Champion News

CHAMPION—October 22, 2007

        Champions sometimes drop their hands from the plow and their shoulders from the wheel long enough for a little diversion and a BLT over at the Junction Café in VanZant.  As it turns out people from all over had the same idea last Thursday.  Sue Murphy was there from Mountain Grovewith her mandolin, Norris Woods had his banjo and Jerry Wagner had his fiddle.  ‘Er long there were two banjos, three mandolins, a base fiddle, a dobro, and three or four guitars.  They played “Just Because,” “The Wednesday Night Waltz,” “On the Sunny Side of the Mountain,” and a great number of other songs and tunes.  The rest of the room was filled with people from far and wide.  Major Londa Upshaw who serves with the Salvation Army  in Hoona, Alaska was there.  (Hoona is 35 miles west of Juno on the Island of Chicakaff.)  Her sister, Darcy Cecil, from Boise, and their sister, Liane Upshaw Hihath, from Meridian,Idaho were there together with their Mother Betty Mae Harris, a.k.a. Susie Upshaw.  They were all planning to leave the very next day to be sure and get back home before Winter because Uncle Robert had frozen their gullets with that famous peanut butter ice cream and had made them all homesick.  Robert’s nephew, Dailey Upshaw, from Omaha, Nebraska was there too visiting with his folks and Dean.  In addition to the musicians there were near to thirty odd people enjoying the evening.  “Odd” is the key word with Robert.  Sharon was heard to say, “Don’t encourage him.”

        A note has come from a person named Eulalia Jasmin:  “Bravo with your Sesquicentennial Celebration!  I overheard them talking about the Ball and the decorations in Jean’s Healthway when I was passing through town on Saturday.  They said there would be a dozen huge tables with beautiful floral decorations and that there would be waltzes in beautiful ball gowns and bowls of floating roses.  Please be sure that those of us who were not invited to attend are not also denied the accounts of at least the Wallflowers.”  It would seem that Ms. Jasmin is an acquaintance of Cimaria Escondida who writes occasionally from Piedras Negras, MX.  They have missed connections this time.It is not known if Ms. Escondida made it to Ava for the Sesquicentennial.  Certainly there was a crowd.  Champion, Eva Powell, said that it was the best parade that she had ever seen anywhere.

        Another note from Darrell Haden who is happy that excerpts from “The Headless Cobbler of Smallett Cave” are appearing in the Herald.  He says“The series has brought a letter from my cousin Robert Haden of Hartville and a telephone call from Howard Bailey of Ozark.  Bob will send notes he made from visiting with his grandfather, G.W.O. Haden.  Mr. Bailey described an encounter with the Headless Cobbler in the fall of 1941.  He is the grandson of a man I remember from my childhood, Dr. Daniel Near.  He was affectionately know as “Dan” or “Dad” Near. I remember his vineyard between our home and Rome.  His grandson, Howard Bailey, moved from Rogersville in 1932 and to near Good Hope in 1935 after three years at Rome.”

        Esther’s gooseberries are in the ground at last.  Her friend, Sharon, came over and got them planted before the last rain.  It was perfect timing.  It is pleasing to see that there are a few persimmons showing up after all.  Competition for them will be stiff, though, and wild things that might not ordinarily go for them will be happy for anything they can get this year.  Dustin Cline allows as how the antelope is tasty and was happy to report having killed a turkey.  A large flock of geese were seen flying over Champion on Sunday afternoon.  They had better keep their altitude over these parts as there are always itchy trigger fingers in Champion.  October’s Full Moon is called the Hunter’s Moon.  In a paper published weekly in Kansas City, former Champion Rich Heffern, talks about eating locally and eating well.  He says that in addition to tasting better and being healthier, locally grown food takes much less ‘fossil fuel’ to produce.  His research showed that the average food item travels over 1,500 miles.  Esther will just have to go a few feet out her back door for her gooseberries next year.  She still has tomatoes on her vines.  Another Champion’s Little Green Bean House is still producing green beans though the frost will get it sooner or later.

