forth between South Carolina, North Carolina and
Georgia

during the next few years, all of this moving covered very little distance.
Perhaps traveling was

part of his genes and was transmitted to great grandson Robert who also had
that peripatetic

characteristic. At some point during these years, Sterling married
Beersheba Davis.

In March 1794, Sterling filed a land claim in Buncombe County, NC which was
not

granted. On March 10, 1796, Ed Jones, Solicitor General of North Carolina
sent a letter to

Governor Samuel Ashe charging Sterling and others with manufacturing land
warrants.

Following up on Jones' letter, the North Carolina House of Commons and
Senate passed a

resolution calling on the Governor to apply to governors of Tennessee,
Kentucky, or other

states to return Sterling to North Carolina for trial. Why these states is
not known but perhaps

he had disappeared and this was just a blanket warrant.

Now, Sterling was not a scoundrel. He apparently was just one of the few
men charged

with the common, albeit illegal, practice of predating land warrants before
the land was

surveyed. You have to remember when in history he lived. North Caroline in
1796 had been

a state less than twenty years and Buncombe County, formed in 1791,
included all of the

southwest territory (present day counties from Cherokee on the west to
Yancey, Buncombe,

and Henderson on the east.) In 1795, Robert Love described this county in a
letter to John

Gray Blount (spelling and punctuation were Love's.).

"The Land consists of vallies and Mountains and not more than one fifth of
which can be

called poor land & is all the best watered Country I ever saw. The General
Growth of the

timber is walnuts black and white, Locusts, Sugar Trees, Buck Eyes, Lyms,
poplars &

Oakes of every description...I have observations in my field Book of Buck
Eyes measuring

thirteen feet round the body and black walnuts near the Same Size...I am
led to believe the

whole land would average fifteen bushells of wheat to the Acre...the
Herbage which is Very

plentiful on the mountains is ginseng, Spikenard, ries weeds & white
nettles some of which

grow eight or ten feet high"

With much of the land still controlled by Cherokee and other tribes,
settlers filed claims with

the state for land warrants. Some of them predated their warrants in an
effort to keep some other

individual from claiming the land they wanted and that is the practice
Sterling got caught up in.

At any rate, the land warrant issue must have been resolved in his favor.
In May and

November,1797, he witnessed deeds in Pendleton District, SC. He also spent
time during this

period with his cousin Epaphroditas, John's eldest son, who was a pioneer
in lower Buncombe Co,

NC which later became Henderson and Transylvania Counties. He also filed a
petition with the

North Carolina General Assembly relating to his father's will in 1798.

In 1800, he and his family were in Pendleton District, SC. In May 1803, he
was a resident in

what later that year became Walton Co, GA. This region had been part of
South Carolina but the

state ceded all rights to the federal government. People living in the area
petitioned the federal

government to annex it to South Carolina with no success so they formed
their own government.

Known as the "orphan strip" with no state having jurisdiction over it, it
became the haven for

people sought by the law in surrounding states. Finally, in 1802, the
federal government ceded

it to Georgia who created Walton County in 1803. This did not end the
problem since the

boundary between North Carolina and Georgia was not clearly laid out. A
controversy

smouldered between the two states for several years and was not settled
until a commission

appointed by both states surveyed the line and determined where it should
run and the area was

awarded to North Carolina and became part of Buncombe County

Sterling was a resident of the disputed area in May 1803 and still there in
1807 when he

signed a petition to the Georgia governor about establishing the state line
with North Carolina.

On Nov 7 of the following year, he was elected one of the state senators
for Walton County, GA.,

was unseated and reseated within a month's time. A little later the area
was ceded to North

Carolina and became part of the original Buncombe County.

Family records show Hugh, Sterling's son, was born December 1803 in
Buncombe County,

NC. The question arises as to whether Hugh was born in the original
Buncombe County or in

what later became Buncombe.

1820 found Sterling in Franklin County, TN and the census roll showed him
with five young

males and four young females. Sterling entered 100 acres in Franklin Co in
1826. In 1830, he was

in Lincoln the adjoining county with one son and four daughters. The last
entry was in August

1832 when he was appointed by the Franklin County Court to a jury of view
to turn the road

leading down the creek to Winchester.Hugh M. C.

Hugh M.C. was born December 9, 1803 in Buncombe County, NC, some twenty
eight years

after the signing of the Declaration of Independence and fourteen years
after George Washington

was elected the first president of the United States.

