CARTHAGE EVENING PRESS
Carthage, Missouri
Thursday, March 12, 1936 - Page Six
70 YEARS A CARTHAGINIAN -
TELLS OF OLD TIMES
MRS. MAY BRADER RECALLS EARLY DAY EVENTS
Carthage a Village in Ruins in 1865 But Was Rebuilt Rapidly in Succeeding Years
It was 70 years ago - less than 10 months after the close of the Civil War - that Mrs. May Foster Brader first saw Carthage. And Carthage has been her home ever since.
It was a village in ruins which the diminutive 5-year-old miss envisioned in that February day of 1866 - a village of which exceeding little had been left by the fighting and marauding forces of the War of the Rebellion.
Her remembrance is of only a few scattered houses still standing and of many partially wrecked chimneys making the spots where homes had once stood. Jumbled piles of bricks with tall weeds among them, were still in the public square, as reminders of where the brick court house had once stood.
Capt. A. Foster, Mrs. Brader's father, was a federal soldier in an Indiana cavalry regiment during the Civil War. His home was at Crown Point in the Hoosier state. With Mrs. Foster and their two daughters, he set out in the fall of 1865 for southwest Missouri, coming as far as Rolla by train and from there to Springfield by stage coach. Among their personal belongings was a piano which they had bought in Chicago, Mrs. Foster being an educated woman and an accomplished pianist. They managed to get the piano to Springfield, but there was absolutely no way of bringing it on to Carthage, and so the musical instrument was reluctantly and tearfully sold to a family in Springfield.
Houses Were Scarce in Carthage
Houses were yet so scarce in Carthage that there was no place here in which to live and so Mrs. Foster and the girls remained in Springfield while Capt. Foster came on to Carthage to engage in the real estate business and look out for a residence to which he could bring his family. In February a house was secured -at what is now the corner of Lyon and Seventh streets- and there the family took up residence.
"We lived in this house for two months," says Mrs. Brader, "and then lived a couple of months in a house at what is now the corner of Seventh and Clinton streets, by which time my father had a new house ready to move into - the lumber for which was all hauled here from Arkansas, the general source of lumber supply here at that time.
Our new house faced on a country road which is now South Grant street, and a point between Tenth and Eleventh streets. Soon afterward a storm came along and blew this house down. My father rebuilt it and this time he filled the walls with brick, the theory being I presume, that a house as weighted down would not be so easily blown away."
Asked as to what outstanding thing she remembered of her early day impressions of Carthage Mrs. Brader promptly said it was a plant of yellow chrysanthemums blooming in what is now Central Park, then an _____ cemetery. "I have never seen anything since in the way of flowers that seemed quite as pretty as those yellow chrysanthemums," she said, "I have occasion to remember, too," she added, "the ruins of the old court house in the center of the square, for I fell, from my horse and was dragged over its bricks, but fortunately was not seriously hurt.
"My father helped survey and layout the present Avilla road. We had two other main roads at that time on east to Springfield and one north to Sedalia: other roads were just country lanes. All our roads of those days were winding trails and but little improved. The first good house was the present home of Miss Helen Moore on Grand avenue. It was built by C. S. Spencer, and its present slate roof is, I think, the roof that Mr. Spencer put on.
To School on Square
"The first school I attended was in a frame building on part of the site of the Ramsay store and it was taught by Andy and Clem Shepherd. The next year I went to school in a building on the site of the present Karbe grocery on the south side of the square. That was the first public school and it was taught by W. J. Seiber. Among the pupils was Etta McMerrick, now Mrs. W. C. Betts, and I thought she was the prettiest girl I had ever seen.
Another pretty girl who was a pupil there was Louella Haughawout, now Mrs. A. J. Kirke.
"This period was too early for the horse and buggy days. Horseback riding was the popular means of getting about and I rode over the courty in and around Carthage including the present airport which my father once owned and on which he grazed sheep. All that part of the country was at that time regarded as swamp land.
"Carthage was built in a park of native oaks, and forest fires were a constant menace. We had some thrilling times battling these blazes.
In the meantime Carthage was filling up rapidly with northern and eastern people. There was only about one colored family here at that time; that was the family of Berry Blair, father of Fred Blair.
"My father, along with dealing in real estate, had gone in extensively for sheep raising, but disease hit his flocks, prices of wood and mutton went down and disaster overtook us.