        So far in October 28 US Service People have lost their lives in Iraq.That brings the total to 3,834. That is a lot of empty places at supper tables back home.  Sergeant 1^st Class Richard S. Gottfried from Lake Ozark lost his life there on March 9^th, 2004.  There are a number of categories of wounded:  hostile and non-hostile, those requiring medical air evacuation and those not.  Among the Army, Navy, Air Force and Marines of the United States there are many thousands of wounded people from that conflict.  Expressions of Love and Gratitude to them for their sacrifices and to the survivors of those not returning will always be appropriate.

        Encouragement of any sort and descriptions of the ball are welcome at Champion Items, Rt. 2, Box 367, Norwood, MO 65717.  Any kind of good news about Champions can be emailed to Champion News.  Jeff and Barb were home over the week end helping their Mom stack firewood and enjoying memories of the wonderful place that is Henson’s Store in the heart of Champion….Looking on the bright side!

CHAMPION–October 14, 2007

        As if Champions were not still reeling from their trip to the “edge of the world” at the Pioneer Descendants Gathering, many ventured over to Mountain Grove for the Quasquicentennial and Autumnfest on the week end.  It was reported to have been an excellent celebration with many renewed old acquaintances and interesting sights to see.  Coming on the heels of Norwood’s Farmer’s Day and just before Douglas County’s Sesquicentennial Celebration to be held the 19^th – the 21^st, it is apparent that organizers of these affairs are not concerned about getting their work done this Fall.  Perhaps they are on top of their harvest time chores or maybe they have hired hands to do the work.  Champions, like country people everywhere, are easily drawn off to town this time of year leaving their shovels in the manure piles and their forks in the hay.  With the lure of an undisclosed number of $150.00 cash prizes to be awarded willy-nilly and the spectacle of the costumes and hope of meeting old friends seldom seen , the sweet potatoes that ought to have been dug by now and the firewood that should be in can wait.  Someone remarked that the hard freeze last Spring has made harvest time easier this year with so few walnuts and not a persimmon or apple to be seen.  With no dogwood berries to speak of and few pawpaws, the wild critters are likely to have a hard time of it this winter.  So Champions flounce off to town to socialize and leave the wild things to harvest what little there is to be had.

        That’s what the folks attending the Alsup, Ousley, Livingston Reunion on the 13^th did.  Tom Alsup told a good story about his Dad, Noël Alsup, when they had the farm at Denlow.  Judy Kent and Mary Martha Williams kept the family laughing which has usually been Robert Upshaw’s job.  He made a fair showing of it however, and family from as far away as Alaska and Idaho enjoyed the day.

        Harley Krider is about to have a birthday.  He is not as old as his brothers but he is much older than most people in Champion.  He is an absentee cattle farmer living off in Illinois leaving family and neighbors to keep track of his interests here.  It is to be reported that the new Angus bull, Alexander the Great (perhaps), has made himself quite at home and seems to have a lovely domestic arrangement with the numerous cows and calves in the herd.  There are pictures of him circulating on the internet taking his ease by the pond with his harem busy by grazing and gestating–such a peaceful pastoral scene.

        Foster Wiseman spent some time in Champion over the week end.  He is learning about climbing that steep hill and running down it.  Over the years many a Champion has sped down that hill sometimes hanging a toe and face planting in the dirt with lunch buckets and McGuffey Readers flying.  Foster has been cautious, however, and so far has enjoyed the thrill of speed without mishap.  He was heard singing, “Sadie’s got her new dress on,” to Dustin Cline who is still loitering about the neighborhood when it pleases him to do so.  He has just returned from a trip to Colorado where he killed antelope which were just playing as they do in the song:  “….where the deer and the antelope play.  ”He came close to shooting a little duck and was heard talking about the fun it would be to ‘plink off’ little prairie dogs.  As to the duck,it was unclear whether he was just considering shooting it or if he had shot and missed.  Local turkeys don’t seem especially worried.