Three references have led to a confusion as to Hugh's middle name and his
surname. Was he

Hugh M.C. Hightower or Hugh McHightower? The 1829 tax records of Lincoln
County, TN list

him as Hugh M Hightower while in the 1830 census he is shown as as Hugh
M.C. Hightower.

Delia was received into the Hillsboro Presbyterian Church as Hightower.
Hugh's surname that

was listed when he purchased a horse in 1832, in the listing of settlers in
Montgomery CO, IL

before 1840, in his serving as petit juror in the 1838 court, and in the
biography of John, Hugh's

son, was Hightower. The fly in the ointment comes because his tombstone in
Iowa, Delia's

obituary in Illinois, and Hugh's name in one deed book give the name as
"McHightower."

Robert, Hugh's grandson who knew him, called him 'Hugh Mack' when telling
his children

about their great grandfather. In addition, Hugh's children were not
confused because all went by

the name Hightower.

Hugh married Delia Hicks (11-9-1806/2-24-1896) on February 3, 1824. Delia
was the

daughter of Hugh Hicks of Wilson County, TN. Since several Hightowers lived
in Wilson County,

it is not known whether Hugh lived there at the time or if he met her
through relatives. They lived

in Lincoln County and Franklin County, next to the Alabama border, where
three children, Alfred,

Martha, and Elizabeth were born. Hugh M. was listed under Capt Drury
Connally's Company on

the 1829 tax roll of Lincoln County.

By 1830, Hugh and his family were in Montgomery County, Il where eight
additional children

blessed their home--Alexander Jackson, George, Margaret Melsena, Sterling
Sylvester, Henretta

Carolina, James Richard, John Henry, and Sarah Melvina Catharine. Hugh paid
$14 for a parcel

of land in the Cresses addition of Hillsboro in 1833. Then, in 1843, he
built the first house erected

within the boundaries of Nokomis Township. He also served as a County
Commissioner of

Montgomery County. Delia was accepted on certificate as a member of the
First Presbyterian

Church in Hillsboro on April 18, 1831.

Hugh died February 1, 1879 while he and Delia were visiting two daughters
in Poweshiek

County, IA. He was buried in the Light Cemetery. Delia returned to Illinois
to live with a

daughter until her death February 24, 1896.

Sterling

Sterling Sylvester Hightower came into this world at Hillsboro, IL on April
2, 1840. His

parents were Hugh and Delia Hightower.

He married Angelina [Hancock] Westbrook of Hillsboro on October 9, 1864.
She was the

widow of James Westbrook and had a young son, Perry. Her parents were John
and Nancy Jane

[Liles] Hancock. John Hancock (c1808-1854) was born in Kentucky and married
Nancy Liles on

January 25, 1827 in Knox County, IN. By 1833, they were in Knox County, IN
and a little later

moved to Montgomery County, IL.

Sterling and Angelina lived in Nakomis where John Scott, Nancy Delia Jane,
and Robert

Sylvester were born. Around 1871, the family joined Angelina's brother in
Callahan County, TX.

Going from central Illinois to west Texas was a long journey, especially
with young children. Just

how the how the family traveled is not known but no train ran to west Texas
at that time so

perhaps they went by steam boat down the Mississippi to Memphis or some
point in Arkansas and

then moved westward by wagon. Regardless, it was no easy quick journey.

West Texas apparently did not agree with them because by 1873, they were in
Dexter

Township, Cowley County KS where six more children were born--Charles
Alfred, Sarah

Jeannetta (Nettie), Nelnorah (Nellie), Serrenia Margaret (Rena), Hamma
Brown, and Francis

Pharaoh (Frank).

Sterling farmed and raised sheep. They were doing well until, for some
unknown reason, the

sheep "piled up and died." He said he never wanted to see Kansas again so
the family packed their

wagons and moved eastward to Missouri leaving Perry Westbrook who had
married and settled

near Dexter.

Three generations traveled in that wagon train -- Sterling and Angelina,
their children including

infant Frank, and daughter Delia, her husband Frank Hauser and their infant
daughter Maggie.

Some family members rode in the wagon, some walked, and others rode horses.
The trip eastward

to Missouri was slowed by swollen rivers and took more than two months. The
travelers camped

along side the river banks until waters receded. The men killed deer,
rabbits, wild birds, and other

game for food. The trip ended in Aurora, MO.