I have often said that William Dean Howetts' 'Rise of Silas Lapham," a popular novel of many years ago, tells the story of our family, through there was more accent on the fall that on the rise in our case.
Prominent Men as Boarders
"It was then that my mother's musical education came in good play. By this time she had a piano and began teaching music. Her studio (though it had no such fanciful name then) was on the third floor of the new school building, which stood on the site of the present high school building and which many Carthage people will remember. She had plenty of pupils and her time was fully occupied.
"Because my mother was so busy with her music pupils our family took our meals with Mrs. Julia Stickney, who had moved in from northwest of Carthage after the death of her husband and opened a boarding house on East Sixth street. Mrs. Stickney was the mother of Robert Stickney and Mrs. Rosine Crocker. She set a fine table and enjoyed the patronage of many boarders. Among those whom I remember as gathering around her table were Samuel McReynolds, John W. Halliburton, A. L. Thomas, Judge Bowers and Dr. Hurley, then all young, unmarried men who had just located in Carthage. Because I was always will to 'talk back' they enjoyed taking jibes at me and we had some lively times.
Early Churches and Newspapers
"I well remember the organization of the First Presbyterian Church in 1867, my father and mother being the first two signers of the church roll, I was one of the first children enrolled in the Sunday school. The Rev. John L. Pinkerton was the first pastor.
"I also recall the organization of the Congregational Church here is 1869, the first pastor being the Rev. H. B. Fry, . A few years later a greatly beloved man became pastor of this church, the Rev. E. F. Fales, of Boston, a brother-in-law of John Wanamaker, the famous Philadelphia merchant. The latter showed his interest in Mr. Fales and the Carthage church by several contributions. The original church of the Congregational flock is now owned and occupied is now owned and occupied by the Lutherans. It is on Sixth street directly in only Carthage church of those early days still remaining.
"I have a vivid recollection of early day newspapers here. The first, after the war was The Banner, a Republican paper established by Thomas Garland in 1864 and later owned and edited for many years by A. F. Lewis. 'Pump' Carpenter's Patriot, organ of the Democrats, began publication in 1869, and the Banner and the Patriot had furious verbal battles. What the editors said about each other would be past belief under modern standards. When J. A. Bodenhammer started the Press in 1872, as a Greenback organ, he was outlandishly ridiculed by the older papers, but he stuck to his job and though he sold out and left Carthage, the Press, on other hands, survived both of the publications which made such light of it. Those were the days of 'personal' journalism, which happily have long since passed."
Has Had a Busy Career
Mrs. Brader, who is now attendance officer for the Carthage schools and greatly enjoys her work, has had a long and busy career including two years as teacher of music in the Marionville Collegiate Institute in 1885 and 1880 during which period and the Rev. Harvey Jones, of Carthage, graduated from that school several years in the business departments of the former Silver Review and the Carthage Evening Press; nine years with the Home Telephone Co.; five years with the Ramsay Department Store in Joplin and 14 years in the insurance business in Carthage.
For four years she has held her present position with the Carthage school district. Her work is primarily to keep children in school. Actually it involves constant effort to provide needy children with the clothing and shoes which they must have if they are able to go to school at all. She is enthusiastic in her work, is as full of energy as one of half her years and is making a marked success of what she has set out to do.
"I have just one wish," said Mrs. Brader, "That is that I may keep sound in my mind and my feet. Then I can go on with my work indefinitely."
Carthage, Missouri
Thursday, March 12, 1936 - Page Six
70 YEARS A CARTHAGINIAN -
TELLS OF OLD TIMES
MRS. MAY BRADER RECALLS EARLY DAY EVENTS
Carthage a Village in Ruins in 1865 But Was Rebuilt Rapidly in Succeeding Years
It was 70 years ago - less than 10 months after the close of the Civil War - that Mrs. May Foster Brader first saw Carthage. And Carthage has been her home ever since.
It was a village in ruins which the diminutive 5-year-old miss envisioned in that February day of 1866 - a village of which exceeding little had been left by the fighting and marauding forces of the War of the Rebellion.
Her remembrance is of only a few scattered houses still standing and of many partially wrecked chimneys making the spots where homes had once stood. Jumbled piles of bricks with tall weeds among them, were still in the public square, as reminders of where the brick court house had once stood.