        The sumac is just dripping red, sassafras is starting to change color and some dogwoods and oaks are finally taking on the autumn hues.  This has been an unusual year weather-wise.  Al Gore won the Nobel Peace Prize for saying the world is getting warmer.  Colin McEvedy and Richard Jones published the Atlas of World Population in the Penguin press.  According to them in 30 A.D. there were 170 million people in the whole world.  Right now the United States has almost twice that many people and the whole world boasts six thousand million people….that is six billion people—the number six and nine zeroes.  Since people are mostly made up of water (65% by some accounts), someone said that’s where all the water is going and that’s why its getting so warm.  (He’s thinking of them all standing around together in a line at Silver Dollar City.)  Population density in Champion is still pretty sparse and for as long as it stays that way Champions will be glad.  It is a relative term, however, and Champions are glad when their kinfolks move home and glad to welcome new neighbors.  The world is changing fast but things are still pretty mellow in the hills and hollows in the middle of Douglas County, Missouri.

        It is not so in other places.  Three thousand eight hundred and twenty nine US. Service Personnel have lost their lives in Iraq so far.  Sixty eight of them have been from Missouri.  Everybody is from somewhere and Champions continue to send Love and Gratitude to all those serving their country in the dangerous places or just far from home places.  Still no word has come from Champion’s soldier, Staff Sergeant Raul Moreno who is serving in Afghanistan.  It may be that he has been transferred or that his time is up.  Until their mail gets returned to them though,  Champions will continue to write to him at SSG Moreno, Raul / 4-319^th TF SABER / FOBB NARAY / APO AE 09354.

        There is an old fellow in Champion who has been invited to his 50^th high school reunion.  It would be a long trip to get there and cost quite a bit of money, but it could be done.  He has decided not to go though, because he says that he remembers his classmates as having been young, beautiful, vital people and he doesn’t fancy looking at them all old and unhealthy and saggy.  He doesn’t want to know that their lives turned out any other way than the way they all thought it would be when they were kids together.  Somebody said that he just doesn’t want to have to report on his successes and failures or to have his accomplishments compared with others for fear that he wouldn’t measure up.  Apples and Oranges.  Could a person hope to accomplish more than a tranquil life on the side of a hill in Champion with spring water flowing down and the seasons changing?  The Dali Lama is visiting in the United States.  He lives in exile and has not been to his home in Tibet since 1959.  He was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize in 1989 and accepted it on behalf of oppressed people everywhere.  He says that he believes in hoping for the best and preparing for the worst.  His residence is maintained in London where it is getting damp and chilly this time of the year.  It sounds like he would fit in quite nicely in Champion and the weather is better here.

        It would be good weather to plant the gooseberries that Esther Wrinkles received for her birthday if they aren’t in the ground already.  Inquires will be made and services offered.  So much of next spring’s garden has to do with what gets done this fall.  Linda, over at the Plant Place in Norwood, has some excellent suggestions about soil amendments and preparing the garden for winter.

        Suggestions and inquiries are welcome and people or things that would fit right in Champion can be reported to Champion Items, Rt. 2, Box 367, Norwood, MO 65717.  Spectacles of any sort, examples of flouncing, and of tranquil or pastoral scenes may be emailed to Champion News.  Sunday the 21^st of October is the birthday of Anna Henson who was born in 1905.  She passed away when she was 77 years old and Champions miss her still.  Enjoy some fond memories of her and Ed at Henson’s Store in the Heart of Champion…where like the Dali Lama….Champions are looking on the Bright Side!

CHAMPION – October 7, 2007

        The “pull of the past” pulled many Champions all the way to Yates for the fifth annual Pioneer Descendants Gathering on Saturday and Sunday.  Betty and Dale Thomas host this charming event on their farm that boasts a mile of Bryant Creek running through it.  The weather was unseasonably warm and those attending strolled slowly around the perimeter of the expansive fields viewing the many exhibits and demonstrations.  It was a treat to see a horse drawn sickle bar mower in action.  There are plenty of them around rusting in farm yards being overgrown with briars or being used as landscape features, but to see one sailing along the edge of a field of tall grass behind a pretty pair of horses is just a delight.  As the grass lays right over, the driver, perched on his spring seat, looks as comfortable as can be.  That may not be the case, but there are few these days who know for sure.

