Finley Glover “Bud”
and Mary Alice
Dewitt Inman
Randy has generously shared these for
publication with the Christian County Mogen Web site.No data may be reproduced
or published without permission of the author. Please
note that web host to delete names and data of the living altered the
manuscript.
Mary
Alice Dewitt Lawson (Oct. 19, 1881-March 18, 1939)
on Nov. 8, 1896 married farmer Finley Glover “Bud” Inman (March 6, 1869-Oct. 2,
1914) before Justice of the Peace Irvin Wright Edwards in Porter Township,
Christian Co.
Bud,
the oldest son of John Wesley (1842-1927) and Nancy Lavanda Wilson (1846-1929)
Inman and grandson of Elkanah (1815-1867) and Sarah Moore (1818-May 1894)
Inman, was born March 6, 1869 in Christian Co., named for his uncle and
great-uncle. The family had moved to TX
in 1884, but returned after a disastrous stay. Bud made the “run” into the
Cherokee Strip in 1893, but returned home without a stake.
Bud and Mary Alice settled on a 24-acre tract
within the 120-acre family compound founded by his father. John Wesley provided similar plots for two
other sons, and yet another lived with him at his home. Another cabin on the
compound was available as a rental, and there Emily Jane Lawson and her
children, including Mary Alice, settled by late 1890.
Mary
Alice gave birth to the couple's first child, Grace (or Gracie) Bell, in the
Inman compound on Nov. 20, 1897.
Her
second delivery was more hazardous, however. In one version of the story, the
young Inman family had struck out again for OK to resettle when an exodus of
such Christian County families were headed for the new Indian Territory. The
Inmans, however, thought better of resettlement after the brief trip and headed
home. The timing was badly off because pregnant Mary Alice went into labor at
Cassville, where son Robert was born under the wagon on Dec. 19, 1899.
Robert,
however, said Bud and Mary Alice had left by wagon for Arkansas and the Boston
Mountains to fetch Bud's brother John, who had been avoiding testimony in a
trial, John's new wife Cora Frazier Inman and little son Edgar. (Robert said
John was wanted to testify in the murder trial of Uncle Jack Inman and cousin
Will Wilson for the murder of Uncle Dan Stephenson, but that trial occurred in
1883.)
Part
of this second story makes sense because John Grandison Inman married Cora
Frazier of Scott Co., AR where his uncle and aunt, Joseph and Sarah Catherine
Wilson Inman, lived.
Robert
jested that under the circumstances, the young family must not have expected
him to live because, unlike his brothers and sisters who survived infancy, he
was not given a middle name. (In the 1900 census, he was identified erroneously
as Evart F., indicating that a middle name, probably Finley, had been granted.)
Added
to the family back in Christian Co. were George Riley in 1901; Lonnie Elmer,
1904; Fred Otto, 1906; Ida Mae, 1910; Mabel (who died as an infant), 1912; and
Frances Laura, 1913.
Little
is remembered of Bud, but Mae recalls he had the reputation of a "man who,
if he told you something, he meant it." She found out all too well as a
toddler when her father instructed her not to leave the wooden plank front
porch of their home to play. Mae spotted an oak branch that she wanted and
disobeyed. "I got to play with it, but not the way you would
imagine," she says of the whipping she got.
Bud
was more active in the community than much of the family. In October 1898, he
became a charter member of the Nixa lodge of the Independent Order of Odd
Fellows (IOOF).
Like
his brothers Jim and John, Bud maintained a sweet potato cellar where neighbors
came in the winter to pick up the produce and take it to town to swap for
coffee. Unlike other vegetables, sweet potatoes keep best in a warm, dark
place, and the Inmans had devised cellars with heat.
The
brothers, while allotted specific sections of the farm, did not take title, at
least through 1920. Land atlases show Will and Bud, for example, shared a
40-acre tract, but the 1920 census indicates that Will, John, Jim and Bud's
widow Mary Alice were all renting their farms from father John Wesley.
