We have made a four day stop in Neosho, Missouri, the county seat for Newton County, MO, the county where my mother was born in 1913. We went to the court house and immediately found the marriage license for her parents, William Madison Cook and Della Williams for July 12, 1910. What a rush to see the actual recording document that was hand entered in 1910.
We learned that the county library had a good genealogical department so we moved over to that location and found indexes to all of the cemeteries in the county. We located John Whitfield Cook and Mary Jane Roark Cook, my great grand father and mother in the Swars Prairie Baptist Cemetery near Seneca, MO. We then found a complete survey of that cemetery and started looking in nearby plots and found the “mother-lode” of my mother’s ancestors.
Today we set out to ride the 12 miles to Seneca and visit my mother’s childhood community and the Swars Prairie Baptist Cemetery. Now 12 miles does not normally tax us unduly. However, this is the Missouri Ozarks, and they tend to be somewhat hilly. It was cold and windy. We waited a while for the temperature to increase. We finally bundled up and set out when it reached 45 degrees. All the way over we were driving into the teeth of a 15 to 20 mph west wind. Our first choice of back road turned out to be a dead end at the freeway, so we made a two mile detour to the north. We kept looking for a road to go back south. The one we picked had a little sign alongside that said “bridge out 1 mile.” I stopped and asked the crew alongside the road if we could get through and they said “oh yes.” Sure enough at the bottom of the hill they were building a new bridge. The cat operator waved as we stepped off the road and walked the bike down to the creek bottom to see if we could wade through. Luckily there was little water and we found a dry strip to ford the bottom. Once past the digger working on the other side we returned to the road and I took a photo.
After two hours of riding we arrived at the town of Racine, MO and stopped at the gas station to warm up a bit. The cold wind and hilly terrain were taking their toll. We were 8 miles out and 6 miles yet to go and we were already bordering on exhaustion. We stopped and ate lunch and then turned around and returned to the coach. It only took us 45 minutes to ride with the wind back to the coach.
Yes, there are some times that it would be nice to have a car with us. On the other hand we feel great and when we do ride through this wonderful country we see it in detail. Even getting to ride a road with a “bridge out” sign is an adventure you wouldn’t normally have in a car.
Tomorrow we will let Arcturus zip us over to Seneca and find a nice place to stay at the local casino just across the border in Oklahoma. From there the one mile ride to the library and museum will be a piece of cake.
Bye for now, and from my ancestral tree in Newton County Missouri, we send our love to all;
Gary and Judy
