Forum Flashbacks: Aug. 15-21
Jonathan Robert Wilson
50 years ago
Maryville Daily Forum, Aug. 15, 1974
By Teresa Frueh
Forum Staff Writer
“I came back here to die but it seems like I can’t get the job done,” said Jonathan Robert Wilson, Arkoe, who is known as Rob or Robert. He was 91 on July 31.
I remember when he first came here about eight years ago. Now he can only get around with crutches and can see general shapes but not distinct things, but Wilson can still play his fiddle as well as when I first was caught up in its magical music, accompanied by cute songs often filled with humor, a moral and a bit of truth.
He says he can’t play as well as he used to “But I don’t think it’s in my eyes, it’s in my arms.”
You couldn’t convince me of it. He still produces spirited sounds which in my younger days made us run around him in circles with delight. Especially when he played “Pop Goes the Weasel” and we got popped on the fanny with his bow as he plucked the violin string. …
When it came time for pictures I had to have an action shot — that meant him playing his fiddle. The whole office bustled as he tucked his instrument under his clean-shaven chin and began fiddling his way with old-time songs. Even paper boys from the back room came up front to be entangled in the excitement.
He asked me, “What’s that lady’s name over there?”
“Leola,” I responded.
He filled it in a blank space reserved specifically for such a purpose in one of an array of songs he has memorized over the years.
Nowadays he mainly plays for senior citizens groups and at rest homes. …
“I like to play and have those old ladies like it. I sing little songs and put their names in. I call them old folks but most of them are younger than I am,” Wilson chuckled.
I asked him how he got started playing the violin.
“Well, Dad played the fiddle. I sat there with Ernest and we had a couple of corncobs like we played the fiddle too,” he said. Ernest, his brother who is now deceased, took lessons, but, “No, I never did. Oh, I expect ’long about 27 years old, maybe, I learned to play. We started out, Ernie played the violin, I played the second violin. After a while we went up to the hall, the dance hall, and played once a week. Yes we did — we had a dance every week and we’d take turns playing. They had a piano there.” He told me he also used to play the French harp.
“When I went West, punched cows, I played. Then the settlers took all the land. I quit and went to work on the railroad, became an engineer.”
He recalled his cowpunching days, “Played out there on what they called a mess wagon. We’d be 80 miles from town, ride all day and never hit a fence. Some of the boys had harps, one cowboy had a banjo. We rode around the cattle at night and sang to keep them quieted down. Prairie wolves around. You’d sing to the cows so they’d know you were protecting them.”
During the railroad time, he told me, he picked up new tunes and his brother “helped me along in learning new songs.” …
I got a deep laugh when I asked Wilson what his favorite songs were. After much thought he decided on “Casey Jones” and “Wabash Cannonball.” He added that about a year ago right after he was baptized he played “I Anchor My Soul in the Haven of Rest.”
It was time to go but the taxicab driver asked if Wilson had told me about the time on the airplane when Wilson entertained the group. The passengers passed a hat and collected $45 which they awarded to him, plus he got a big kiss from one girl.
He said he thought he is going to play Saturday at Parkdale Manor. Thus Rob Wilson continues to fiddle and enlighten people’s hearts and days.
100 years ago
Maryville Daily Democrat-Forum, Aug. 20, 1924
No More Starched Collars for Men Clothiers Predict
_______________
The soft collar is here to stay.
Comfort dictates; style conforms; usage follows.
The stiff collar died hard but it died for good, that is, for a long time. Local clothiers predict that the advent of the stiff collar for men will be long off.
Along with the denouncement of the linen collar comes the gradual decline of the collarless shirt. No longer is it an everyday occurrence to see the streets littered with men, parading in shirts with nothing but collar bands, from which long necks, lean necks, fat necks, and bull necks protrude. The shirt with the collar attached is another thing here to stay.
Of course there are, and always will be, those who come to the haberdashery for celluloid collars, paper collars, and linen collars. But there are also those who still refuse to ride in automobiles and look upon the aeroplane as a curse of Mephistocles (EDITOR’S NOTE: Maybe they mean Mephistopheles?). But the majority has been swept with the tide. Soft collars and attached collars will be good until Dame Fashion goes on a rampage and then the men will resignedly don the choker once more and the world will run along in the same old rut.
Despite such predictions of those who know, one local clothier still comes to work every morning with his neck snugly encircled in a band of starched linen and goes home at night with it encompassed in a wilted rag.
EDITOR’S NOTE: The 50-year and 100-year flashbacks are courtesy of the Missouri Digital Newspaper Project from the State Historical Society of Missouri, accessible at shsmo.newspapers.com.
MARYVILLE DAILY FORUM, AUG. 15, 1999
25 YEARS AGO: Good Food and Good Friends – During the Chamber of Commerce Family Fun Night Friday at Beal Park, Crissy Meier and Bobbi Stephenson help 2-yearold Jesse Meier eat a hot dog, while enjoying some food themselves. The picnic was a free activity for all Chamber-member business employees and their families.