Sterling next moved the family to a farm on Range Line at Oakland, east of
Joplin. Robert,

his son, lived in Seneca when he married Mattie Sallee in February 1893.

The farmhouse on Range Line held many memories for their grandchildren.
Frances, Robert's

daughter, remembered Sterling as a tall and slender man who was easy to
talk with but did not

permit children to talk or giggle at the dining table. She said she had to
leave the table many times

because just a look at a cousin or sister would start her giggling. Ruth,
her sister, said "Granddad

was tall enough to touch the ceiling in the living room and when he stood
up and pushed open the

trap door to the attic, I knew he was going to give us candy." Jess Rogers,
son of Hamma and

Al Rogers, recalled the fun he and his cousin Oliver, the son of Rena and
Jim Bailey, had at the

farm and riding in a wagon with their granddad. He said Angelina fixed
pickled meat and very

good beef stew. Isabelle Higdon Pearson, Delia's granddaughter, said, "What
I remember most

is how the house smelled of sauerkraut in the summer because Grandmother
made so much of it.

It was the best I ever ate. I wish I could have some like it now."

Sterling died June 3, 1917, and was buried at Forest Park Cemetery on Range
Line, in Joplin.

Angelina lived with different children until she died June 17, 1929. She
was buried next to

Sterling. Birdie Mae Hightower, infant daughter of Robert and Mattie, was
buried at the foot of

their graves. Neither Angelina nor Birdie Mae has a tombstone.



THE SALLEE FAMILY

Back in the good ole days you could count on things being settled and
unchanging, right?

Well, if you believe that, you obviously are not acquainted with our family
known as Salle` or

Sally or Salley or Sallee. But, regardless of how it is spelled,
paraphrasing George M. Cohen's song,

it's a grand old name.

In France, back in the 1600s, it was Salle` but when the family came to the
colonies, it took the

American spelling of Sally. Perhaps to give it propriety, e was added so it
became Sal'ley and later

when y was changed to e, the accent moved to the second syllable--Sal lee'
-- perhaps to give more

dignity.

Did early ancestors consider the confusion these variations would cause
later generations trying

to follow a family line? Probably not.

The reason for the prologue is to assure you that regardless of how the
spelling of the family name

has varied throughout history, the family remains the same.



Beginning as Early as We Can

Jean Salle` was born in Courteil in the Providence of Poitou, France,
around the beginning of the

17th Century. He was a member of the Reformed tradition called Huguenots.
He married Suzanne

Mestay and worked as a shoemaker. They moved to the security of La
Rochelle, a Protestant

stronghold, and then to St. Martin on the Isle of Re'. It was at St. Martin
that Jean II was born and

he was baptized on March 23, 1625.

Jean II, like his father, was a master shoemaker. He married Claude Martin,
daughter of Jacques

and Judith [Fortier] Martin. Jacques was a master hatmaker. When Claude
died, Jean II married her

sister, Marie, and they had six children. Their third child was Abraham,
born February 22, 1674 and

baptized February 25.

Abraham, who wrote fluently in French and English, left France for England
and in 1698, sought

citizenship in London. In 1699, he married Olive Perrault in St. Catherines
by-the-Tower. They left

for the new colonies, arriving in New York in 1700 where they joined the
French Huguenot Church

and two children were born, Abraham II in 1700 and Jacob in 1701.

Around 1702, Abraham moved the family to Manakintown, VA where England had
set aside

10,000 acres in Virginia for Huguenots with each person receiving 133
acres. Isaac, their third son,

was born about 1703. Abraham was a merchant, clerk of King William Parish,
a captain of militia,

and a Justice of Henrico County, VA. All we know about his physical
appearance is that he had a

black beard.

Abraham and Olive had six children -- Abraham II (1700-1731), Jacob
(1701-1720), Isaac (c.

1703-1730), Guillaume (1705-c. 1789), Pierre (1705-1752), and Olive
Magdelaine (c. 1710). The

parents died a year apart, Olive about 1717 and Abraham in 1718.

Following our ancestral line can be tricky as two names--William and
George--reoccurred

generation after generation.