        Over the course of the two days Levon and Karen Lambert ground 120 pounds of corn meal both yellow and white.  Levon has a gas powered grinder that’s a little on noisy side but the cornmeal is choice.  He said that when he was a kid living up Fox Creek from Champion his family would sit around the heat stove and shell corn.  When they got a toe sack full his Dad, Furley Lambert, would carry it down to Henson’s Store.  Ed Henson had a big old ‘hit & miss’ mill and he would grind their corn.  He also said that his Grandmother Lambert would grate corn from the cob on a grater that was used for cutting cabbage.  She would make corn cakes on the wood stove which he said were delicious.  When asked how long he had been grinding corn, first he said, “Well, yesterday and today,” then he said, “Quite a while.”  (Harlan Davis said that Levon Lambert could remember when rainbows were in black and white.)  Not to be missed are Karen’s lovely corn-husk dolls.  The pioneer ideal of utilizing everything available is exemplified in her deft crafting of these beautiful pieces.

        “Home is the ultimate value that humans venerate,” someone said recently.  Kirk Dooms met his Aunt Esther Wrinkles at the Pioneer Gathering and took her on a short ride over to the old homeplace of some of their ancestors and it was a real treat for her to touch this home base again.  Sometimes just a short time away from Champion can cause a great longing for home though the journey be a pleasant one and full of happy meetings and alluring sights.  Wandering Champions now home include Fae, who spent her birthday in Branson kicking up her heels.  Her sister, Kaye, had her heels wet out in the Atlantic Ocean.  It will be interesting to learn if Richard rolled up his britches legs to step out into the surf.  They spent Sunday with their niece, Linda, over in Murfreesboro , TN and then headed home.  Louise sashayed over to Poplar Bluff and came home with a new car for her birthday.  Zoey Louise, who has the same birthday also has a new car for her birthday, though hers’ is pink and has pedals.

        A court mandated trip to Ava brought a Champion some splendid adventure in the big town during the last week.  With jury duty canceled this Champion was left wandering about on a fairly deserted Monday morning Square and was brought up short to see a roadrunner in the storefront of Memory Lane, Antiques, Etc.  The startled Champion pulled out her digital camera and maneuvered perilously into the street to attempt a photo.  The bird was too fast, however, and soon was perched on the window sill of the florist on the North East corner of the square.  As the photographer approached and without so much as a “Beep Beep!” the chaparral cock crossed the street and made as to enter the law offices there.  A woman exited the door about that time and the bird took a quick left and ducked around the corner and then up the alleyway parallel to the North side of the square.  It was an exciting moment…it all happened so quickly.

        There were Civil War re-enactors at the Pioneer Gathering in authentic dress and armed with some of the best weapons of that time.  A conversation was overheard at the Gathering about a new weapon which is a bomb that only destroys magnetic fields.  “The implications are enormous,” they said.  All electricity would go down including everything with an alternator or a generator, every computer and ATM machine, cash register, dialysis machine and on and on.  It certainly gives pause for thought.  A family sending their boy off to the Civil War did so with the understanding that they might never see him again and might never know what happened to him.  Today CNN and other entities have websites on the internet that routinely post the names and photographs of those killed in action.  It is a different world now.  One searching through the alphabetical listings of those names with morbid trepidation hopes not to find the name of a family member, friend or loved one.  Just in Iraq since the conflict began 3,811 fatalities have been confirmed by the Department of Defense with four additional as yet unconfirmed.  Two countries to the east of there in Afghanistan, Champion’s own soldier, SSG Raul Moreno Jr. is serving over on the north east border with Pakistan at FOB Naray.  Love and Gratitude go out to him from Champion Friends and  to all his fellow Soldiers serving there and in every dangerous place.  Cards and letters of encouragement and appreciation can be sent to him at SSG Moreno, Raul /4-319 TF SABER / FOB NARAY / APO AE 09354.  It just takes a regular 41¢ stamp.  His email address is: raul.morenojr(at)us.army.mil  Some others who are serving on active duty from this area are Seth Barbe, Keith Baty, Adam Bresler, Christopher Brown, Dustin Brown, Andrew Dale, Chad A. Davis, David Fry, Clay Hatcher, Thomas Hutchinson, Brian Jarrett, Daniel Keene, Timothy Kelly, Cory Morris, Trevor Pence, Amos Reed, Matthew Rossignol, Lyndall Spangler, Arlin Stigall, Brian Thompson, Matthew Thompson.  There are many more as well as this new war touches every neighborhood in the land.  Every Soldier who serves is a Champion.  Anyone wishing to have a Soldier’s name appear in the Champion Items may send it in my mail or email together with any other information about him or her.