At
age 45, Bud died on Oct. 2, 1914 from typhoid and pneumonia, and he was buried
in a wooden coffin in McConnell Cemetery. (Pneumonia repeatedly is cited as the
cause of death among early family members; The diagnosis apparently was a
catchall — much as dozens of viruses and severe colds today are considered
"the flu.")
Finley
Glover's first name is spelled "Findley" on his gravestone, but all
early records omit the "d" and spell the name like the Finley River
and his uncles.
Prospects
seemed dismal for Mary Alice after Bud's death. The family of eight was crammed
into a two-room house with a bedroom and kitchen, although Mary Alice somehow
managed to accumulate the capital for her family to add a separate bedroom for
her sons later. The financing may have come from the sale to the Slays of the
Guin Prairie Dewitt farm, in which Mary Alice had one-third interest.
"There
was no such thing as a job" in those early Ozark days, Mae says, so the
family joined its neighbors in eking a living from the hard, rocky soil.
The
family raised chickens, but had to save the eggs for sale in Nixa to generate
cash for store goods. The Inmans couldn't afford a cow, but "borrowed"
one from a neighbor. The children stripped cane, and the family took the stalks
to a molasses mill, owned by Uncle John Inman, for processing. "To this
day, I still yet don't allow molasses cookies or cake in my house," says
Mae, who bears the scar from a cane knife wound.
Mary
Alice maintained pumpkin and tomato patches, and the children collected and
shelled dried cowpeas, which added variety to the pots of green beans and
cabbage that she kept boiling on the woodstove — traditional Tennessee and
Kentucky fare.
Little
was store-bought. Mae remembers the "ash hopper," a barrel where ashes
from the woodstove were dumped and treated periodically with water to produce
lye. The lye was poured into kettles of animal fat to make soap.
The
Inmans were not destitute for the time, however. They were able to range a
horse or two, and the family had a crank telephone — a luxury unavailable in
many areas of the country. As Mae recalls it, the phone service was provided
without charge: the men strung wire on fence posts, and each subscriber was on
the same line.
Above
all, there was Mary Alice's steely conviction that poverty could be endured in
dignity and with discipline. "She was clean...and she was a good
cook," Mae recalls. The house "all had to be white," even the
heavily traveled floors. On "wash day," the children were assigned to
soap the floors and rinse them down with water carried from a nearby pond. After each threshing season, the family's
straw-bed ticking was washed meticulously and restuffed.
Mae
remembers two types of regular neighborhood get-togethers: hog butcherings and
"protracted" church meetings at Union Hill. Killing and dressing
seven or eight hogs could occupy an entire day with neighbors. At noon, when
the menfolk were called to eat, the children were posted outside to protect
the carcasses from dogs — and they sliced off pork and roasted it over an open
fire for their own meal.
The
onset of hog-killing season brought a barrage of local newspaper advertisements
with sales on lard buckets.
Union
Hill Church began life in 1912 when John Wesley Inman, Bud's father, donated an
acre of ground and neighbor Jim Young the lumber for a building. Each family
bought a pew until enough seating was available.
In
1914 the first "revival" was held in the church, and a predominantly
Missionary Baptist congregation was organized with the Rev. Wes Coughron as
pastor. But the non-denominational church opened its doors to evangelists of
most faiths, much the same as churches did back in Tennessee where the families
originated. The sessions were known as "protracted" meetings because,
unlike later revivals, they had no set completion date and often lasted four to
five weeks. The Ozark newspaper in 1899 noted that one at a Porter Township
chapel on the James River lasted for three weeks, leaving 100 persons ready for
baptism.
Mary
Alice and her children attended the Union Hill services every night, and she
was in charge of firing up the woodstove to heat the building. During cold
weather, she often shared the duties with children Mae and Frances, who walked
past the church on the way to and from Rosedale School.
Going
past the church, the trek to Rosedale School covered four miles; it was a
typical one-room schoolhouse of its day with eight grades; no high schools
operated in the area until 1906 and, even then, the Nixa High School only had
two grades.
