I Remember ... Stories

Merlyn Amidei

I grew up in the country about five miles from Macon, but as a child I remember coming to town on Friday night or Saturday night, and if we were lucky, my brother, sister, and I would each get a nickel or dime. Sometime we would go to the Valencia Theatre to a show or stand on the corner of Linn's and watch TV then put our money together and get some store bought food at Temple Stephens or Cleaver Brothers before going back home.

My grandparents, Burley and Florence Jones, lived around the corner from Cleaver Brothers and I remember walking over to the store. Jerome Cleaver would let me wash out pop bottles in the back room and then I could get a chocolate soda or a piece of bubble gum with a baseball card in it. I still have a lot of those baseball cards today.

George Brown owned the farm where we lived so I would also visit them a lot as a little girl. They lived in the big gray house on the corner just east of where the Catholic school is now. Mr. Brown would take me clear up to the attic to a little room where he had a rocking chair and we would rock and he would tell me stories. He had two daughters, Opal and Bertha. Many will probably remember Bertha because she taught school in Macon for several years. Opal was a great cook and she use to let me "help" her make cookies. As I got a little older, she let me serve refreshments at some of her social gatherings. Mr. Brown's sister, who we all called "Aunt Mollie" lived north of the Catholic school and she had a talking parrot. It was always fun to go talk to "Polly." Polly was over 50 years old when she died and her death notice appeared in the Macon Chronicle-Herald. She was buried out where we lived and I remember attending the "funeral" holding Mr. Brown's hand.

I remember square dancing with the Progressor's 4-H Club at the Macon Centennial ... eating ice cream on the courthouse lawn on election nights ... going into Mr. Cason's Insurance office to get a drink of water out of his big jug ... having an "old maid" at Miller's Drug Store or a cherry coke at Swenson's ... attending and graduating from Macon High School ... eventually moving to Macon ... teaching here for over twenty years ... now retired and looking forward to sharing the Sesquicentennial with my grandchildren.

Maria Evans

Hi, I'll get around to my own memories later but first I'm going to share with you some memories of my late grandmother, Frances Burkhart (aka "Granny"), which she told me about when she was alive.

My great-grandfather, W.T. (Toley) Brammer, was a policeman in Macon for many years. He was a very strict man rearing my grandmother but she "got him" once in a while. Once when she was in high school she was not supposed to be out and about downtown but she was going to a Halloween party so she thought she'd risk it since it was in costume. She was with a bunch of other schoolmates in a crowd, in costume, and they were hanging around downtown. Sure enough my great-grandfather Toley came down the street on his evening rounds, making sure all the store doors were closed and locked. He walked by the crowd of teens, and my grandmother, in a slightly disguised voice, said, "Good evening Mr. Brammer," and he just said, "Good evening," without even stopping. He never realized his daughter was in that crowd.

Toley Brammer also raced harness horses (trotters and pacers) and the best horse he ever had was one named Rabbit who raced in all the county fairs in the area. Some of Rabbit's drivers were Fred Lowe and Bill Dodson. Great-grandpa Toley sold Rabbit to a gentleman in Bangor Maine, for ice racing, for the unheard of Depression-era sum of $1500.

Although my grandmother didn't have any blood siblings, she did have a "brother", Lloyd Nelson. Great-grandpa Toley found Lloyd in a boxcar when he was doing his rounds in the Wabash freight yard. His real parents couldn't take care of him anymore, so they just put him in the boxcar and sent him on his way, and he was only a small child! Nowadays you could imagine what would happen as a result of this but in the 1910's there were no child protection laws, and it was not as unusual as you might think for people to do such a thing. At the time, great-grandpa Toley and my great-grandmother Louise had no children and they didn't think they were ever going to have any, so they just took Lloyd in and reared him as their own. As it often happens when people think they aren't ever going to have kids, not long after they took Lloyd in, lo and behold, my grandmother was born!

