The Annual Winona Picnic

Once again, the source material for this column arrived in the mail. This time, courtesy of retired Lawrence County Associate Circuit Judge Samuel Jones.

 

From writing historical research papers in college, I learned the value of primary source documents. Eyewitness accounts and contemporary newspaper articles add personality and insight to the facts of a matter. In this instance, Judge Jones provided handwritten notes of his mother, Ozark novelist and poet Chloe M. Briggs, of a childhood Ozark experience. 

 

A brief retrospective about Mrs. Briggs, whom I briefly mentioned in a column several years ago, will add some perspective. Born in 1901, she published two novels set in the Ozarks. The first was printed in 1983 and the second in 1991. But here’s the kicker. Mrs. Briggs finished her first book when she was eighty and her second book at ninety—in a nursing home.

 

I told Judge Jones, if his mother had the luxury of an agent and an editor, her work could have been an Ozark equivalent of Charles Frazier’s historical novel, Cold Mountain. Not long before she passed away, she lamented to her son, “If only I had known what I could do.” I often recall her statement as defense against limiting self-beliefs.

 

Another part of her backstory I find fascinating is how she met the judge’s father. Before graduating from high school, she taught grade school, and attended summer school in Cape Girardeau to complete her high school education. One of her fellow students regularly corresponded to a couple of pen pal boyfriends. At some point the friend picked one to be a “steady” and offered the other, Jesse Jones, to Mrs. Briggs (then, Miss Myres). 

 

At the time, Jesse had traveled to eastern Oregon to work on his uncle’s farm. They wrote letters to each other for two years before they ever met. After he returned to Missouri, a marriage proposal soon followed. 

 

As in Shakespeare’s A Midsummer Night’s Dream, the course of true love did not run smoothy. Mr. Jones contracted tuberculosis and was destined to spend a lengthy recovery in the Missouri State Sanitorium in Mount Vernon, Missouri. Judge Jones says his father offered to let his mother “opt out” of the engagement, but instead, she affirmed the relationship and vowed to stay with him in sickness and in health. And that is how the future Judge Jones and his family ended up in Lawrence County.

 

The notes I received were written with a fountain pen and a lead pencil on 8 1/2” x 11” looseleaf sheets of stationery folded in half and, now, yellow with age and fragile. After a bit of collating on my part, they formed a 20-page booklet detailing her memory of an annual picnic in Winona. 

 

As a ten-year-old girl, the annual Winona picnic in 1911 created a lasting memory for Mrs. Briggs. Advertised for weeks in the Shannon County Democrat, a weekly newspaper published in Winona, it created a great deal of anticipation in the community. 

 

After all, it would be hard not to be excited with events such as the girl’s nail driving contest, with a prize of $2.00, a doll, or a pair of oxfords; prizes for the prettiest baby; and if a couple got married on the speakers’ stand they got a “fancy lamp” from the Ozark Store. 

 

Here are few more highlights. The winner of the boys’ footrace race (under ten-years) got a fifty-cent straw hat. Older boys in their race could win a $1.50 shirt at the Ozark Store. The oldest man and oldest woman and the largest man and largest woman got an ice-cream soda and lemonade.

 

The organizing committee’s newspaper advertisement boasted: “We have also made arrangements with the Missouri Lumber and Mining Co. to run special trains over their roads to accommodate all who desire to come to the picnic . . ..” 

 

Moreover, the Ozark Cornet Band would meet the extra trains and march to the picnic area, which would have a steam-operated merry-go-round. As I pictured the event in my mind’s eye, an image of Professor Harold Hill from the musical The Music Man formed.

 

Mrs. Briggs’s notes reflect the excitement: “The annual town picnic was a big affair, and advertised for two weeks ahead. Shoes, hats, dresses, hair bows, fancy shirts, silk socks, gay parasols, were bought early and hoarded away for the great occasion. Teenage boys worked and schemed for weeks to save a little money for a splurge and a good time at the picnic.

 

“Girls teased and pouted for new dresses and finery, which no one could see [where the money] was coming from, yet they considered it their right.” One still-familiar tactic she mentioned was: “All the other girls are getting new hats.” 

 

Apparently, the pouting and teasing did not work because she and her sisters “. . . went to the picnic in last year’s (or from the year before) white lawn dresses, with black ribbons from Mother’s old winter hat, and shoes polished with the white of an egg mixed with soot from the kitchen stove, with five cents each to spend.” 

 

According to Mrs. Briggs, “The big free attraction of the day was the balloon ascension and parachute jump. A man would go up in a harness attached to the balloon and at a certain height come down in a parachute.” 

 

Mrs. Briggs recalled, “We wanted to ask a thousand questions, but there was no one to ask such things, so we stood around on tired feet waiting for the big pile of canvas to be ‘blown up,’ the parachute attached, and the breathtaking ascension to start. The preparations were mysterious, and even though we watched with popping eyes every move the men made, we could not understand the least thing they did. 

 

“At last, the huge canvas began to come alive. Gas piped in from the tank began to expand, until little by little, it grew into a thing of unbelievable bigness that tugged and swayed against its moorings, like a huge beast chafing to be off. And the big gray balloon floated off on the wind carrying a soiled, little dark-haired man in the intricate strings and ropes beneath. Would he come back?

 

“Higher and higher the balloon went until it was a small speck in the sky. Then, we saw another speck, and it resolved itself into an umbrella-like object with something moving beneath. It was the little man and his parachute. The wind had carried him too far away for us to see very well for the trees and buildings.”

 

Young Miss Myres became distracted when her little brother started crying because he lost his nickel in the dusty street. “He had held the precious coin in his sweaty hands, not knowing which of the many tempting things to buy.” They searched with no success, but finally got him settled down after she and her sisters shared their lemonades with him.

 

While waiting for the band to start playing, she “. . . was nearly run over by a pair of gray mules pulling a farm wagon. Inside the low wagon box was a big pile of canvas dripping wet, and sitting atop the thing was the little dark-haired man smiling and waving at the crowd. The deflated balloon had fallen into a pond, but the little man and his parachute had been picked up in a clover patch a mile or so away. Folks gazed at the smiling little man, as they would at one from the dead.”

 

In the early 20th century, parachute jumps from gas balloons were a popular attraction at fairs, picnics, and other public events. By today’s standards, that may seem quaint, but even airplanes were a rarity in 1911. The U. S. Army acquired its first airplane in 1909 and only had seven by 1912. And a nickel to spend might seem like a pittance, but considering a dollar in 1911 had the purchasing power of $33 today, it was a princely sum.