William [Guillaume], our direct fore bearer, received a "plantation" and
twenty pounds sterling

or five thousand weight of tobacco in Abraham's will. In 1727, he married
Elizabeth, daughter of

Anthoine Givaudan. She died about 1741. Little is known about William
except he moved to what

is now Buckingham County after 1745 and patented 1200 acres in Albemarle
County. At his death

on February 15,1789, he had sold off nearly all of his land holdings.

William II, son of William and Elizabeth, was born May 8, 1734, in King
William Parish, VA.

He married Nancy (no information on her family) about 1755. Their nine
children included George

(b ca 1764), the sixth child and our direct ancestor.

Abundance of land, game, water, and salt in Kentucky County, VA attracted
many people

including several of the Salle` families. The 1780 land entries show John,
George, Phillip, and

William Jr (II) owning land and Abraham shows up in the 1782 records.

George, William II's son, was born around 1764 in Virginia. He moved to
Kentucky County with

his parents where he married Susannah (surname unknown but perhaps
Simpson). One of his

children, named (naturally) William was born around 1790. George took ill
on February 22, 1816,

at the home of William Sally, some 300 yards from his own home. Too ill to
go home, he died there

the next day. In his will, filed March 11, 1816, he said he wished his wife
and children, to live

together. Susannah died after 1830.

William married Elizabeth Tucker, daughter of William and Nancy (Lee)
Tucker of Adair County,

KY. September 15, 1811. Their first child was a son, George Washington,
born in 1817.

In the same locality was the Hudgens family. William Hudgens, born in
McMinn County, TN on

May 9, 1784, moved to Washington County, KY near the head waters of the
Green River where he

married Susanna Tucker on June 18, 1810. She was born in Ambrose County,
VA, October 23,

1792.

William and Elizabeth Sally were part of a mobile and ambitious generation
so like others of that

generation, they moved westward to Missouri in 1833 joining other members
of his family and

friends. Records indicate the family settled in Benton County. Susanna died
September 1, 1836, and

he married Emily Bowles (Boles?) August 13, 1839 in Benton County. Although
he is listed in the

Benton County 1850 census, one record states he died September 2, 1849.

The Hudgens family moved to Missouri several years earlier and their
daughter, Sussannah,

married George Sally May 7, 1840. They moved to the area of Crawford County
that later became

part of Phelps County.



George and Susannah Sally

George and Susannah had several children---Lew, Alfred, Susannah Elizabeth,
Emily Jane,

William Hudgens, Wiley (called Lee), Nancy, Kiann and John (twins), and
Mary Susan.

Tragedy marred the family's life. Susanah died in 1863 and George in 1864.
Emily, their

daughter, married Thomas Densman and had two children, Mary and Ella. In
December 1864, Mary

age three and Ella age one contracted measles and died a day apart. They
were buried in same casket.

Emily then died May 14, 1866 in childbirth. William Hudgens Sally, George
and Susanah's son, was

shot by bushwhackers at his home on Beaver Creek January 25, 1865. A
Hudgens cousin was

accused of the killing.



Wiley (Lee)

Wiley was born August 2, 1850 in Benton County, MO. He ran away to be a
drummer in the

Confederate Army but was sent home because he was too young. What he did
between the time of

his parents' death and his marriage to Louise (Lula) [Conn] Hill is unknown
but he probably lived

with relatives.

Wiley married Louise [Conn] Hill June 12, 1870, at the home of his cousin,
the Rev. Ballard

Hudgens. Louise, a widow with a young son William, was the daughter of
George and Narcissus

[McKutchen] Conn.

Wiley and Lula had nine children

Mary Susan b Apr 28, 1871, d 1951 Webb City MO

Married Luther Templeton

Flora Alice, b Dec. 12, 1872

Married to S.R. Smith.

Nancy Madison b Oct. 3, 1876, d June 1963

Married William Hulsey Dec. 22, 1890. Divorced in 1891.

Married Robert S. Hightower Jan 8, 1893

Clifford b Apr 20, 1878

Married Cordella Kirkman

Eva Clemens b Nov. 14, 1880

Married A. J. Faucett who died

Married James Wallace

Lula Myrtle b. Oct. 22, 1881 d Dec. 15, 1882

Wiley Myrtle b July 29, 1883. d about 1950

Married Albert Burton Westfalls Aug. 27 1900 (killed in mining accident at

Webb City, January 1902).

Married Pete Shaunce in 1903 (died in 1918 from flu).