        Comfortable things, venerable things, or things that pull, sashay, or allure are welcome to be reported to Champion Items, Rt. 2, Box 367 Norwood, MO 65717.  Startling things or things that happen quickly need to be emailed to Champion News.  They don’t grind corn at Henson’s Store any more, but there is frequently someone there who remembers when they did over on the North Side of the Square in Champion—Looking on the Bright Side!

The Headless Cobbler – Episode One

        This year marks the fortieth anniversary of the publication of THE HEADLESS COBBLER OF SMALLETT CAVE:  The Origin and Growth of a Douglas County, Missouri Legend.  It was written by Walter Darrell Haden of the University of Tennessee with pen and ink illustrations by the author.  It was published by THE KINFOLK PRESS, of Nashville, Tennessee in 1967.

        Walter Darrell Haden was born and reared within “hollerin’” distance of Smallett Cave.  A graduate of Ava High School, he studied at Missouri University and at Southwest Missouri State College for his B.S. degree and at Northern Illinois University for his M.S. degree.  He taught grade school one year in his home community, high school English nine years in Sterling-Rock Falls, Illinois, and college English for one year at Belmont College in Nashville, Tennessee.  He has done graduate work beyond the M.S. degree at Illinois Stat Normal University, Purdue University, and at Vanderbilt University.  He was a professor of English at the University of Tennessee at Martin until his retirement last year.  His prose has appeared in the Tennessee Philological Journal, the White River Valley Historical Journal, the Secret Place, and the Douglas County Herald;  his poetry in the Denver Post, the Chicago Tribune, Springfield (Mo.) Daily News, Colorado Springs Free Press, and Towers Magazine;  his songs recorded and published by major companies in Nashville, Tennessee.

        Mr. Haden has graciously given his permission for excerpts of his book to be published in the Herald over the next few weeks in commemoration of the fortieth anniversary of its publication.  The book also ties in nicely with the Sesquicentennial Celebration of Douglas County particularly as Halloween approaches.

        So it begins:  “On a dark night a strange light is seen and a tapping echoes from the depths of an Ozark cave.  The observer with imagination and a sense of the past is returned to tales and times of the American Civil War in the Missouri Hills and to the hardy race whose superstitions created a “hant,” the Headless Cobbler of Smallett Cave.

        Beginning in its second century, the legend this book follows depends for its existence upon what is probably the most mysterious geographic feature in Douglas County, Missouri’s Springcreek Township, Smallett Cave.  The legend is a local invention based upon real persons and historical happenings,  but it may also be a reworking of elements from older folk tales, both indigenous and imported.

        Theories concerning the origin of folk stories in general, as well as the reasons for their evolution, are studied in order to determine why the Headless Cobbler Legend has grown when and where it has in Douglas County, Missouri.

        The author is asked sometimes how far back into the cave he has explored.  His “Not beyond the mouth” is something more than a pun.  It may be further evidence with which Mr. Haden supports a central thesis of his book:  that those who first told the Headless Cobbler Legend intended the tale to last.

