OLDn’NEWS FROM AROUND THE COUNTY
We had the 36th Annual Randolph County Historical Society dinner meeting Tuesday night at Nelly’s in Moberly. Eighty people heard a short business meeting and participated in the election of officers for the coming year. The program had to be changed at the last minute, since Leroy Canaday’s son was having heart surgery in St Joseph. Dr. Howard ‘Rusty’ Marshall gave the program using songs from his new CD album, which will be released in October. His accompanist was guitarist, Ken Appleby. The fiddle music on the album is all from the Lewis and Clark era of United States history. There were two fiddlers on the trip up the Missouri and west to the Pacific Ocean. One was a French Canadian boatman and the other a carpenter. Fiddle music has it’s roots in Irish, Scotch and English music of two to three centuries ago and Rusty introduced each tune with a short history of it’s origin. Rusty’s grandfather Wiley Marshall was well known as a fiddler at square dances in Randolph County for many years.
QUICK NOTES
Ralph Gerhard and I had a great time a couple of weeks ago visiting with Marion Harlan from Columbia and his sister Barbara Ronimous from Middle Grove. They told us a lot about Rolling Home and all of that area. Their father attended Mt Carmel School. They donated several pictures of the school and the students there. Marion has been one of the most prolific genealogy transcribers in the Missouri in the last few years. The History Center library has many books by Marion containing notes on marriages and deaths that he has copied from newspapers. Barbara brought us a full set of the newsletter called ‘My Brush Creek Chronicle,’ written and published by former Brush Creek resident Harry Willsie. Brush Creek? It’s a Randolph County spot and sure, we’ll be talking about in a later edition. Stay tuned each week.
Be ready to have a lot of history lessons on radio, TV and in the papers about the trip of Lewis and Clark up the Missouri River in the next three or four years. This will be the 200th anniversary of the trip. I’ve already seen some on TV. The Department of Tourism is predicting as many as eight million tourists will be traveling the roads along the way of the Lewis and Clark trip. Randolph County is on 30 miles or so from a couple of their campsites.
Old Time Missouri Fiddling CD’s by Leroy Canaday and Rusty Marshall are for sale at the History Center. We will also have the Lewis and Clark era CD by Rusty when it is released.
A model railroader group headed by Bob Schafer is starting to assemble the model railroad that was given to the Society recently. If you would like to help don’t hesitate to call the History Center and leave a message or call Bob at his home in Moberly. We are hoping that people will donate their old railroad cars and engines for the project, especially those with Wabash, Katy, Bevier and Southern, Southern, Norfolk and Western, Norfolk Southern and Chicago and Alton logos.
RAILROAD MUSEUM
The Railroad Museum has been open every Sunday since May and it will close for the winter at the end of September except for special groups. There are no heating, air conditioning or restroom facilities at the museum, which makes it a little tough on people who volunteer to open it for the rest of the public. We are hoping that will change by next summer. The museum is included in the trail project by the city of Moberly. It will include repairs to and updating of the museum building.
Fairview / Jacksonville celebration is coming soon. Sure, Cairo was named Fairview originally. We’ll have more about that at a later date.