Mae
proved recalcitrant in particular to attend school. "I would cry every
morning because I didn't want to leave Momma," she says. The feelings were
omens: Mae's school attendance was erratic, and she never finished grade school.
Life
in Mary Alice's family changed abruptly with the reappearance of Tull(ey) or
T.O. Campbell in the community.
Tully
(January 1883-Nov. 6, 1941) was the posthumous son of John Phillip Campbell
(May 22, 1857, MO-Oct. 7, 1882) and wife C.A. McAlister of Center Township,
Greene Co. Although he owned property in Porter Township, John P. Campbell
lived near Willard, with his father, H.H. Campbell (April 30, 1822-April 26,
1889), and brothers, William R. (1860-1943) and J.M. (1849-1933).
Tully's
maternal grandfather, William H. McAlister (Dec. 15, 1823-Aug. 30, 1895), came
from a line of Tennessee McAlisters, but his wife Sarah A. (Sept. 1, 1836-after
1900) was born in nearby Georgia. William H. was the son of Wesley McAlister
(Aug. 15, 1802-Sept. 6, 1880) and his wife Sarah (March 27, 1806-Jan. 29,
1898), both Tennesseans who moved to Center Township, Greene Co., before they
died.
Tull's
mother also is said to have died young, and the orphan was living in Porter
Township in 1900 with his grandmother from Georgia, Sarah A. McAlister , and a
cousin, America Cain, next door to another cousin, widower Cyrus R. McAlister
(Jan. 12, 1876-July 12, 1907), who had six young children. (Tully had at least
one brother, born in August 1879, but his fate is unknown.)
According
to his Missouri State Penitentiary records, Tully was a long, tall, skinny
drink of water — 5-feet-10 1/4, 137 pounds, black hair, hazel eyes and dark
complexion. When he attended, he went to the Methodist Church. He wasn't much
of a drinker and had finished grade school.
In
1901, Tully Campbell married Effie Chaffin Rhea, the stepdaughter of John
Edwards and daughter of Callie Clemens Chaffin Edwards, of the Porter Township
area, with Tully's guardian-grandmother signing for the underage groom.
Tully
and Effie moved to Springfield and had two children, Walter and Lester. But
Tully ran afoul of the law — stealing meat from his Chaffin in-laws, according
to step-son Robert Inman. Tully was arrested for burglary in 1906 in Christian
Co. and sentenced to three years in prison in August. The records suggest he
was stealing in tandem with a newcomer to the community, James Burnett, 21, a
Wisconsin native, who was likewise sentenced to three years for burglary.
Burnett became mentally ill in prison and was sent to the State Asylum in
Fulton; with apparent good behavior, Tully was released from prison on Dec. 3,
1908.
Effie
sued for divorce and won a final decree on May 14, 1915 in Greene Co. as well
as custody of the children. Her half-brother, an Edwards, still lived in the
Nixa area, and Tully began working as a farm hand there.
No
records or memories remain to explain how Mary Alice met Tully or why she was
attracted to this ex-con day laborer, with the possible exception of loneliness
and poverty. The Edwards family did live nearby. Tully and Mary Alice were wed
in 1921, and the couple decided to move to Springfield. Grace had married and
left the household by 1918. The boys — Robert, George, Elmer and Fred — opted
to remain on the farm and "batch it”; Robert, before he died, spoke with
disdain of his stepfather, which his brothers appeared to share.
The
Inman boys were willing to endure considerable hardship for their
independence. Recalled Robert: "We
all were cooking. We'd eat it, and we thought it was good. We'd throw it out
and the dogs wouldn't even eat it." The boys eventually dispersed to other
farms in the area and married.
Joining
the newlyweds in Springfield were Mae and Frances along with, for a time,
Tully's two sons, Walter and Lester Campbell, now deceased.
Despite
the attitude of the Inman brothers, Frances and Mae called Tully
"Dad" for they had never known their real father except in the
haziest of memories. The new family shuttled among a succession of rooming
houses and other rentals as Tully took odd jobs. The girls attended, among
others, the old Nichols School while living in Springfield.
