We learned that the county library had a good genealogical department so we moved over to that location and found indexes to all of the cemeteries in the county. We located John Whitfield Cook and Mary Jane Roark Cook, my great grand father and mother in the Swars Prairie Baptist Cemetery near Seneca, MO. We then found a complete survey of that cemetery and started looking in nearby plots and found the “mother-lode” of my mother’s ancestors.

Today we set out to ride the 12 miles to Seneca and visit my mother’s childhood community and the Swars Prairie Baptist Cemetery. Now 12 miles does not normally tax us unduly. However, this is the Missouri Ozarks, and they tend to be somewhat hilly. It was cold and windy. We waited a while for the temperature to increase. We finally bundled up and set out when it reached 45 degrees. All the way over we were driving into the teeth of a 15 to 20 mph west wind. Our first choice of back road turned out to be a dead end at the freeway, so we made a two mile detour to the north. We kept looking for a road to go back south. The one we picked had a little sign alongside that said “bridge out 1 mile.” I stopped and asked the crew alongside the road if we could get through and they said “oh yes.” Sure enough at the bottom of the hill they were building a new bridge. The cat operator waved as we stepped off the road and walked the bike down to the creek bottom to see if we could wade through. Luckily there was little water and we found a dry strip to ford the bottom. Once past the digger working on the other side we returned to the road and I took a photo.

After two hours of riding we arrived at the town of Racine, MO and stopped at the gas station to warm up a bit. The cold wind and hilly terrain were taking their toll. We were 8 miles out and 6 miles yet to go and we were already bordering on exhaustion. We stopped and ate lunch and then turned around and returned to the coach. It only took us 45 minutes to ride with the wind back to the coach.

Yes, there are some times that it would be nice to have a car with us. On the other hand we feel great and when we do ride through this wonderful country we see it in detail. Even getting to ride a road with a “bridge out” sign is an adventure you wouldn’t normally have in a car.

Tomorrow we will let Arcturus zip us over to Seneca and find a nice place to stay at the local casino just across the border in Oklahoma. From there the one mile ride to the library and museum will be a piece of cake.

Bye for now, and from my ancestral tree in Newton County Missouri, we send our love to all;

Gary and Judy

We Walked Around this New Bridge on Goldfinch Road

My Grandparents and their eight children lived in a log home near here. They had running water from a spring up the hill from the house, but the house had no indoor plumbing, no electricity, no phone and a wood fueled kitchen range. It appears that my mother and her siblings walked about three miles down the nearby road to Bear Creek School. The road today is a gravel super highway about a lane and a half wide. My first memories of coming to Grandma’s was along a two rut road, axle deep in dust or mud depending on the season. The dogs would shout their greetings from half a mile away when we arrived in our green 1937 Plymouth four door sedan. Remember the backwards opening “suicide” back doors. I remember windshield wipers that paused when you pulled a hill. If it was a long hill you had to close the throttle briefly every so often to get enough vacuum to make them swipe once so you could see the road.

In the evening in front of the fireplace the “old folks” would be talking about this new baby, that job someone started or lost, the price of wheat or oats and how much money they lost because they planted the wrong thing this year, and what Truman was up to this time. I remember the roaring fire in the big old fireplace and the kitchen was always warm and cozy near the wood range. I remember Granddad chopping wood in the woodshed. He was badly stooped and shook uncontrollably with Parkinson’s. When he finally got the ax to full cock, he would drive the blade into the wood with unerring precision. Whenever I tried to help it would take dozens of swings and the end of the block looked like matchsticks.

I remember Grandma leading me up the stairs to the feather bed carrying a “coal oil lamp.” She would tuck me in and give me a kiss and then she and the lamp would leave. That was dark! I remember hearing the scream of a mountain lion up the hill from the house. I felt very small; I would shiver and slide down a little deeper into the bed.

By day we would fish the beaver dams on the “Old Bear Creek Place.” Aunts, Uncles and Cousins by the dozens would come out for a visit, and if the weather was good we would all go to the creek nearby, perhaps even where this camp ground is today, and have a grand picnic. Food everywhere and always watermelon and hand cranked home made ice-cream.

Today we drive a 34 foot motor home with built in electric generator, propane furnace, purified water and a gas range with oven. Incredibly, within a hundred feet of the camp there is a cell phone hot spot where I can get internet connection. I am sitting here on a hillside with my computer on a stump creating this blog and sending it to you.

It is a different world indeed.

With love from the old home place

Gary and Judy

Gary

Cell Phone Hot Spot near Bear Creek Camp

Bayley Lake from bluffs behind old home

Today we are going to extract “Arcturus” and the “Shop Annex” from the courtyard of my Aunt Lindie’s farm. As a teenager I came and stayed a couple different times here on this farm and helped with haying. Cousin Monty and I swapped memories of those bygone years. The same tractor that I drove then is still here now. It is an antique at 53 years old. What does that make me? This farm is a time capsule. The barn in front of our windshield held the hay and a milking parlor for half a dozen cows. Most everything is still intact. Loops of string still dangle from the beam overhead. These were looped around the tuft at the end of the cow’s tail to keep her from swatting you. I can almost smell the hay and other scents, and hear the soft rhythmic shhhhthuck…shhhhthuck of the milking machine. The echoes of those sounds have long since died away. The manure pile has decomposed and has been returned to the land. The mud of the barnyard is now lush grasses and this is a park of memories now. We will visit Aunt Lindie in the care center on the way out of town and life will march inexorably on.
Tomorrow we will cross over into Canada and a new series of adventures. Stand by for more stories.

Judy and I send our love to all.

1952 Furgeson Tractor on Ogden Farm

The Ogden Barnyard and Colville Mountain in the Distance.