My granny and Lloyd were nine years apart so as you can imagine, they didn't always get along. One time she was cracking hickory nuts with a hammer on the porch at their house just off Coates Street and Lloyd kept stealing the nuts before she could grab them. She said, "Lloyd, if you don't quit, I'm gonna hit you in the head with this hammer." Of course Lloyd took the nuts again ... and she cracked him in the noggin with the hammer and laid him out cold on the porch. My great-grandmother Louise came running, saw Lloyd sprawled out on the porch, and demanded, "Frances! What happened?" She very calmly explained that she'd told Lloyd if he didn't quit stealing her hickory nuts after she cracked them, she'd crack HIM in the head ... and he didn't so she did!

What my Granny really liked, though, was to spoil things with Lloyd's girlfriends. During the Depression, Lloyd worked for the Highway Department and he had just gotten his paycheck for $96.00 for a month's work. Granny had 35 cents and Lloyd couldn't rest until he had gotten her 35 cents, so he convinced her to go out to the barn and shoot craps for money. A couple hours later, Granny walked away with $96.35 ... she had tapped Lloyd out! Lloyd had a date that night and now he had no money and he was too embarrassed to tell his girlfriend what had happened so their mom called Lloyd's girlfriend and told her Lloyd was "sick" and couldn't make his date. Oh, he was "sick" alright! The next day Granny gave Lloyd his money back because she just wanted to ruin his date, she really didn't want the money.

Another time Lloyd stole Granny's brand new rose beads (rose beads were beads that were scented like roses and you could actually smell them when people were wearing them) and gave them to one of his girlfriends. This really annoyed my grandmother, so she found Lloyd's girlfriend downtown wearing the rose beads and told her to give them back since he had stolen them from her. Needless to say, Lloyd didn't fare too well with that girlfriend after that.

Lloyd was always a little spooked by the Woodlawn Cemetery. More than once he claimed he had seen something out there. One evening he ran in the house and hollered that there was a woman in white, moaning and ringing a bell out at the cemetery. Great-grandpa Toley went out there to investigate, and Lloyd's "ghost" turned out to be a loose cow that had gotten in someone's clothesline and some sheets were stuck on her horns. She also had a cowbell on - which accounted for the ringing bell - and I suppose the "moaning" was just the old cow mooing.

I guess none of this traumatized Lloyd too much because in later years he became Macon's police chief.

I never knew either of my great-grandparents; Louise died in 1938 and Toley died in 1948. I especially wish I had gotten to know my great-grandfather because I've been told I inherited his temper, his way with animals, and his occasional "soft spot" (although I've been told he didn't show that side of him very much). Some of the older fellows that I knew as a kid that are now long dead told me they'd seen Toley take a horse whip to a man who was mistreating his horse, then turn right around and talk softly to the horse and be the most gentle person with the horse, yet no man dared cross him. During the Depression, he never had the heart to arrest poor people for stealing food, he would just run them off and tell them he'd arrest them if he saw them back there.

One more story about my grandmother and then I'll quit for now ... In our family my mom and I sometimes joke that "we could have been gypsies". The gypsies (we would call them the "Roma" nowadays) used to come through Macon all the time in the 20's and 30's. Some would do odd jobs, some would sell things, and I suppose some of them stole things - although I don't want to be stereotypical. But they camped out in the Wabash freight yards by the fire, just like in the old movies. Granny decided it would be really fun to be a gypsy and she convinced a family of them that she wanted to run away with them when she left town. Oddly enough, they didn't seem to mind! So she got in the wagon with them and was headed out of town ... but she made the mistake of waving to Becca Jackson who was standing by the side of the road. Becca bee-lined it to the Brammer house and told my great-grandparents what was happening. Great-grandpa Toley got on his horse and chased the gypsy wagon down and got his daughter back. And I'm sure that was NOT a pleasant trip back to the house for her!

Anyway, these are all stories that I wish my grandmother had been alive to tell you herself, but I imagine the reason she told them to me was to keep them alive, so here they are!

Amy Dee Goosey

Probably, my most favorite memory is attached to my childhood and being with my family. I loved to go to the Macon County Fairgrounds in March and fly kites that seemed to go up into the sky forever. In May, we started our annual picnic jaunts to the Macon Lake. We always forgot something. One time, we even forgot the main course KFC chicken. In winter, my brother, 14 years my elder, would pull me in the backyard on the sled. Snow was much deeper then.