        Next week look for the first of several installments of The Headless Cobbler of Smallett Cave! 

And the tale involved a staccato tapping from within the cavern coming from the hammer of a phantom shoemaker—the “Headless Cobbler.” 

The Headless Cobbler – Episode Two

        The Headless Cobbler is rumored to have made his first appearances at the Smallett Cave during the American Civil War.  Allegedly, passersby could hear sometimes during the early hours of the evening a distinct staccato tapping like that of a hammer bradding tacks through leather on a shoe last.  Superstitious reporters of the cave spook have held that the apparition never appears before the dusk of the day, if not later in the evening, tramping along the roads and banks adjacent to Springcreek.  The Cobbler is reported to have for a head only a dangling clump of shoes.

        One of the earliest and most prevalent stories bout the Headless Cobbler originated with the writers great-grandmother, Mrs. Rezin Moten (Frances Indiana [Kay]) Haden, who died January 3, 1932.  Her eldest son, and the writer’s late grandfather, Walter D. Haden, recounted the following story in an interview at his home in Ava, MO, December 22, 1960:

        Ma and a renter’s wife—Mrs. Hall, I believe—were on their way to sit up with a woman who was dying with consumption—Mrs. Cloud, I think.
        The two women were walking up the road from alongside Springcreek and the old cave across from it.  Ma told us later that just about “dusky dark” a man without a head stepped out into the road in front of them.  On one of his shoulders he had a Bible.  As the two women and the headless man met, he didn’t say a thing, Ma said, but the women lit out, and the strange man walked on in the opposite direction.  They hurried on east to the Cloud home, where later that night the sick woman died.  Mrs. Hall, M, and her sister, Aunt Julia Sellers, laid out the corpse for burial while the menfolks started work on a casket.  It was a hot night, so the womenfolks, when their work was done, sat down in some cane-bottom chairs to cool awhile in the yard of the home.  Ma had leaned back in her chair while she smoked her clay pipe.  All of a sudden from between the back of her chair and the side of an old earthen cellar, a commotion began.  At first she thought that it was the headless hant.  I reckon for a while there was almost another woman to be laid out.  But then she found out it was just her chair mashing a calf that had been dozing alongside the cellar.  The calf lit out, and so did Ma.

        This is just one of the numerous accounts of the ‘hant’.  The folk legend is quite alive even in these days when sensational entertainment is everywhere.  Folk tale collector, Mary Hill Arbuthnot, says that the magic of the folk tale casts it spell and spells and enchantments are accepted as casually by children as airplanes and television.

        Mr. Haden goes on to say that it is probable that children in the distant future may hear folk tales about lunar exploration and laser beams.  The vitality of the folk story points to the continuing cultural importance of our oral literature. 

The Headless Cobbler – Episode Three

        “In an interview at Ava, Missouri, December 22, 1960, Walter D. Haden, grandfather of the author recalled his experience hardly a half-mile from the cave:  Teen-age Walt Haden and his double-first cousin Porter Haden were riding their horses home up a bridle path northwest of Springcreek and the Smallett Cave.  The time was ‘late at night.’  Their path veered to the right at “a spring under a big white oak tree, a nice one—butt cut would’ve made eight to ten posts.  My horse stopped, pricked up his ears, and stood stock-still.  Something like a man was in front of us.  Porter’s horse didn’t move.  Then the thing began to float away like it didn’t have a foot on the ground.

        “’What the hell was it?’  Porter asked me.  I couldn’t tell him and can’t to this day.  But when it moved, I knew it wasn’t another horse or brute.  I popped the spurs to my horse, and we went up that hill.  We didn’t hitch any horses either when we got to the house.  Pa had to do it for us.

        Walt’s father, Rezin M. Haden, asked the boys what they were excited about, but neither could answer.  Porter had intend to ride on home alone, but he decided to spend the remainder of the night with his cousin.