Married J. E. Fox

Jesse Edward b August 18, 1885

Married Geraldine Grant

Violet Mae b. Oct. 6, 1887 d Dec. 23, 1887



Wiley must have had a great spiritual and emotional strength to maintain
his sanity during many

sorrows. His mother, father, one brother and three sisters died when he was
between the ages of 12

and 16 years. Then the December 21, 1887 Joplin Daily Herald reported that
his wife Lula, who

never recovered from the birth of Violet Mae, died Friday the 15th. The
following Monday,

December 19, his home was destroyed by fire leaving Wiley with nine
homeless children. The

following day, baby Violet Mae died.

He never remarrying but reared the children alone and all of the children
grew to be good adults.

He hired housekeepers who spent the day at the home but did not live in.
Living in Mineral Township

near Oronogo, he walked to Webb City where he worked as a dealer in ore.

Wiley pronounced his name Sal lee' but spelled it in different ways. The
family tombstone has

the family name as "Salley" but Violet Mae, the two-month-old baby who died
in 1887 is listed as the

daughter of W & L "Sallee." In 1890, Wiley signed "Salley" in giving
permission for Mattie, his

daughter, to marry William Hulsey but in 1893, he signed "Sallee" when she
married Robert

Hightower. To confuse matters even more, the family is listed in the 1880
census as "Sallie."

MEMORIES AND STORIES

I remember Great-Granddad Wiley, Aunt Sue, Grandmother Mattie, Aunt Myrtle
and Uncle Cliff

quite well. I have fewer memories of Aunt Flora and Aunt Eva.

Grand dad Wiley was a slender man with a drooping mustache. He always
kissed us when we

visited him, something I never enjoyed because it scratched, He had apple
trees on his farm and let

us climb them and eat apples so I liked going to see him. Toward the end of
his life, he lived with

daughter Mattie and Bob Hightower at Medoc. One time several of us
grandchildren were there and,

as usual, we ran into the kitchen to get something to eat. Grand dad Wiley
stood it as long as he

could and said in rhythm as he beat his cane on the floor, "Thunderation,
Mattie. Them kids are goin

to eat us out of house and home."

The word 'stately' comes to mind when I think of Aunt Sue and Uncle Luther
Templeton. He

wore three piece suits and she was rather stout and wore long dresses.
Uncle Luther had been an ore

dealer and they had been very wealthy. They owned one of the first
automobiles in Webb City and

had a swimming pool when they lived in Rolla. Their daughter, Lula, had
gone to the Chicago

World's Fair and she had a coming out party as a teenager. She never
married. One tradition was

that she married a young man but Aunt Sue did not approve of him and had
the marriage annulled.

We have several of their hand painted dinner plates inscribed with the
letter 'T'. After they lost

everything in the depression of 1929, Uncle Luther worked for Granddad
Hightower as a store clerk.

Grandmother Hightower said Aunt Sue had no idea of how to keep house and
had to be taught

almost everything including how to wash clothes. I remember when they lived
in a former bank

building at Purcell with very little furniture. Yet, according to Mom, they
never talked or complained

about how hard it was for them.

Aunt Myrtle fascinated me. She lived on a ranch near Caddo, Oklahoma which
seemed very

romantic to me. And, she was the provider of the raisin filled cookie
recipe, one of my favorites.

Mom lived with Aunt Myrtle after finishing the eighth grade, doing much of
the cooking. She said

it was then she learned to make to make noodles and good pie crusts because
she made at least one

pie a day. Then after Uncle Pete died, Mom and Aunt Mrytle lived with the
Pidcocks at Duenweg

and worked together on the Duenweg switchboard. So I heard many stories
about this aunt. I liked

her very much and wish I had spent more time talking with her and Uncle
J.E. Fox.

Uncle Cliff lived with Grandmother and Grand Dad Hightower in Alba for a
time. I was sort of

frightened of him. For one thing, he had been in a mine explosion and I
could see the lumps in his

arms where there were still rocks. Perhaps the explosion did something to
his hearing because his

voice was loud. The house would shake when he played the pump organ and
sang gospel music. Still

and all, he was a nice man.





THE KILMAN FAMILY

(Also Killman)

Levin (Even) Kilman is the earliest of our Kilman family on whom firm
information has been

found. The name appears both as Kilman and Killman.