Donna Llewellyn Lester

I went to Kindergarten in 1965 and was in the morning class. Mrs. Marie Litchfield was the teacher. I really liked Mrs. Litchfield but my favorite person was the teacher's aid, Pat Douglas. Mrs. Douglas was like a mother to all of us in the class. Mrs. Litchfield was our teacher but Mrs. Douglas was the person that taught us about life and emotional matters.

I had long hair and my mother always put it up in a 'pony tail' with barrettes on each side of my head above my ears. One of my classmates, Micky, loved to pull my 'pony tail' and it hurt. Micky was really mean to me. One day, we were outside on the playground and Micky shoved me into the side of the school building. My head hit the brick wall of the building and hit one of my barrettes. I went to Mrs. Litchfield and she told me to stop crying. Trying to behave and stifle my tears - and with a severe headache - I sat down on the ground. Mrs. Douglas came over to me and asked me why I wasn't playing. I told her what happened and she immediately took me into her arms and let me cry. She also got after Micky for what he had done.

Pat Douglas was my 'hero' and she taught me that when you are a child, a hug can be the most important thing and can change a child's life. Since that time Pat has raised her own children and some of her grandchildren. I will never forget Pat Douglas, and to this day I will gladly give her a hug whenever I see her. Pat will always have my love, respect and admiration. Pat, if you get a chance to read this then please know what an important part you played in the lives of the children that you have touched. God Bless You Pat!!

Pat [Briggs] Brown

Growing up during the late 50's [good grief] was probably the best time for ANY child to grow up! Growing up in Macon made it even better. Remember when the siren rang every day at 6:45AM, then again at 7AM, noon and 6PM? And when the siren went off for a fire, it rang notifying which ward or area of the town in which the fire was so that the rest of the town didn't have to worry about it!

During the warm weather when all the kids were outside playing, the only thing we had to remember was to come home when the "lights came on"! I doubt our parents had a clue where most of us were, what we were doing, but were secure in knowing that we were ok and everyone in town watched out for all of us.

Living on Rutherford [the hospital is there now] we walked to the high school and went past the Silver Dome ... originally I think it was an observatory, but when that closed, it became a donut shop ... don't ask, I haven't a clue how the transformation took place ... but they served the BEST donuts!

During the high school years, Louie's was THE place to go after school and on the weekends. The back room had a jukebox [6 plays for $ .25] and a great dance floor. Good food in the front, too. When Louie's closed, Rexall's was the place to go. Remember the sundae called "The Old Maid" ... chocolate sauce, vanilla ice cream, chocolate sauce, chocolate ice cream, marshmallow sauce, nuts ... all for $ .15! No wonder we all needed to exercise!

Dancing at the Moonwinks [how were we able to go there when we were only 17!] ... the Pic-a-del - is that how it was spelled? What fun we all had during that time.

Thank you, Macon, for the best memories ... high school band under Mr. Sandbothe, girls' baskebtall under Coach Wilson, and Mr. Knapp, the principal. He scared me to death! He'd just lean against the lockers, and I'd be afraid to walk past him ... I hadn't done anything wrong, but he STILL instilled a sense of fear! LOL! A truly wonderful man and great principal.

Again, thank you, Macon, for a wonderful childhood!

Kristina Chanthabury

I don't have just one memory ... I have many. None really important to anyone but me. Macon is my heart. I was born in Macon on September 23, 1978. I didn't live there long but every summer I went back to visit my father Johnnie Herndon and the 'loves of my life' - my grandparents, Cleo and Billy Herndon. I grew up a hard terrible life - but my summers in Macon with my father and grandparents saved me. It was my refuge and it will always be in my heart ...

Linda Mathis

My memories of my life in Macon, center around my family, my school and going to town. My parents, sister and I lived just a mile north of Macon. I attended the Holman School for the first eight years. It was across the road from our home. As a country school all the grades were in one room. The little kids listened to the lessons of the older kids so by the time they were in the seventh grade they had heard it six times before. One odd thing was that the fifth and sixth and seventh and eight grades were combined, and one year all the students were in the sixth grade and the next year they were in were taught the fifth grade, except for arithmetic and spelling, the same for the seventh and eight. .I started in a year that enabled me to go from first to eighth consecutively, but some poor kids, went first, second, third, fourth, sixth, fifth, eighth and seventh. While this system sounds funny now, it allowed the teachers to teach fewer courses. The biggest class I remember was 5 students and occasionally there would be only one student in a grade; that poor kid had to answer all of the questions. Being in the rural school system, we were also taught agriculture in the seventh and eighth years. We learned about crop rotation, hogs, sheep, horses, chickens, which fertilizer to use, how to plow, ground cover, all that good farming information.

