Viola was named for a family who settled in that area. Half the town is in Barry County and half in Stone County. In early days the town was important because of cotton production. The town had a doctor, a school, post office,churches and friendly people. From Back to Barry |
Viola by Otis Thomas Hale
It was a beautiful winter morning in the Ozark Mountains of Missouri. The fog which would rise above the rivers on a cold morning followed King's river to the southwest and into White river to the west and on around to the north and east out of sight. The fog looked like a giant serpent squirming through the mountains. The air was so fresh that the mountains stood out clear and beautiful. To the east was Bald Mountain; to the north was Breadtray Mountain; and to the west a chain of small mountains we had to cross to get to the outside. When anyone left there, they went to the outside. It was twenty-four miles west across the mountains to the county seat of Barry county. We were on the eastern border of the county. In fact, the main road of our town was the county line.
This was and still is Viola, Missouri. I am writing about Viola at the turn of the century, nineteen hundred that is. This is southwestern Missouri, six miles from the border of Arkansas. Berryville, Arkansas was ten miles from Viola and that is where all our outside needs came from. It was an all day trip by wagon to get supplies.
The population of Viola was around fifty. They were mostly English by ancestry I believe. There were Hales, Arnolds, Shriners, Fonchers, Holdmans, Kellys, Hoods, Whistmans amoung others. One German family was named Maranholtz. Mr. Maranholtz was supposed to have belonged to the aristocracy in Germany but married below his station so came to America. I don't know how he could have found Viola. Maybe he wanted to hide and he sure picked the right place. They were wonderful people though and raised a fine family. They farmed. |
Viola was located on quite an elevation and we could see a long way. To the southwest and across King's river we could see another small town, Golden which was six miles away. To the west across White river was Shell Knob. These were all one store towns and not visited very often by us as six miles was a long ride or walk. King's river had to be forded to get to Golden and a ferry ran across .White river which we had to use going west. There was a bell .on each side of the river so to get across you rang the bell and a farmer who lived near by and owned the ferry would come and run you across for fifty cents. The ferry ran on a cable and the current pushed it across with a little help from a long pole the operator used. "Fat Bill" Foncher ran the ferry. He was so fat it was said he hadn't seen his feet for years - couldn't see over his stomach. I know when he laughed he shook like a bowl of jello. As I remember he laughed a lot.
There were few businesses in Viola. My father, Riley Hale ran the general store and his brother Allen had a smaller store. There was a blacksmith shop which was a great necessity in those days. The blacksmith not only shod the horses but if you needed anything in the metal line he made it for you. There was also a gristmill for grinding our flour. It closed early in the nineteen hundreds though. There was a post office run by dad in his store, but it had no delivery. You had to come and get your mail. My dad's store was stocked with everything. He handled produce and you could trade chickens and eggs for groceries. There was a big wire chicken coop behind the store. A produce man came from Berryville once in a while and bought the surplus chickens and eggs. Dad also handled dry goods, hardware and groceries. He kept dishes to serve food to people who walked in from the mountains to shop. There was not much choice on the menu - sardines, salmon, cheese, crackers and they seemed to like canned tomatoes. There was no bread of course as it was many miles to a bakery. A salesman came to call on my dad once a month and there was quite a lot of excitement when he came driving into town with his buggy and two beautiful horses pulling it. He was always dressed up in a suit and tie and hat, quite a figure in that mountain town. In those days he was called a drummer.
We had two schools neither of which was in town. As the county line ran through town, the kids on the east side went to "Hide Out" school a mile east of town. We were on the west side and walked a mile west of town to "Longin." My first year of school was spent there. Both schools had only one room so had beginners on up to teenagers. I don't think there were over twenty or twenty-five in either school. We had a rough board floor in the school with knotholes in them. The older boys used to spit their tobacco juice into these holes. One day in nineteen hundred and nine we heard a strange noise so we all ran outside the school and an automobile came along. That was the first one we had ever seen and of course, we were all excited. I sure don't know how he ever got that far back in the hills with the kind of cars they had then and the roads they had to travel over. When I was about fifteen years old I was back down there in car with my dad and the roads were still about the same and hard on a car.
There was an empty building in town that used to be a saloon in the eighteen eighties. I suppose a saloon would draw more people in to town than anything else. Viola was a much livelier place then. I heard they even had a baseball team. Uncle Allen was supposed to have been quite a pitcher.
There were no boats to float down the rivers, as there would be no way to get them back after a day's float. People would go up on King's river and build a log raft and float down King's river into White river. After floating all day they would end up east of town about three miles and walk back. There was finally- a road built over east so they could go down in a boat and haul it back in a wagon and later on, in a truck. Uncle Allen took me along on a couple of those raft trips and it was quite an experience. Those rafts could not be controlled very well so there were lots of crashes into log jams and rocks and wild rides through rapids. We fished for bass with casting rods and artificial baits and would cast toward shore by rocks and logs. There were plenty of fish in the river. There were catfish and perch and walleyes in the spring runs. It was great fun in those days.
There was always an old settler’s picnic every year at the picnic grounds near the ferry on White river. That was a great time for us kids. There would be an ice cream stand and one that had lemonade with ice in it. Those were two rare treats for us. We had a man in town named Sam Hanna who was almost blind. He could see enough to get around a little. He was quite a tobacco chewer as a lot of people were. At a picnic one day I was walking past him and he let go with a mouth full of tobacco juice and hit me right in the eyes. I was blinded for a while and had a hard time finding my mother to get my face and eyes cleaned up. It just about ruined my day.
One time a traveling dentist came to town and set up his equipment in a room at big momma's house. I was glad I had no teeth to be filled as I heard a lot of moans and groans come out of that room.
We did not have much in the way of medicines. Big momma had a lot of home remedies such as blowing pipe smoke in our ears when we had an earache. She had poultices of all kinds and sassafras tea made from the roots of the sassafras tree. It did not taste bad and was supposed to settle a grumbling stomach. We had Doctor Kelly of course and he was a wonderful man and a good friend of our family, but he didn't have much to work with I am sure. One of Uncle Bob’s boys contracted consumption, as it was called then, and he died in a lot of pain. Dr. Kelly moved out of the hills a few years after we did. |
