Forum Flashbacks: Oct. 2-8
MARYVILLE DAILY FORUM, OCT. 5, 2000
25 YEARS AGO: A New Friend – Blake Sanders, son of Teresa and Mike Sanders, Burlington Junction, gives a new friend, a Great Dane named Holly, a big hug during the New Nodaway Humane Society Doggy Derby. Holly was entered in the large dog class and was awarded the prize of Longest Legs.
50 years ago
Maryville Daily Forum, Oct. 6, 1975
Nearly 50 Years in Banking Recalled by Harold Harvey
Elmo residents turned out in large numbers on a fine, sunny October afternoon Saturday to honor an old friend, Harold Harvey, who has retired after nearly 50 years in the banking business.
The balmy fall afternoon and barbeque sponsored by his friends, was a far cry from Dec. 28, 1925 when a slim Pickering High School graduate stepped off the train at the depot in Elmo to take a job with the Farmers and Merchants Bank.
There was snow on the ground and it was real cold that morning. “I got off the Wabash train with my suitcase. I was just as scared then as I am now,” Harvey said. …
The suitcase contained a sweater, a pair of dress pants, two shirts, a pair of shoes and a pair of corduroy pants. “The nice thing about corduroy pants was you could wear them all winter and if they got to smelling, it didn’t worry you none,” Harvey remembered.
His first job involved learning to keep the books and handling a janitor’s work at the bank. “I started scrubbing floors and building fires,” he said. …
“You worked until you got your work done. You had no hours. I wasn’t paid by the hour.” …
Bank ledgers were posted by hand and ink. The bank had one typewriter and one pull-lever adding machine. Most of the job today is done with computers. “But you can’t compare the workload,” Harvey said, “the workload has boomed.”
However, he recalled, whether the work was done by hand or by a computer, in fifty years “I don’t think we ever lost or gained $100.”
The work was hard and times were bad through the 1930s. Harvey advanced to cashier, then in 1952 to president of the bank. The bank in Elmo grew, but Harvey wouldn’t take the credit. “The banker didn’t do it, the country did it,” he said. “It wasn’t because I was president of the bank that it grew like it did. It takes customers and personnel to run a bank.”
75 years ago
Maryville Daily Forum, Oct. 2, 1950
Sisson Loan and Title Closes Its Doors After 85 Years
The Sisson Loan and Title Company announces the sale of its insurance department to the Jackson Insurance Agency, to take effect as of October 1, 1950. At the same time this company discontinues active participation in the fields of abstracts and loans as well. With the closing of their doors ends a business which had its beginnings in 1865 and which has been in its present location all or most of that time. In that year Dr. P. H. Talbot, with A. P. Morehouse and M. G. M. Roseberry, began operation under the name of Talbot & Company, dealing mostly in real estate: it continued so until the death of Dr. Talbot, when it became Morehouse & Roseberry.
Arrived by Stage Coach
During this time a young veteran of the Civil War had come to Maryville, arriving by stage-coach from St. Joseph which was then the terminal of the steam-railroad line going west. Nathaniel Sisson had served through the four years of the Civil War as brigade-bugler on the staff of General Capehart, and carried with him as a prized memento the brass bugle with which he had sounded the last charge of the Civil War.
EDITOR’S NOTE: The 50- and 75-year flashback is courtesy of the Missouri Digital Newspaper Project from the State Historical Society of Missouri, accessible at shsmo.newspapers.com.