        “Recalling in this interview a related incident involving his father, the Late Rezin M. Haden, the writer’s grandfather continued:  “Paw as coming down the creek road one night just before he got to the country road.  His stallion, ‘Popcorn,’ stood sixteen hands high.  That horse began to shay ant to wan to sidle the other way as Pa rode under a tree.  Something was flapping in the treetop above his head—an eagle maybe.  Whatever it was flapped out of the tree and on toward the cave.  Pa came back the next morning, but he couldn’t find any trace of what had scared his horse.

        On December 28, 1962, at his home in Ava, Missouri, W\G. W. Owen Haden, brother of the writer’s grandfather, spoke of how “Uncle” Jimmy McHolland and a neighbor riding horseback from a revival meeting at Springcreek Church had heard the hoof beats of a horse approaching from the opposite direction.  Before the men could get their horses over to the side of the road, they were met by a strange horseman who cantered between the two riders, passing so close that his two witnesses could see that he lacked a head.  This appearance allegedly occurred along the old road which followed the course of Springcreek.

        “Another sighting of a Smallett Cave ‘hant’ is told of James Gray.  The man had been a way from his home near Smallett for several moths during the mid-1920’s.  Returning late one night to his home on the hill above the cave, he though he saw an apparition between him and his father’s home:  Jim was coming home late a-foot one night.  He got down there to the cave on his daddy’s place when he saw something white moving back and forth between him and the house.  He’d go one way, and this thing would too.  Jim kept monkeying around till he got scared.  So he finally gave up and spent the rest of the night on the back steps of Doc Osborne’s office at Smallett.  Next morning he found his dad’s old gray mare grazing where he had seen the ghost the night before.  ‘That’s Nell!’ he said…….’.She’s jumped in Dad’s oats!’” 

The Headless Cobbler – Episode Four

        Hunters have been among the most frequent reporters of strange sights and sounds about the cave.  One night early in this century (the 20^th), the Sellers brothers—John, Ernest, and Edgar (all now deceased)—went possum hunting back into Smallett Cave.  Soon their dogs came piling back toward the mouth of the cave, howling a retreat:  “The dogs were just raving.  The men saw something, too, back in the dark, but they couldn’t make out what it was.  Whatever it was keep its distance, and their rocks seemed to go right trough it.”

        Mrs. Byron (Anna Phipps) Cory of McClurg, Missouri, in an interview at her home December 26, 1962, said that her brother-in-law, Bert Hodges, and his son Bill were possum hunting near the entrance to Smallett Cave one winter night a year or more before the interview.  Mr. Hodges and his son reported hearing repeatedly in the distance the clopping of horses’ hooves in the gravel bar of Springcreek, but no horse or any further indication of a horse ever appeared.

        Because of its isolation and a good deal of lawlessness over the years, Douglas County sometimes has been called, unofficially, “Booger County.”

        Since Civil War times the Smallett Cave has been the focal point for many strange sights and sounds, generally reported through the years to have occurred either at dusk or shortly thereafter.  Although this research has brought to light oral accounts of one suicide and two murders within the radius of one-half mile of the cave, no reports of any violence within the cave itself have been found.  The writer has observed, though, that many of the community’s stories of violence and the supernatural tend to converge upon the Smallett Cave and give its locale an atmosphere of the dread and mysterious.

        Generally any story recalled concerning Smallett Cave is connected with the unknown or the unexplained.  As recently as June 10, 1965, Orloff P. Haden, son of the late Porter Haden, mentioned an interview at Ava, Missouri, that as a boy he had often heard that a headless man had been seen near the entrance of Smallett Cave.  He remembered, as well, a rumor of about a dead man’s (head) being found back in the cave at one time, although he had never heard the details.

        According to the late Rev. C.V. Turner—who was ninety-three at the time he was interviewed December 23, 1960, in his suburban Ava, Missouri home—one James Turner (no relation) was murdered some ninety years earlier in the vicinity of the Smallett Cave.  The murdered man had lived in a double-log house with an “entryway” between its parts, situated near the present site of the Smallett Store and former United States Post Office on a hill approximately a quarter mile west of the cave.  Bystanders heard the gunfire and guessed that someone had been shot.  “Someone must be drawing his rations early,” one remarked.  Rev. Turner recalled hearing that those who ran to investigate found brains blown against the wall and Turner lying dead on the floor.  The informant could not recall who had murdered the man or what the motive for the crime had been.