The
ultimate indignity followed: the family moved to a tent pitched beside the Inman
boys' home. Better times followed around 1922 or 1923, when Tully and Mary
Alice moved south to first one and then another home in Riverdale, a historic
milltown that is becoming chic residential development today on the Finley
River. "It was the best we ever had," Mae says of the Riverdale days.
"They were better houses" than all the others. There, the children
attended Harmony School.
But
in 1923, Tully and Mary Alice returned to Springfield, and the nest quickly
emptied as Mae and then Frances married. Less is known of Mary Alice's life in
her remaining years because of communication and transportation problems in
the underdeveloped Ozarks. At one point, she and Tully moved in as
companions/caretakers for a Nixa family, but life generally was a succession
of Tully's day labor and rented houses in Springfield. From 1929 to 1930, while
living at 304 W. Elm, the Campbells took care of Mary Alice's granddaughter,
Lela May McConnell, who died of whooping cough.
Mary
Alice's final home was a small house along an alley in the rear of 758 W. Elm
in Springfield. There, she died after an eight-day struggle with pneumonia at
9:30 p.m. March 18, 1939 at age 57. "Old Doc Williams (her physician) said
she didn't have it," Mae says, "but she said she did because she'd
had it before."
Mary
Alice was buried beside her first husband, Finley Glover "Bud" Inman,
in McConnell Cemetery. The dates on Mary Alice's stone are incorrect. They show
she was born in 1879 on the same date as her sister. The correct years are 1879
for George, 1880 for Cora and 1881 for Mary Alice, although her death
certificate says yet another date in 1878.
Tully
Campbell married a third time, to Alice Snyder, shortly after Mary Alice's
death. But he passed on Nov. 26, 1941 from complications of surgery to remove a
benign prostate tumor, and he is interred in Clear Creek Cemetery four miles
southwest of Willard. The cemetery tombstone index does not show his grave,
although that of his third wife, Alice, is indicated. His plot may be
unmarked.
Children of Finley
Glover Inman
and Mary Alice
Dewitt
(Nov.
20, 1897-Nov. 27, 1929)
Grace
married John Walter McConnell (Dec. 21, 1892-Aug. 25, 1960), known better as
just Walter, a World War I veteran and the older brother of Mae's husband,
Henry. Although federal census records suggest that none of the Inman children
attended school in 1910, Mae says that "Grace probably had the best
schooling of any of us," attending Rosedale southwest of Nixa.
Grace
and Walter married before he entered the Army and World War I in 1917. During
his tour of service, she moved back into the Christian Co. home with Mary Alice
and the Inman family. In 1920, the couple was living on the Lindsay Patton farm
south of the James River and northwest of McConnell Cemetery, when their first
child was born. Within two years they had moved southeast of Springfield.
On
several occasions, while pregnant or recovering from a birth, Grace was joined
by her sister, Mae, to help with the family. Grace "had a hard old go of
it," Mae said. "The kids were so close together."
By
the late 1920s Grace and Walter, an alcoholic farm laborer, settled into the
VonWagen house south of Brookline in Greene County. In the "big
house" on the so-called Anderson farm next door were his father William
Alexander McConnell and whichever wife was current.
Grace
was pregnant again when she died in 1929 from the complications of miscarriage
and pneumonia. She was buried in McConnell Cemetery on Thanksgiving Day.
Walter
died at the Veterans Administration hospital in Fayetteville, Arkansas, after a
later life as a panhandler and transient. Despite his drinking and continuing
complaints about how well his in-laws and siblings were raising his children,
Walter had his appealing side. "He'd come and stay for a while and then go
off for a weekend. He'd come back with all the (neighborhood) stories. He could
be right good company," said Mae.
Walter,
who never remarried, is buried beside Grace in McConnell Cemetery.
