June 7, 1987
Some years ago, Dr. Lazear Throckmorton of Chariton told me this story. It seems that he, Porter Smythe, and Joe Best on Sunday mornings walked to Derby from Chariton and back. Upon returning they ate a huge breakfast. This consisted of twenty-four pancakes as large as the bottom of a dinner plate, maple syrup, pork sausage and home-made butter, plus strong coffee. Some mornings they used mulberry jam as a change instead of syrup. It all seemed impossible to walk that eleven miles on the old south branch railroad and back for breakfast. I never did ask when they got back, but I did ask Joe Best’s wife about it and she said it was true and she did the cooking. The cakes were made from buckwheat that was set the night before. I also talked to Dr. Lazear’s mother about this. We delivered groceries to her home, which was the last house on South Grand on the east side of the street. She told me it was the truth in every detail. She also said that Lazear’s father said that it wasn’t the best thing to do health wise, but this was to no avail.
Later on, Joe Best moved to Wichita Falls, Texas, and we shipped him old-time New York buckwheat pancake flour, a thirty-pound bale at a time. It seems he couldn’t purchase it there. I am sure men with such constitutions are scarce today. I never did talk to any of the Smythes but Porter, as I felt I had proof enough. I must make it clear that each man ate twenty-four pancakes.
Here is a story about a Chariton businessman that I always like to tell about. Chariton has had lots of good businessmen, but this man did an unusual thing and a very good promotional deal. This man was Moody Smith, who had the store just north of the hotel for years. In the later years of his life when he wasn’t feeling well, sometime he would sit on the curb out front and invite me to sit and visit. I learned a lot from those visits.
When the CCC camp closed because World War II started, Moody bought a lot of furniture and fixtures at the auction. Several hundred good sturdy oak dining room chairs were sold in one lot. They went to Moody for ten cents each. On Saturday evenings or other busy times, he would set eight or ten chairs out front. If someone sat in one and came to comment how comfortable they were, or to say how nice he was to put them there, he would say, “Why don’t you take it with you?” When people saw that he was sincere, most of them did. I talked with a man last week who had three of them in his family. Acts like this are the ultimate in good will, and at such a low cost. He also bought the blackboards, and I think he just gave these away. We have one that is four by twelve feet in our basement where the children played. Someone wrote on the board: “Jan loves John.’ It is still there today. Maybe forty years ago or so it was written there. We were going to finish a room in the attic, twenty feet square, but the children wanted to play in the basement. It seems they were close to us down there.
Speaking of blackboards, Vic Anderson of our church was out by the McMains country school in southwest Lucas County, where he attended when a youngster. He peeked in and saw part of the black board was still there, although the building was used for storage for years. He contacted the owners, got the board and brought it home. Dean McNeish cut the good part of the board out, framed it, and Vic’s son Dick now has it in his home in Rolling Meadows, Illinois, for his children to write on. Vic and Mildred were really pleased that this all worked out this way. Vic said it was just like a dream.
Chariton history would not be complete without a word about the taxi companies which operated here. Probably the most unusual one was the John Williams Cab Company. It was located across the street north of Chariton Lumber Company. It was a real cab drawn by two horses and John sitting up high in the front. The cab would seat six persons, with three facing front and three facing back. It looked rather British. At each stop to load or unload, John would jump down from his high seat and open the door just as a cabbie would. I don’t know when he slept as he made all the trains and there were a lot of them. Later, he got a car and still met all the trains.
In the late thirties George Palfreyman bought a genuine Yellow Cab and worked out of Grinnie Curtis’ Tavern. This took quite a little of Williams’ business at first, but it seems his customers were loyal and came back. Dave Kidd ran a taxi for years, as did Juanita Cooper. Col Curtis used a fleet of T Model Fords to transport the basketball and football teams to games away. His headquarters were in the same building Gripp Motors is in now. He had half the front room, and Ed Anderson had a tire shop in the other half.
This Ed Anderson was the one who was with Corwin Stuart and Coach Burkholder on a fishing trip up north. There was a single accident in which Stuart and Burkholder were killed, and Anderson lived to tell the story. Some remember Anderson as Strawberry Anderson because in his later years he raised beautiful berries on his farm. The Andersons built the house where Milledges live now, the first one east of Auburn Manor.
Our ride -
The last several rides we have stayed rather close to water areas. It was time for young water fowl to appear and we saw many. We have been watching a backwater area at Colyn where carp have been trapped. There is no way out and as the water gets lower and lower, the carp will be in half water and half mud. Great blue herons will appear and kill the fish right and left. In some years as many as fifty herons have been counted there. I asked the park officer about the bad odor. He said there was no problem as the coyotes, coons, vultures, blue, green and night herons, and other animals cleaned everything spic and span. Last week, in addition to many flowers, we found a clump of beautiful wild blue iris such as we have in our yards. It’s never in the water, but near the edge. We were out four hours. Time is always too short.
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