Capt. A. Foster, Mrs. Brader's father, was a federal soldier in an Indiana cavalry regiment during the Civil War. His home was at Crown Point in the Hoosier state. With Mrs. Foster and their two daughters, he set out in the fall of 1865 for southwest Missouri, coming as far as Rolla by train and from there to Springfield by stage coach. Among their personal belongings was a piano which they had bought in Chicago, Mrs. Foster being an educated woman and an accomplished pianist. They managed to get the piano to Springfield, but there was absolutely no way of bringing it on to Carthage, and so the musical instrument was reluctantly and tearfully sold to a family in Springfield.
Houses Were Scarce in Carthage
Houses were yet so scarce in Carthage that there was no place here in which to live and so Mrs. Foster and the girls remained in Springfield while Capt. Foster came on to Carthage to engage in the real estate business and look out for a residence to which he could bring his family. In February a house was secured -at what is now the corner of Lyon and Seventh streets- and there the family took up residence.
"We lived in this house for two months," says Mrs. Brader, "and then lived a couple of months in a house at what is now the corner of Seventh and Clinton streets, by which time my father had a new house ready to move into - the lumber for which was all hauled here from Arkansas, the general source of lumber supply here at that time.
Our new house faced on a country road which is now South Grant street, and a point between Tenth and Eleventh streets. Soon afterward a storm came along and blew this house down. My father rebuilt it and this time he filled the walls with brick, the theory being I presume, that a house as weighted down would not be so easily blown away."
Asked as to what outstanding thing she remembered of her early day impressions of Carthage Mrs. Brader promptly said it was a plant of yellow chrysanthemums blooming in what is now Central Park, then an _____ cemetery. "I have never seen anything since in the way of flowers that seemed quite as pretty as those yellow chrysanthemums," she said, "I have occasion to remember, too," she added, "the ruins of the old court house in the center of the square, for I fell, from my horse and was dragged over its bricks, but fortunately was not seriously hurt.
"My father helped survey and layout the present Avilla road. We had two other main roads at that time on east to Springfield and one north to Sedalia: other roads were just country lanes. All our roads of those days were winding trails and but little improved. The first good house was the present home of Miss Helen Moore on Grand avenue. It was built by C. S. Spencer, and its present slate roof is, I think, the roof that Mr. Spencer put on.
To School on Square
"The first school I attended was in a frame building on part of the site of the Ramsay store and it was taught by Andy and Clem Shepherd. The next year I went to school in a building on the site of the present Karbe grocery on the south side of the square. That was the first public school and it was taught by W. J. Seiber. Among the pupils was Etta McMerrick, now Mrs. W. C. Betts, and I thought she was the prettiest girl I had ever seen.
Another pretty girl who was a pupil there was Louella Haughawout, now Mrs. A. J. Kirke.
"This period was too early for the horse and buggy days. Horseback riding was the popular means of getting about and I rode over the courty in and around Carthage including the present airport which my father once owned and on which he grazed sheep. All that part of the country was at that time regarded as swamp land.
"Carthage was built in a park of native oaks, and forest fires were a constant menace. We had some thrilling times battling these blazes.
In the meantime Carthage was filling up rapidly with northern and eastern people. There was only about one colored family here at that time; that was the family of Berry Blair, father of Fred Blair.
"My father, along with dealing in real estate, had gone in extensively for sheep raising, but disease hit his flocks, prices of wood and mutton went down and disaster overtook us.
I have often said that William Dean Howetts' 'Rise of Silas Lapham," a popular novel of many years ago, tells the story of our family, through there was more accent on the fall that on the rise in our case.
Prominent Men as Boarders
"It was then that my mother's musical education came in good play. By this time she had a piano and began teaching music. Her studio (though it had no such fanciful name then) was on the third floor of the new school building, which stood on the site of the present high school building and which many Carthage people will remember. She had plenty of pupils and her time was fully occupied.
"Because my mother was so busy with her music pupils our family took our meals with Mrs. Julia Stickney, who had moved in from northwest of Carthage after the death of her husband and opened a boarding house on East Sixth street. Mrs. Stickney was the mother of Robert Stickney and Mrs. Rosine Crocker. She set a fine table and enjoyed the patronage of many boarders. Among those whom I remember as gathering around her table were Samuel McReynolds, John W. Halliburton, A. L. Thomas, Judge Bowers and Dr. Hurley, then all young, unmarried men who had just located in Carthage. Because I was always will to 'talk back' they enjoyed taking jibes at me and we had some lively times.