Known information

Levin (born c 1796) appeared in the 1820 census of Overton County, TN. His
family consisted

of two males--one between ages of 18 and 26 years and one under age 10 and
four females--one

between 18-26, one between 10 and 16, and two under ten.

Although he was not listed in the 1830 Overton County census, he was on the
1836 county tax

roll as owning 100 acres of land. Two other Killman families were on the
tax roll, Henry with 75

acres and Stephan with 35. In 1840, Levin was in Monroe County, KY, the
county just across the

Tennessee/Kentucky border from then Overton County, TN.

Levin was back in Overton County in 1850. This was the first census to list
all family members

at home and the Kilman family consisted of Levin age 55, Mary age 60, Henry
age 21 and Miley age

20. Levin and Mary were listed as being born in North Carolina. The
children were born in

Tennessee.

Miley Jane married Milton Thurman around 1850 and they lived on a farm in
Sweet Gum Plains,

Overton County, Tennessee (in 1870, that part of the county became Clay
County). Their children

were Milton, Mary Ann (called Polly Ann), Judah, John, Robert, George,
Catherine, and Elizabeth.

Miley died in 1871 and was buried in the Thurman Cemetery on Pea Ridge in
Clay County, TN.

Milton Thurman remarried in 1872 and moved his family to the Prosperity, MO
area. Several

members of the Kilman family also moved to southwest Missouri. Stephen
Killman, Henry's son and

Levin's grandson, lived in Mincy, MO in 1908 when he filed an application
to the Guion Miller

Commission seeking a headright for being part of the Eastern Band of the
Cherokee tribe. In his

application, Stephen said his great grandfather's first wife was Jensy
Brandhead (or Broadhead) and

was Cherokee. His grandparents were Levin and Mary who had six children --
Calvin, Milie Jane,

Delia, Phoebe, Polly Ann, and Henry.

No information is available about Levin's or Mary's death. It is possible
they are buried in a

cemetery in Monroe County not far from the Sweet Gum Plains, TN community.



The Cherokee Tradition

[Applications George Thurman (my granddad) and Stephen Alford Kilman, his
cousin to the

Guion Miller Commission described the Cherokee ancestor.]

Jensie Brandhead (or Broadhead) was full Cherokee and belonged to the Bushy
Head clan. She

was the mother to Levin Kilman. Levin's children included Milie, George's
mother and Henry, the

father of Stephen Alford. If she and Levin's father married in North
Carolina, there would be no

official record since marrage bewtween native Americans and whites was
forbidden by law.

Other Possible Kilman Kin

A number of Kilmans lived in Dorchester County, Maryland in the late 1700s.
Henry Kilman Sr

(born c1765-) was born in Dorchester County, MD and married Delilah. Levin
Kilman married

Henrietta Worth September 24, 1799.

Henry Sr was in Rockingham County, NC around 1795 or 1796. He purchased 153
acres of land

on Wolf Island Creek in Rockingham County, NC, in February 27, 1796 and was
a trustee of the

Methodist Society that bought one acre of land on Wolf Island on January
19, 1799, to begin Salem

Methodist Church.

The 1800 census showed Henry's as the only Kilman family and he was listed
as having four sons

and a female between 26 and 45 years old.

In 1810, the census listed several Kilman families--Henry Sr, Henry Jr,
James, and Aron. Henry

Sr had four family members--three males: one under the age of 10, one
between 10 and 16, and one

over 45; and, one female age 45 and over. The last reference to Henry Sr in
Rockingham County was

in 1812.

Kilmans moved westward to Kentucky and Tennessee and by 1820 Henry (one
male between

70-80 and one female between 70-80) was in Monroe County, KY, and Michael
in Adair County,

KY. By 1830, Aron and James were in Overton County, TN but soon afterward,
Aron moved across

the Kentucky line to Monroe County.

Possible Family Ties

No connecion relates our Levin Kilman to any of the Kilman families. What
are possibilities?

Perhaps Henry Sr or Michael was his father.

Assume Henry Sr, Michael, and Levin (who married in Maryland in 1799) were
brothers. A

common practice was to name children after brothers and sisters.

a. Henry Sr named his youngest son (our ancestor) after his brother Levin.
James, Henry Sr's

son named his son Levin.

or

b. Michael named one of his sons after his brother Levin.



