Forum Flashbacks: July 28-Aug. 3
FORUM FILE PHOTO
25 YEARS AGO: Bible School Bop – Rather than having separate vacation bible schools, St. Gregory’s, First Christian and St. Paul’s Episcopal churches combined their gathered youth to have one giant vacation bible school this year, which is being hosted by St. Gregory School. Here, kids dance, cheer, shout, sing and even country line dance their joy and love for God as part of the “Avalanche Ranch” vacation bible school. More than 180 kids have been signed up for the jointly-sponsored VBS this week.
5 years ago
For nearly 100 years, J.C. Penney Co. has had a retail store located in Maryville, first downtown and then, beginning in 1981, at the Maryville Mall Shopping Center on South Main.
But in March the company announced it would close 138 stores, and the Maryville location was the only one in Missouri to make the list.
The original closing date was set for June 18, but was pushed back to July 31.
This marks the final weekend for the business, which will shutter its doors for good when it closes Monday at 8 p.m.
“I hate to see it close, but I hate to see Maryville lose another store. That is my main concern,” said Jim Boswell, who managed the Maryville J.C. Penney location from 2005 to 2010. “This is the only one in Missouri closing. It is a bad deal.”
15 years ago
After several weeks of considering potential candidates, analyzing applications and discussing their options during closed executive sessions, the members of the Maryville City Council feel they have found the right person to serve out the remaining eight months of John Jasinski’s term following his resignation.
In a unanimous 4-0 decision, the council voted to appoint Dr. Jerry Wilmes to Jasinski’s vacant council seat.
Since 1990, Wilmes has served as the wellness services director of Northwest Missouri State University; and in 2006 was named vice president for student affairs. …
“I’m very excited,” he said. “I know it’s an additional time component, and I considered that seriously when I visited with other city council members; and I want to honor that and do a good job while I’m on the council. I want to make a contribution.”
25 years ago
Marijuana growers in Nodaway County saw an unwelcome sight Wednesday afternoon as a helicopter flew over the county looking for wild and/or cultivated marijuana plants.
Nodaway County Sheriff Ben Espey took off with a Highway Patrol pilot in a Patrol helicopter early in the afternoon to spot possible trouble spots.
“We found two or three places we will be looking at better,” Espey said.
The basic plan is for him to spot trouble areas from the air and record the location for further investigation on the ground, Espey said.
“We locate it and map it out,” Espey said. “We watch it and make sure it is not cultivated.”
100 years ago
FORMER QUITMAN MAN ARRESTED?
————
Man Giving Name
of Rev. Henry H. Umstead Held by Bisbee, Ariz., Authorities, Learned Today
––––––––
AGAIN VICTIM
OF SHELL SHOCK
––––––––
According to information received by The Tribune late this afternoon, a man who says he is the Rv. Henry H. Umstead, former pastor of the Methodist Church at Quitman, has been arrested at Bisbee, Ariz., and is being held there for investigation of some sort of charge placed against him.
The Rev. Mr. Umstead, according to the information received here, told the Arizona officials that he came west under the advice of a physician. He said his wife was drowned in Missouri.
It is believed here that the former Quitman pastor is suffering from a recurrence of a lapse of memory due to shell shock which he suffered while with the American army in France. Following the automobile accident last fall he suffered such an attack and was for a time a patient at a St. Joseph hospital.
During the time he lost his memory he believed himself back on the battlefields of France and fought imaginary Germans, re-living the part which he had taken in the great war. His condition became so bad that it was necessary for several men to stay in his room all the time and hold him in bed.
Friends who know of his terrible experiences while in the army and of the attack which he suffered here think that his arrest in the Arizona town is due to an unfortunate circumstance and do not believe that he has committed any crime.
According to The Tribune’s information he told the Bisbee authorities a sensational story of having been attacked by bands of Indians in Mexico.
EDITOR’S NOTE: The 100-year flashback is courtesy of the Missouri Digital Newspaper Project from the State Historical Society of Missouri, viewable at shsmo.org/collections/newspapers/mdnp. The original article ran in the July 28, 1922, edition of The Maryville Tribune, a predecessor of The Maryville Forum.