Early Churches and Newspapers
"I well remember the organization of the First Presbyterian Church in 1867, my father and mother being the first two signers of the church roll, I was one of the first children enrolled in the Sunday school. The Rev. John L. Pinkerton was the first pastor.
"I also recall the organization of the Congregational Church here is 1869, the first pastor being the Rev. H. B. Fry, . A few years later a greatly beloved man became pastor of this church, the Rev. E. F. Fales, of Boston, a brother-in-law of John Wanamaker, the famous Philadelphia merchant. The latter showed his interest in Mr. Fales and the Carthage church by several contributions. The original church of the Congregational flock is now owned and occupied is now owned and occupied by the Lutherans. It is on Sixth street directly in only Carthage church of those early days still remaining.
"I have a vivid recollection of early day newspapers here. The first, after the war was The Banner, a Republican paper established by Thomas Garland in 1864 and later owned and edited for many years by A. F. Lewis. 'Pump' Carpenter's Patriot, organ of the Democrats, began publication in 1869, and the Banner and the Patriot had furious verbal battles. What the editors said about each other would be past belief under modern standards. When J. A. Bodenhammer started the Press in 1872, as a Greenback organ, he was outlandishly ridiculed by the older papers, but he stuck to his job and though he sold out and left Carthage, the Press, on other hands, survived both of the publications which made such light of it. Those were the days of 'personal' journalism, which happily have long since passed."
Has Had a Busy Career
Mrs. Brader, who is now attendance officer for the Carthage schools and greatly enjoys her work, has had a long and busy career including two years as teacher of music in the Marionville Collegiate Institute in 1885 and 1880 during which period and the Rev. Harvey Jones, of Carthage, graduated from that school several years in the business departments of the former Silver Review and the Carthage Evening Press; nine years with the Home Telephone Co.; five years with the Ramsay Department Store in Joplin and 14 years in the insurance business in Carthage.
For four years she has held her present position with the Carthage school district. Her work is primarily to keep children in school. Actually it involves constant effort to provide needy children with the clothing and shoes which they must have if they are able to go to school at all. She is enthusiastic in her work, is as full of energy as one of half her years and is making a marked success of what she has set out to do.
"I have just one wish," said Mrs. Brader, "That is that I may keep sound in my mind and my feet. Then I can go on with my work indefinitely."
CARTHAGE EVENING PRESS
Carthage, Missouri
Thursday, March 12, 1936 - Page Six
70 YEARS A CARTHAGINIAN -
TELLS OF OLD TIMES
MRS. MAY BRADER RECALLS EARLY DAY EVENTS
Carthage a Village in Ruins in 1865 But Was Rebuilt Rapidly in Succeeding Years
It was 70 years ago - less than 10 months after the close of the Civil War - that Mrs. May Foster Brader first saw Carthage. And Carthage has been her home ever since.
It was a village in ruins which the diminutive 5-year-old miss envisioned in that February day of 1866 - a village of which exceeding little had been left by the fighting and marauding forces of the War of the Rebellion.
Her remembrance is of only a few scattered houses still standing and of many partially wrecked chimneys making the spots where homes had once stood. Jumbled piles of bricks with tall weeds among them, were still in the public square, as reminders of where the brick court house had once stood.
Capt. A. Foster, Mrs. Brader's father, was a federal soldier in an Indiana cavalry regiment during the Civil War. His home was at Crown Point in the Hoosier state. With Mrs. Foster and their two daughters, he set out in the fall of 1865 for southwest Missouri, coming as far as Rolla by train and from there to Springfield by stage coach. Among their personal belongings was a piano which they had bought in Chicago, Mrs. Foster being an educated woman and an accomplished pianist. They managed to get the piano to Springfield, but there was absolutely no way of bringing it on to Carthage, and so the musical instrument was reluctantly and tearfully sold to a family in Springfield.
Houses Were Scarce in Carthage
Houses were yet so scarce in Carthage that there was no place here in which to live and so Mrs. Foster and the girls remained in Springfield while Capt. Foster came on to Carthage to engage in the real estate business and look out for a residence to which he could bring his family. In February a house was secured -at what is now the corner of Lyon and Seventh streets- and there the family took up residence.
"We lived in this house for two months," says Mrs. Brader, "and then lived a couple of months in a house at what is now the corner of Seventh and Clinton streets, by which time my father had a new house ready to move into - the lumber for which was all hauled here from Arkansas, the general source of lumber supply here at that time.