Robert Inman (Dec. 19, 1899-May
1991)
Robert
married Frances Ophelia Jones (April 18, 1905-Nov. 7, 1972) on Sept. 23, 1922
before JP Jim Wright McConnell. She was the daughter of Charles and Clara Jones
of Porter Township and a distant cousin of Robert; Ophelia was the
granddaughter of Nancy Anna Frances Inman (Mrs. William Jesse) Jones, who was
the cousin of Robert’s grandfather, Elkanah.
After
Tully and Mary Alice moved to Springfield and Riverdale, brother Fred helped
Robert move northeast of Nixa. Brother Elmer was hired to work at the farm next
door, and Robert was employed as a carpenter in Springfield in the 1920s.
In
1930, Robert returned to build a home on the original site of his grandfather
John Wesley's family stake; he had held onto his 20-acre share of the land
while the other Inmans had sold out and the compound was overgrown with brush
and briars. Besides farming and carpenter work, Robert also worked as a mill
hand for a feed company.
When he turned age 91, he still was living alone in the same home. Unable to see well, he nevertheless persisted in refusing to install a telephone. That Christmas, he caught the devil from his sole surviving sister Mae after he fell and cut up both arms while slipping and sliding on the icy swatches outside and fell into a corner of the house.
At
his 91st birthday party, thrown by both the McConnell and Inman sides of the
family, relatives notice a cough that proved to be an ill omen: Robert died the
next spring of lung cancer at Mt. Vernon Park Care Center in Springfield. He is
buried beside Ophelia in McConnell Cemetery.
George Riley Inman (Jan. 4,
1901-July 16, 1953)
George
married Lucy Onteria Sparkman (Jan. 7, 1905-May 22, 1977). After their
marriage, for unknown reasons, George adopted the spelling of
"Inmon," and that version appears on the monument at McConnell
Cemetery.
George
likely was named for his uncle Dewett and an Evans uncle, Rawleigh, pronounced
Riley.
George
worked as a farmer and farm hand at Route 1, Nixa until his death from cancer.
After George's death Lucy was remarried to Warren Cavender, but she is interred
beside George. He and Lucy had three
children:
Lonnie Elmer Inman
(Nov. 14, 1904-Nov. 20, 1966)
Elmer married Marcellia/Marcella Shadwick (1905), who still lives in Springfield. Elmer, also known as "Mutt," worked for Springer Produce of Springfield for many years, but later had to retire because his arm was amputated after a blood clot formed.
The
couple had one son, Jimmy, who while pampered as an only child, later disowned
his parents. Jimmy left the area, resurfacing at least once in Texas. The
family was unable to contact him when Elmer died in 1966. Elmer and Marcella
were separated for many years, but never divorced. Official records document
the rocky relationship: from March 6 to 15, 1951, Marcella checked into the
county almshouse until Elmer picked her up.
At
the time of his death, Elmer was living on North Main in Springfield while
Marcella had a house on State Avenue.
Like
his brother, Elmer decided to change the spelling of the family surname, but
his brothers and sisters insisted on the Inman version for his monument at
McConnell Cemetery. His legal first and middle names, however, are reversed on
the stone. He was known as Lonnie while a child, but Elmer as an adult.
Fred Otto Inman (May 15,
1906-Dec. 16, 1996)
Fred
lived with his second wife, Leola, in Seymour, MO. Fred, unlike many of the
Inmans, did not settle permanently in the local community because, as a
Pentecostal minister, he found callings in several Midwestern states. On July
22, 1924, he married Tilda Marina Jones (July 22, 1906-April 23, 1969), the
cousin of his sister-in-law Ophelia Jones Inman, and remarried after Tilda's
death.
Tilda
was the daughter of John Henry Jones and Allie Fair Willhite. She and Fred were
cousins, although they seemed not to know about the relationship. Tilda was the
granddaughter of Nancy Anna Frances Inman Jones, who was the cousin of Fred’s
great-grandfather.
On
Fred and Tilda's monument at McConnell Cemetery, the date of his birth is
incorrectly listed as 1907 rather the 1906 verified by the family Bible.
Living Children Deleted.