Forum Flashbacks: July 6-12
FORUM FILE PHOTO
25 YEARS AGO: Hopkins Picnic – The new Little Mr. and Miss Hopkins, Coby Cross and Maddie Forney front and center, surrounded by their court. The court consists of Kelly Wallace, Dale Brown, Natasha Blackford, Taylor Miller, Cassie Titus, Joseph Frueh, Jade Ogle, Ashley Laughlin, Cody Bix, J.T. Titus, Justin Baldwin and Tanisha King.
25 years ago
The West Nodaway R-I Board of Education voted July 8 to eliminate most fees students pay to use items in the building, including locker fees, book fees, band fees and activity fees.
“It’s not to our benefit to charge the fees and go through with the refunding,” Superintendent Steve Andes said.
The school previously collected the fees at the beginning of the school year, then refunded the money at the end of the academic year if all materials were returned in reasonable condition.
“We voted to suspend fees for most usages, but will maintain fees for agriculture programs because it consumes supplies and materials,” Andes said. “The fees are used to offset those costs.”
50 years ago
Fourth level students in the Horace Mann Learning Center at Northwest Missouri State University got a taste Thursday of the educational process of a one-room rural school from a lady who should know.
Students of Mrs. Esther Knittl, MSU elementary education instructor, cyphered, had mathematics contests and spelldowns just like those of years gone by and all under the leadership of Mrs. Neva Rhodes, a long-time Nodaway County one-room school teacher. Mrs. Rhodes is also past president of the Nodaway County Historical Society.
The look backward for the fourth graders came in an appropriate setting — the one-room Hickory Grove School located on the MSU campus since it was officially presented to the University in the summer of 1970 by the Nodaway County Historical Society. It was moved to the campus in 1968.
As in yesteryear in rural America, the school day for the modern students started with the ringing of hand-held bell, rung by MSU assistant director of field services John Fuhrman, who acted in the role of County Superintendent on an inspection tour of his far-flung school system. Following the bell, the students recited the pledge of allegiance, sang “America,” and read scripture as was the custom in the rural school systems.
Mrs. Rhodes had formerly taught in the Hickory Grove School when it was located some four miles east of Clearmont. The structure, built in 1883, was placed on the MSU campus as a “historical symbol of the fine things done in rural education.” Today the building is a center of early-day records and educational memorabilia of the one-room school era.
100 years ago
NODAWAY PEOPLE
MAY BE HEIRS*
Ten or more residents of Nodaway County have a chance of inheriting a part of an estate said to be valued now at about 500 million dollars. These Nodaway Countians are not saying much about it now but are attempting to trace their genealogy and to prove ancestry to the Springer estate, the heirs of which held a meeting yesterday at the Hotel Baltimore at Kansas City. The following is from today’s Kansas City Times:
About 120 heirs to the estate of Charles Christopher Springer met at the Hotel Baltimore yesterday with L. P. Johnson, an heir and director of the Springer Heirs Corporation, to discuss the purchase of membership in the corporation and to become acquainted with the plans for the filing of claims for the Springer estate. The estate is said to include 2,654 acres in and about Wilmington, Del., and in New Jersey and New York, and is valued at about 500 million dollars, according to Mr. Johnson.
The corporation was organized last March to reunite the scattered descendants of Springer, and to make a concerted effort to recover the land from certain persons, not named by Mr. Johnson, who have controlled the property and have taken the proceeds from the expiration of the leases held by different companies and persons. The first lease expired in 1838, and the last in 1915. It is claimed by Mr. Johnson that rents on this property have not been paid for nine years.
The genealogy and history of the Springer family have not yet been completed by the corporation’s genealogist, Mrs. Mary Springer McMahon, who is in Philadelphia engaged in research.
According to Mr. Johnson, the name “Springer” originated in 1042 when a German baron was knighted. Having threatened the stability of the kingdom, the baron was arrested and imprisoned two years on no specific charge. He was then tried in court, but was not acquitted, and so was returned to prison.
A river ran by the high tower in which he was confined. It an attempt to make his escape he leaped from this tower into the river, but was recaptured. For this daring exploit he was knighted by the king and was given the name Springer.
Charles Christopher Springer, a titled descendant of the original Springer, came to America in 1658 from Stockholm, Sweden. When he returned to Sweden, after having made his fortune in America, he deposited his wealth in Swedish banks, where it has lain idle since. With the accumulation of more than two centuries’ interest, the wealth now totals 80 million to 90 million dollars.
After the corporation has recovered its heritage in America, it will sue for the money in Sweden. No date has been set for the institution of legal proceedings in America, but the case will come to court in New Castle County, Delaware, before November.
*EDITOR’S NOTES: If you found yourself thinking the above sounds like a plea in your email inbox from a certain Nigerian prince, then congratulations, you can spot a scam in any century! According to the New York Times and other sources that later reported on the scam, the hoax above was perpetrated across the country in various forms from the mid-1800s through the late 1920s. If any Nodaway Countians did indeed attend the meeting in Kansas City, they were likely asked to purchase “stock” in the Springer Heirs Corporation to help pay for the cost of determining lineage. It won’t be a spoiler for future Forum Flashbacks to say that none of them would ever get the good news that they were the heir to the Springer “fortune.”
The 50-year and 100-year flashbacks are courtesy of the Missouri Digital Newspaper Project from the State Historical Society of Missouri, viewable at shsmo.newspapers.com. The original 50-year article ran in the July 6, 1973, edition of the Maryville Daily Forum. The original 100-year article ran in the July 7, 1923, edition of the Maryville Daily Democrat-Forum, which later would become the Maryville Forum.