Our new house faced on a country road which is now South Grant street, and a point between Tenth and Eleventh streets. Soon afterward a storm came along and blew this house down. My father rebuilt it and this time he filled the walls with brick, the theory being I presume, that a house as weighted down would not be so easily blown away."
Asked as to what outstanding thing she remembered of her early day impressions of Carthage Mrs. Brader promptly said it was a plant of yellow chrysanthemums blooming in what is now Central Park, then an _____ cemetery. "I have never seen anything since in the way of flowers that seemed quite as pretty as those yellow chrysanthemums," she said, "I have occasion to remember, too," she added, "the ruins of the old court house in the center of the square, for I fell, from my horse and was dragged over its bricks, but fortunately was not seriously hurt.
"My father helped survey and layout the present Avilla road. We had two other main roads at that time on east to Springfield and one north to Sedalia: other roads were just country lanes. All our roads of those days were winding trails and but little improved. The first good house was the present home of Miss Helen Moore on Grand avenue. It was built by C. S. Spencer, and its present slate roof is, I think, the roof that Mr. Spencer put on.
To School on Square
"The first school I attended was in a frame building on part of the site of the Ramsay store and it was taught by Andy and Clem Shepherd. The next year I went to school in a building on the site of the present Karbe grocery on the south side of the square. That was the first public school and it was taught by W. J. Seiber. Among the pupils was Etta McMerrick, now Mrs. W. C. Betts, and I thought she was the prettiest girl I had ever seen.
Another pretty girl who was a pupil there was Louella Haughawout, now Mrs. A. J. Kirke.
"This period was too early for the horse and buggy days. Horseback riding was the popular means of getting about and I rode over the courty in and around Carthage including the present airport which my father once owned and on which he grazed sheep. All that part of the country was at that time regarded as swamp land.
"Carthage was built in a park of native oaks, and forest fires were a constant menace. We had some thrilling times battling these blazes.
In the meantime Carthage was filling up rapidly with northern and eastern people. There was only about one colored family here at that time; that was the family of Berry Blair, father of Fred Blair.
"My father, along with dealing in real estate, had gone in extensively for sheep raising, but disease hit his flocks, prices of wood and mutton went down and disaster overtook us.
I have often said that William Dean Howetts' 'Rise of Silas Lapham," a popular novel of many years ago, tells the story of our family, through there was more accent on the fall that on the rise in our case.
Prominent Men as Boarders
"It was then that my mother's musical education came in good play. By this time she had a piano and began teaching music. Her studio (though it had no such fanciful name then) was on the third floor of the new school building, which stood on the site of the present high school building and which many Carthage people will remember. She had plenty of pupils and her time was fully occupied.
"Because my mother was so busy with her music pupils our family took our meals with Mrs. Julia Stickney, who had moved in from northwest of Carthage after the death of her husband and opened a boarding house on East Sixth street. Mrs. Stickney was the mother of Robert Stickney and Mrs. Rosine Crocker. She set a fine table and enjoyed the patronage of many boarders. Among those whom I remember as gathering around her table were Samuel McReynolds, John W. Halliburton, A. L. Thomas, Judge Bowers and Dr. Hurley, then all young, unmarried men who had just located in Carthage. Because I was always will to 'talk back' they enjoyed taking jibes at me and we had some lively times.
Early Churches and Newspapers
"I well remember the organization of the First Presbyterian Church in 1867, my father and mother being the first two signers of the church roll, I was one of the first children enrolled in the Sunday school. The Rev. John L. Pinkerton was the first pastor.
"I also recall the organization of the Congregational Church here is 1869, the first pastor being the Rev. H. B. Fry, . A few years later a greatly beloved man became pastor of this church, the Rev. E. F. Fales, of Boston, a brother-in-law of John Wanamaker, the famous Philadelphia merchant. The latter showed his interest in Mr. Fales and the Carthage church by several contributions. The original church of the Congregational flock is now owned and occupied is now owned and occupied by the Lutherans. It is on Sixth street directly in only Carthage church of those early days still remaining.
"I have a vivid recollection of early day newspapers here. The first, after the war was The Banner, a Republican paper established by Thomas Garland in 1864 and later owned and edited for many years by A. F. Lewis. 'Pump' Carpenter's Patriot, organ of the Democrats, began publication in 1869, and the Banner and the Patriot had furious verbal battles. What the editors said about each other would be past belief under modern standards. When J. A. Bodenhammer started the Press in 1872, as a Greenback organ, he was outlandishly ridiculed by the older papers, but he stuck to his job and though he sold out and left Carthage, the Press, on other hands, survived both of the publications which made such light of it. Those were the days of 'personal' journalism, which happily have long since passed."
