Bolivar Memories
Many wonderful days were spent in Bolivar during my childhood. Starting
about age five my parents packed me off to the grandparents for two to four weeks at a time, sometimes twice a summer. I had
two sets of grandparents in Bolivar and various aunts, uncles and cousins depending on the time.
My earliest recollection of Bolivar was about three years old, which
would be 1933. Looking back I feel privileged to have had a peek of the nineteenth century, as time seemed to advance slower
in the Ozarks than other places. The small frame house at 512 N Wilson St housed the Hendershot family starting in 1918 when
granddad Hendershot moved his family to town from the family farm four miles north of town.
The house consisted of four rooms, the living room (parlor), bedroom,
family room and kitchen. (I use the term family room only because I cant think of a better description. The family never had
a name for the room. It was just the center of the house and the center of activity.) In addition there was a sleeping loft
attic, lean-to back porch and a root cellar. The front had a porch stretching the width of the house and a large porch led
to the family room. Most of the foot traffic entered the house through the family room and the rest through the back porch
and kitchen. The front door was seldom opened and the porch used only as a play area for the kids.
The kitchen was filled with a large wood fired cook stove and a big
rectangular table that would seat ten. This filled most of the area but somehow Grandma and her girls managed to prepare giant
meals for the family and guests. There was no electricity or running water so the back porch was furnished with a crock filled
with water from the well and a small icebox that had ice when required. Light came from kerosene lamps. The family room contained
Granddads desk, a potbellied stove in the winter, a couch and a couple of chairs. It also had the telephone, which was the
old crank type and mounted on the wall near the door.
The parlor was never used except as a bedroom for out-or-town guests.
It also held the Christmas Tree. Every Christmas granddad or one of the boys would go to the woods and find a fine cedar tree
for Christmas. It would be set up in the parlor and Grandma would decorate it with home made trinkets, some of which were
many years old. It was Grandmas plan that the tree would stay up until all the siblings came home to see it. This often took
months and it was not unusual for the tree to come down on the first of September.
To the west of the house was the barn and barnyard. This is where Pete
and Roxy, granddads mule team lived. Granddad was in charge of county roads and Pete and Roxy pulled the wagons and the grader
that Granddad used. It was a big thrill for me to go to the barn with Granddad and ride Pete out to where he was hitched to
the wagon. On occasion Granddad would take me with him when he went into the countryside to load his wagon with gravel. He
would park the team and wagon in a stream bed and load the wagon with a shovel. I would spend the time playing in the water,
chasing pollywogs and throwing stones. We would be home by noon for dinner.
As I grew older I became more independent and branched out over town
on my own. I used Uncle Homers bike, which was much too big for me. My feet wouldnt reach the pedals so I put one foot on
a pedal and pushed myself around with the other. My favorite destination was the town swimming pool, a large pool with rock
sides and a sand bottom. The big stone bathhouse is still there. Summertime meant bare feet and somehow I managed to navigate
all the gravel streets in town without shoes.
Saturday was a big day in Bolivar. All of the local farmers came to
town to buy and socialize. Granddad would take me with him to the town square where he would talk for hours with his friends
as I wandered through the stores or played with other kids on the court house lawn.
At some point in my visit I would be taken to Grandma Richards house
three miles out in the country. Actually the house and farm belonged to a Mr. Pope, an elderly gentleman who had lived there
for over 50 years. Grandma kept house and looked after Granddad and Mr. Pope and did what needed to be done to keep the farm
going. There was little farming as the fields were leased out but there was a barn, a horse, and a cow. There was always a
large garden and Grandma kept them well fed with the produce. My favorite was grape jelly and jam Grandma made from the Concord
grape vine that grew just outside the back door.
I enjoyed the time on the farm and Grandma took great pains to keep
me busy and interested. We quite often took a picnic basket and had lunch in a little copse of trees in the field. I played
in the barn and the root cellar and tried to fly a kite that we make from newspaper. In spite of her efforts it tended to
be lonely and my visits generally lasted only four or five days.
Granddad Richards was stricken with palsy (Parkinsons disease) some
time in the early thirties and there was not much of any way for a small boy to communicate with him. He stayed mostly to
himself and grandma took great care of he and Mr. Pope. Granddad died in 1940 while we were living in Milford, CT and we drove
all the way back to Bolivar for the funeral. After Granddad died Grandma and Mr. Pope moved into Bolivar where Grandma continued
to care for him until he died.
Another favorite was Aunt Bess who lived with her husband, Leonard,
and their four children. They lived in a log house about five miles from Bolivar and I loved to spend time with them. Howard
was two years older than I was and we had great fun. It was not all fun and games, however, and Aunt Bess saw to it that everybody
had a job. One of my jobs was to draw water from the well. The bucket was almost as heavy as I was so it was an all day job
to draw a bucket. Kept me busy though.
There was not much that a city kid was used to so Uncle Leonard would
bring home a huge chunk of sandstone in his Model T. He would drop that stone in the yard and hand me a hammer. In no time
I had a beautiful pile of pure sand to play in.
When it came time to return to Kansas City I would generally get a
ride with a relative or my parents would come to get me. Some times that didnt work out and I would be put on the train for
a trip home. Grandma would prepare a shoebox lunch consisting of fried chicken, cookies and an apple. The ride was an all
day affair with the train stopping at every little town. Come to think of it, all the towns were little. On arrival at Union
Station I would hail a cab and head for home. I would have taken a streetcar, which would have been cheaper, but I was always
lugging a suitcase and the remains of my lunch.
By the time we had moved to Blue Springs I was in high school and had
other things to do in the summer. My visits became short and my last visit for many years was in 1945 for the memorial service
for Uncle Homer who was killed in action at Iwo Jima.
Author: Howard Gene Richards