        The writer’s grandfather explained during the interview with Rev. Turner that the murdered man’s first wife was an Indian half-breed who had left, among other offspring, a blind daughter.  He remembered hearing as a boy that those who had seen this girl at her home near the cave allegedly had described her as “crazy.” 

The Headless Cobbler – Episode Five

         “After the evening service (the writer’s father ) and his girlfriend had accepted a car ride with another young couple to the home of his girlfriend.  After seeing the young woman home, it was then his not so pleasant task to walk a quarter mile back from the county road to the then-deserted church, retrieve his horse, and ride home.  Just as he started to untie the reins from the fence, his horse began to shy and snort.  His hat seemed to rise, the writer’s father recalls, as his hair stood on end.  Without seeing what had frightened his horse and himself—quite possibly an animal or the white glimmer of a gravestone—he mounted his horse and rode one of the fastest miles he had ever made horseback from Springcreek Church to his father’s barn.”

        Factual basis for the Headless Cobbler Legend came from “Aunt” Mary (Hunt) Pratt, in an interview at her home between Smallett and Rome in the mid1940’s.  “An ‘old man’ Evans sometime during the Civil War moved his shoe leather and cobbling gear back into the Smallett Cave at the foot of his property.  Cobbler Evans has his reasons for making shoes back in the cave:  he had a good-sized family to feed and keep shod, and neither he nor his leather and tools were safe from rebel soldiers and bush-wackers outside the cave.  So, safe from discovery, the shoemaker worked through the daylight hours back in the Smallet Cave, often returning to his home after dark.

        “Mrs. Pratt, who died in 1957, could not recall cobbler Evan’s given name, but later the writer’s mind the name of “Uncle” George Evans; whose eccentricities have colored stories told around Smallett until this day.  Alleged by some to have been a recluse, George Evans is said to have worn his shoes on the wrong feet on alternating days in order to prolong the life of the leather.

        A direct descendant of the cobbler Evans, Earnest Evans, corroborated the story given several years earlier by the late Mrs. Mary Pratt.  “He said that as a boy he had more than once heard his grandmother Margaret Barnes laugh and say that there was no truth in the old stores about a headless man’s being in Smallett Cave.  Margaret Evans before she was married to Earnest’s grandfather Barnes, she had said the cobbler was her own father.  During those troubled days in Douglas County, Wesley Evans had gone back into the cave to work until nightfall, because rebel guerrillas were taking pot shots at any man not for the Confederate cause.  Ernest Evans recalled hearing that his great-grandfather did not move around much outside except under cover of darkness.  The cobbler’s great-grandson supposed that there were not many rebels who would have wanted to go back into the Smallett Cave even had they known that a Union sympathizer was back there.

        “The writer finds it not difficult to understand how superstitious travelers, passing along the creek road near the Smallett Cave at twilight or during the early hours of evening, might have mistaken the shoe-burdened figure of Wesley Evans for that of a headless cobbler.  Loaded down under the weight of leather, tools, or perhaps the work of several days’ cobbling, his strange silhouette could understandably have appeared headless.  It was probably not difficult to associate such a sight, coming as it apparently did from Smallett Cave, with the dark, the dread, and unknown.  Thus, witnesses needed to believe in the existence of a headless shoemaker in order to explain such an irrational sight as that of the benighted shoemaker, but their belief depended upon an already existing tendency of the folk mind toward superstition.”

Exploring Mr. Haden’s book has been a pleasant undertaking from which readers of the Herald have benefited.  Look for a copy in the Douglas County Library:  THE HEADLESS COBBLER OF SMALLETT CAVE:  The Origin and Growth of a Douglas County, Missouri Legend, by Walter Darrell Haden.