SOURCES



The Hightower Family

Sterling the elder: 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 12, 13

Hugh: 2, 6, 7, 14, 16, 19

Sterling, Hugh's son: 6, 8, 10, 15



1. "Edmond Nelson-Jane Taylor Family History" by Mansel H. Nelson, 1970
quoted in Hightower

Quest ed Janet Ricke, I:1, Summer 1996, p 10.

2. Portrait and Biographical Album, Coles County, Il, Chicago: Chapman
Brothers, 1887. p 396

3. Memorial to North Carolina General Assembly, 1798. North Carolina
Genealogy Journal,

November 1991, page 208; North Carolina Genealogical Society Journal,
2/19/1981. v 7:1, p 65.

4. "The Memorial of Sterling Hightower, 1798", General Assembly Session
Records, Nov-Dec, 1798,

Box 3:Folder ‘Petitions - Miscellaneous' at North Carolina State Archives
in Raleigh, NC as quoted

in the North Carolina Genealogical Society Journal, Nov. 1991, p 208

5. The Heritage of Old Buncombe County, Vol. 1. Pub by the Old Buncombe
County Genealogical

Society, 1981

6. Census records of North Carolina, South Carolina, Tennessee, Illinois,
Missouri.

7. Lincoln County, TN tax list 1829-1832 compiled by Helen and Timothy
Marsh Shelbyville, TN,

1981, p 35.

8. Illustrated Atlas Map, Montgomery County, IL, 1874, p 51.

9. Correspondence with C. E. (Ed) Hightower, Rocky Mount, NC, Hazel Smith,
and descendants of

Sterling, Hugh Hightower's son.

10. Conversations and correspondence with Robert and Mattie Sallee
Hightower's children and

grandchildren.

11. Five Hundred First Families of America, ed Alexander DuBin. The
Historical Publication Society,

New York, NY. 5th ed.1974-1975. Pp 59-60. Contains story about Joseph and
Benjamin Hightower.

12. North Carolina Genealogical Society Journal, Feb. 1981, V 7:1 p. 65
(Sterling as state senator)

13. Franklin County Court Records, 1832-34 (Aug. 1832 term), p 48. 14.
Sanders, Walter R.,

"Settlers in Montgomery County, IL Before 1840" (typewritten), p. 20.

15. Indiana Source Book Vol. 3 pub by Indiana Historical Society, 1982.
(Hancock family)

16. The Hillsboro DEMOCRAT, August 6,1873

17. Files of Jean (King) Galau, Neenah, Wis. 1976 (King family)

18. King Cemetery material, Montgomery County, IL Historical Society

19. Hillsboro Presbyterian Church records, September 18, 1831



The Sallee Family

1. The Family History of the French Huguenot Abraham Salle' and his
descendants. Compiled by

Jack Dalton Bailey, Harrodsburg KY. 1992

2. Conversations with Wiley Sallee's grandchildren

3. John Watts Collection (Hudgens Family Record, Book 2), microfilm, LDS
Family Library, Salt

Lake City

4. Wiley Sallee Family Gravestone in Cemetery, Oronogo, MO

The Foster Family

1. Marriage license issued in Fulton County, IL

2. Census records

3. Conversations and letters with Ona Thurman Fowler

4. Conversations with Charles Thurman

5. The Foster Family, a history published by Ella Wright,

granddaughter of Avery Foster

6. Correspondence with Elmer Foster, Jasper, MO and Evelyn Dry, Mona, UT

7. Gravestones at Carter Cemetery, Carterville, MO.; Towanda, KS



The Thurman Family

1. Conversations and correspondence with children of George W. Thurman,
with Frank Thurman,

Grandson of Frank Thurman and with Mary Tennessee Sullivan, granddaughter
of Allen Thurman

2. Tombstone Inscriptions, Jasper County, MO, Vol III. Colleen Belk. P. 89

3. The Biographical History of Newton County, MO. 1888. Pp 411-412

4. Correspondence with Walter Webb, Celina, TN

5. Confederate Military Records, Company C, 28th Tennessee Infantry

6. Guion Miller Commission on Eastern Band of Cherokee Indians. 1907

7. Cemetery headstone, Thurman Cemetery, Pea Ridge, Clay County, TN

8. Conversations and correspondence with children of George Thurman

9. Book 60, page 37. Deed Book, Jasper County.

10. Marriage Book, Overton County, TN for Milton and Julia; William and
Judith

11. Milton Thurman: death record, Jasper County Court House, Carthage, MO;
Probate Record.