School started about the 25th of August and ended about the 10th of May. The school did not have fans for cooling; heating was from a double oil burner. The first years I attended Holman we didn't having running water. Later we had water piped from a cistern into the school for drinking, but still had to use the out house. I was lucky, I got to go home for lunch with my family but the others brought food wrapped in foil to warm on top of the oil stove. One memorable day, one of the kids brought a hot dog wrapped tightly in foil; as it warmed it expanded until the foil could no longer contain it and it exploded with a loud BANG and hot dog bits rained down over half the school. We picked hot dog out of our hair, clothes and books for hours. Our books were marked with greasy spots to commemorate our studies that day.

A rather quirky memory I have is getting in trouble with Mom for telling people that I was anemic because my white cells were eating my red cells! I don't know where I got that except that it was what I thought I was told ... or maybe shades of things to come?

About the middle of October the school would have a box supper. The teacher prepared a program and all the children had parts in plays, and poems to recite and songs to sing. We practiced for days, sold 'chances' on a blanket to be given to someone who's name was drawn from those who had bought a stick of gum for a nickel for one chance or 6 for a quarter and made posters to put in the windows of the stores in Macon advertising the event. All of the women in the district baked pies, cakes or breads to be auctioned as well as the boxed supper. The men bid on the items and would as likely as not tell the auctioneer to sell it again. Some things would sell two or three times, until all the money was spent. The exception to this was if a boy was bidding on a girls box, then the men would bid to a level where the boys intentions were respected but they made sure he won.

Between Thanksgiving and Christmas we got ready for the Christmas program. All the kids made presents for their parents. The teacher prepared another program for the parents; again there were poems, plays and songs. The big difference with this one was the final song was always Santa Claus is Coming to Town, and we never got the song finished because we were always interrupted by the arrival of Santa himself. He would give us an orange and candy and be on his way.

The school had an old black upright piano and most of our teachers were very good at playing it. The first 15 minutes of each school day was devoted to the Lord's Prayer, Pledge of Alliance and then singing. One of the teachers liked for us to sing hymns. No one objected. I don't know which one it was now, but I remember liking the hymn about 'gravy'. Almost every day she played and we sang hymns or patriotic songs. Now this school was surrounded by farm fields and mice were frequent visitors. One day after playing the hymns, the teacher started playing a loud rockin' boogie-woogie and out from under the piano ran this poor little mouse, it ran out into the middle of the stage and stood there shaking until she quit and then it ran back into its sanctuary under the piano.

The last class graduated from Holman in 1965, Tommy Baker, Debbie Day, Toni Main and I were in that class.

Since I didn't go very far to go to school, going to town on Saturday night to do “the trading” was an event that I looked forward to. My mother didn't drive at that time and we waited until Dad got off work (he worked 6 days a week) at 5 o'clock on Saturday night. He would get home, clean up, eat supper and we'd be off to town. We bought our groceries at Reed's Grocery. After we paid for them, the carry-out boys would take the sacks to the car, or write MATHIS on the bag with the number of sacks we had circled and put them in the window for us to pick up later. They would even put the ice cream in a labeled sack in the freezer. Usually the grocery bill came to $20 for four of us for a week, which included a carton of cigarettes for Dad.

After the groceries were bought, Mom, my sister and I would go to the stores to shop. I got a quarter allowance. At Ben Franklin, and at Mattingly's you could buy a nickels worth, or dime's worth of candy from the candy isle. I liked going to Mercer's Market, they had the best selection of penny candy, but the store was dark and it was pretty scary to go in there but sometimes I would get up my nerve and go. Most nights I meet one of my cousins and we would explore the town together. The streets were so crowded with people standing in groups talking that it was hard to weave in and around them to get to the stores. A few nights Mom would encounter so many people to talk to that she wouldn't be able to get to all of the stores she needed to so some things had to wait until the next week. Dad would always be standing outside the car leaning on the fender talking to men that he knew. There was always a cluster of old men sitting on the steps of the 'New York Store'. Although the sign on the front of the store said P.N. Hirsch, somehow those steps were named 'New York Store'.