Has Had a Busy Career
Mrs. Brader, who is now attendance officer for the Carthage schools and greatly enjoys her work, has had a long and busy career including two years as teacher of music in the Marionville Collegiate Institute in 1885 and 1880 during which period and the Rev. Harvey Jones, of Carthage, graduated from that school several years in the business departments of the former Silver Review and the Carthage Evening Press; nine years with the Home Telephone Co.; five years with the Ramsay Department Store in Joplin and 14 years in the insurance business in Carthage.
For four years she has held her present position with the Carthage school district. Her work is primarily to keep children in school. Actually it involves constant effort to provide needy children with the clothing and shoes which they must have if they are able to go to school at all. She is enthusiastic in her work, is as full of energy as one of half her years and is making a marked success of what she has set out to do.
"I have just one wish," said Mrs. Brader, "That is that I may keep sound in my mind and my feet. Then I can go on with my work indefinitely."
Carthage, Missouri
Thursday, March 12, 1936 - Page Six
70 YEARS A CARTHAGINIAN -
TELLS OF OLD TIMES
MRS. MAY BRADER RECALLS EARLY DAY EVENTS
Carthage a Village in Ruins in 1865 But Was Rebuilt Rapidly in Succeeding Years
It was 70 years ago - less than 10 months after the close of the Civil War - that Mrs. May Foster Brader first saw Carthage. And Carthage has been her home ever since.
It was a village in ruins which the diminutive 5-year-old miss envisioned in that February day of 1866 - a village of which exceeding little had been left by the fighting and marauding forces of the War of the Rebellion.
Her remembrance is of only a few scattered houses still standing and of many partially wrecked chimneys making the spots where homes had once stood. Jumbled piles of bricks with tall weeds among them, were still in the public square, as reminders of where the brick court house had once stood.
Capt. A. Foster, Mrs. Brader's father, was a federal soldier in an Indiana cavalry regiment during the Civil War. His home was at Crown Point in the Hoosier state. With Mrs. Foster and their two daughters, he set out in the fall of 1865 for southwest Missouri, coming as far as Rolla by train and from there to Springfield by stage coach. Among their personal belongings was a piano which they had bought in Chicago, Mrs. Foster being an educated woman and an accomplished pianist. They managed to get the piano to Springfield, but there was absolutely no way of bringing it on to Carthage, and so the musical instrument was reluctantly and tearfully sold to a family in Springfield.
Houses Were Scarce in Carthage
Houses were yet so scarce in Carthage that there was no place here in which to live and so Mrs. Foster and the girls remained in Springfield while Capt. Foster came on to Carthage to engage in the real estate business and look out for a residence to which he could bring his family. In February a house was secured -at what is now the corner of Lyon and Seventh streets- and there the family took up residence.
"We lived in this house for two months," says Mrs. Brader, "and then lived a couple of months in a house at what is now the corner of Seventh and Clinton streets, by which time my father had a new house ready to move into - the lumber for which was all hauled here from Arkansas, the general source of lumber supply here at that time.
Our new house faced on a country road which is now South Grant street, and a point between Tenth and Eleventh streets. Soon afterward a storm came along and blew this house down. My father rebuilt it and this time he filled the walls with brick, the theory being I presume, that a house as weighted down would not be so easily blown away."
Asked as to what outstanding thing she remembered of her early day impressions of Carthage Mrs. Brader promptly said it was a plant of yellow chrysanthemums blooming in what is now Central Park, then an _____ cemetery. "I have never seen anything since in the way of flowers that seemed quite as pretty as those yellow chrysanthemums," she said, "I have occasion to remember, too," she added, "the ruins of the old court house in the center of the square, for I fell, from my horse and was dragged over its bricks, but fortunately was not seriously hurt.
"My father helped survey and layout the present Avilla road. We had two other main roads at that time on east to Springfield and one north to Sedalia: other roads were just country lanes. All our roads of those days were winding trails and but little improved. The first good house was the present home of Miss Helen Moore on Grand avenue. It was built by C. S. Spencer, and its present slate roof is, I think, the roof that Mr. Spencer put on.
To School on Square
"The first school I attended was in a frame building on part of the site of the Ramsay store and it was taught by Andy and Clem Shepherd. The next year I went to school in a building on the site of the present Karbe grocery on the south side of the square. That was the first public school and it was taught by W. J. Seiber. Among the pupils was Etta McMerrick, now Mrs. W. C. Betts, and I thought she was the prettiest girl I had ever seen.
Another pretty girl who was a pupil there was Louella Haughawout, now Mrs. A. J. Kirke.
"This period was too early for the horse and buggy days. Horseback riding was the popular means of getting about and I rode over the courty in and around Carthage including the present airport which my father once owned and on which he grazed sheep. All that part of the country was at that time regarded as swamp land.
"Carthage was built in a park of native oaks, and forest fires were a constant menace. We had some thrilling times battling these blazes.
In the meantime Carthage was filling up rapidly with northern and eastern people. There was only about one colored family here at that time; that was the family of Berry Blair, father of Fred Blair.
"My father, along with dealing in real estate, had gone in extensively for sheep raising, but disease hit his flocks, prices of wood and mutton went down and disaster overtook us.
I have often said that William Dean Howetts' 'Rise of Silas Lapham," a popular novel of many years ago, tells the story of our family, through there was more accent on the fall that on the rise in our case.
Prominent Men as Boarders
"It was then that my mother's musical education came in good play. By this time she had a piano and began teaching music. Her studio (though it had no such fanciful name then) was on the third floor of the new school building, which stood on the site of the present high school building and which many Carthage people will remember. She had plenty of pupils and her time was fully occupied.
"Because my mother was so busy with her music pupils our family took our meals with Mrs. Julia Stickney, who had moved in from northwest of Carthage after the death of her husband and opened a boarding house on East Sixth street. Mrs. Stickney was the mother of Robert Stickney and Mrs. Rosine Crocker. She set a fine table and enjoyed the patronage of many boarders. Among those whom I remember as gathering around her table were Samuel McReynolds, John W. Halliburton, A. L. Thomas, Judge Bowers and Dr. Hurley, then all young, unmarried men who had just located in Carthage. Because I was always will to 'talk back' they enjoyed taking jibes at me and we had some lively times.
Early Churches and Newspapers
"I well remember the organization of the First Presbyterian Church in 1867, my father and mother being the first two signers of the church roll, I was one of the first children enrolled in the Sunday school. The Rev. John L. Pinkerton was the first pastor.
"I also recall the organization of the Congregational Church here is 1869, the first pastor being the Rev. H. B. Fry, . A few years later a greatly beloved man became pastor of this church, the Rev. E. F. Fales, of Boston, a brother-in-law of John Wanamaker, the famous Philadelphia merchant. The latter showed his interest in Mr. Fales and the Carthage church by several contributions. The original church of the Congregational flock is now owned and occupied is now owned and occupied by the Lutherans. It is on Sixth street directly in only Carthage church of those early days still remaining.
"I have a vivid recollection of early day newspapers here. The first, after the war was The Banner, a Republican paper established by Thomas Garland in 1864 and later owned and edited for many years by A. F. Lewis. 'Pump' Carpenter's Patriot, organ of the Democrats, began publication in 1869, and the Banner and the Patriot had furious verbal battles. What the editors said about each other would be past belief under modern standards. When J. A. Bodenhammer started the Press in 1872, as a Greenback organ, he was outlandishly ridiculed by the older papers, but he stuck to his job and though he sold out and left Carthage, the Press, on other hands, survived both of the publications which made such light of it. Those were the days of 'personal' journalism, which happily have long since passed."
Has Had a Busy Career
Mrs. Brader, who is now attendance officer for the Carthage schools and greatly enjoys her work, has had a long and busy career including two years as teacher of music in the Marionville Collegiate Institute in 1885 and 1880 during which period and the Rev. Harvey Jones, of Carthage, graduated from that school several years in the business departments of the former Silver Review and the Carthage Evening Press; nine years with the Home Telephone Co.; five years with the Ramsay Department Store in Joplin and 14 years in the insurance business in Carthage.
For four years she has held her present position with the Carthage school district. Her work is primarily to keep children in school. Actually it involves constant effort to provide needy children with the clothing and shoes which they must have if they are able to go to school at all. She is enthusiastic in her work, is as full of energy as one of half her years and is making a marked success of what she has set out to do.
"I have just one wish," said Mrs. Brader, "That is that I may keep sound in my mind and my feet. Then I can go on with my work indefinitely."
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