After the shopping and visiting were done and the groceries were retrieved from the window shelf of the grocery store, we would go home and watch Gunsmoke, if we got done early (usually in the winter) we would get the see Have Gun Will Travel.

At Christmas time, the town put up a huge Christmas tree at the end of Vine Street, and there was a Santa's house there also. They had to move the police car a little to make room for it, I think. Western Auto would have a Toy Department upstairs, and Mattingly's would have a Toyland in a back room of their basement. On a Saturday afternoon there would be a parade and Santa would be in town giving sacks of candy and oranges to the boys and girls. That was the one time we would go into town with Dad when he went back to work. We would watch the parade, get our candy and go to the movie. We had to wait at the front of the theater until Mom would come to get us.

I only remember having 2 of these, the first we took to Louie's and they took my 'prescription' but didn't bring my ice cream. After a long wait, Mom took me to Swenson's and bought me one there, assuring me that Louie's would have sent my 'prescription' over there. And this one, as you can see, I saved!

Another strong memory I have is of the hot salted peanuts that were sold at Mattingly's and Rexall's from a white cabinet with a revolving tray under a bright light. Grandma and Grandpa would sometimes come over to Macon from Bevier during the week and they occasionally brought us out a bag of those wonderful nuts.

Macon was a wonderful special place, busy and full of people, things to look at and wish for – but it seems tonight I mostly remember the food, peanuts, candy, tenderloin baskets at the Bungalow, shopping for groceries, many other ice cream cones from Swenson's and cokes with my aunts and cousins at Rexall's. Comfort food? Comfort memories!!

Georgia Evans

My grandpa was Toley Brammer - my uncle, Lloyd Nelson. They were both policemen. When I was in grade school my grandpa would take me around the block with him to turn on the store lights. He would lift me up and let me turn the switch on - so I learned where all the light switches were. To a little girl, that was quite a big deal at that time. I have a lot of memories - too numerous to mention since I have lived here most of my life. I was born here, left for a while, then returned when I was in the 4th grade to Ms. Butler's class at Central School, where the fire station and police station are now.

Mrs. Eileen Foster Sieger

My grandfather and his family hail from College Mound. While going through his old photos I discovered this post card dated 1914 May - 28 October 1914. Written on the back is: "This is the last group picture taken in high school a large percent of these are attending the summer course. Julia M."

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John E. Bakke III

I remember Johnny Carr, Tiger Brown and Ralph Biberdorf running Julie Norton's drawers up the flagpole in front of the high school!

Amy Lee Goosey - Re: The Missouri Highway Patrol Radio Tower

What was classified as a 'Million-Dollar Tornado' ripped through Macon County and into Macon on June 12, 1970, and Troop B patrol's 328 foot tower was toppled. It came down with such force that the top sections were buried in the ground. Winds also removed a section of the roof on the headquarters building and there was heavy rain damage on the inside. This marked the second time the tower was struck by a tornado, the first time was in 1960.

At the height of the 1970 tornado, 23 year old Trooper William R. Brandt was killed when his patrol car slammed into the Middle Fork Bridge west of Macon. He was one of three patrolmen in the area that were tracking the storm and reporting funnel sightings. Trooper Brandt is one of only two troopers from Troop B killed in the line of duty.

Maria L. Evans - Re: The Missouri Highway Patrol Radio Tower

I remember that tornado in which the tower went down. There was HUGE hail that day the size of golf balls up to baseballs. I ran out to grab them up wearing my dad’s construction helmet, and it was one of the few times we actually WENT to the basement in my grandparents' house instead of just talking about going down to the basement. You could see the tower from their backyard, and when we went to the basement, the tower was in the horizon - but when we came out, it wasn't. Very weird! Read the whole story on the Missouri Highway Patrol and Troop B