Hannahs of the Ozarks
Farming in Christian County
by Linda Zweerink

     One family's growth and struggle through the early 1900's may be an example of how many Ozarks families survived and prospered on rock farms in western Christian County. the Alvin and Alice Hannah family of the Finley River valley consisted of fifteen children: Willard, Edgar, Frank, Leonard, Earl, Octa, Amos, Clarissa, Weltha, Lucy, Bonnie, Milburn, Morris, Nola and Lenville.

     Alvin Hannah, patriarch, was born in 1870 to Mathes¹ and Ellen Hannah, Little else is known of his childhood except that his parents were both dead by the time he was fourteen years of age. Probate records filed at Harrisonville in Cass County, Missouri, in 1884, show that Alvin, his brother Clarence (age 16), and sister Etta (age 12), were placed in the guardianship of Philip Corrigan, who was curator of their $1,500 estate. 1889 records they resided in Christian county and petitioned the court to appoint a new curator, J. C. Brazeale. both curators invested the money wisely and it grew by several hundred dollars. J. C. Brazeale purchased each minor a 40 acre tract near Selmore from the estate. Lenville, the youngest child: "My father inheired 40 acres of timber and they went to work to clear that on a cross-cut saw, he on one end and she (mom) on the other, and they had 1 cow, 1 sow, and 1 horse. They built their house, and barn, and other buildings, and started into farming and raising a family. When he died in 1916, he had 400 acres of land, 14 surviving children, and a lot of investment."

     Neighbors report that he was a "fine" man, well liked and respected by everyone who knew him, and that he had met and dealt or traded with nearly everyone in Christian County.  Few pictures were taken of alvin Hannah, hereafter referred to as Dad. He was of medium to large build, dark hair, and had penetrating eyes. He was said to be an exacting but just man. When he called his child's name, he meant right now. He only told them something once, then it was their hide. The siblings report they received few whippings, but the ones they received were well deserved. He wanted things done exactly his way, which was the right way, and had made the children redo their chores until they did it. right. He was head of the household. Edgar says that he believed his father was strict in his childrearing, but learned to appreciate this after he had children of his own. The children say their dad played with them when they weren't working, wrestling during their lunch break, and holding jumping contests from the porch.  Even during his mid-40's, Dad often was victorious over his strapping teen-age sons. All surviving Hannah offspring declare the greatest respect for both their parents. Mary Alice White Hannah was the first of eight children born to John H. White and Octa Melton White in 1873. Her grandfather, Tom White, was on of the earliest white settler in the Highlandville area. She was a sturdy and energetic woman, hard working and careful to live daily by her Christian faith. She bore 15 children over a span of 25 years, and was pregnant a total of 9 years of her life. She was devoted to her husband and children.

      In 1916, the family lived on 240 acres in the valley, plus and additional 160 acres on the original homestead two miles away as the crow flies, nearly five miles by road, for a total of 400 acres. In 1916, not all of the children lived under the same roof. One child Earl, did in early childhood, several of the older children were married and lived in three separate houses on the Hannah property, and about twelve people were living in the main three bedroom house. The house had a wide concrete porch on the south and west side, and the farm included a concrete cellar dug into a hill, an adjoining smokehouse for meats, an outhouse, 2 sheep sheds and a cattle barn, 2 chicken houses, hog sheds, a scalding pit, a spring a half a quarter mile north of the house, a spring west of the house in a bluff with a branch outlet to the river, a milking barn for cows and horse stables, a machine shed for buggies, hacks, surreys, and equipment.

     The lower river valley farm was acquired in 1908. The wooded hills behind the house were cleared and planted in orchard grass for the cattle and hogs. The oak timber was saved to build the house and barn. In 1910, a sawmill was hired, set up on the premises, and the timber was cut into slabs using a steam-powered saw. The four oldest boys and Octa, the oldest daughter, temporarily lived on the lower farm while building the barn and house. The boys did the actual construction work with the aid of a few carpenters, and Octa, at the age of 10, prepared food and set up housekeeping for the five men in the barn--once a log cabin on the old Fisher place. Dad hired a demolition team to blast out part of the bluff to gain better access to a spring west of the house. This spring was used for refrigeration. Memory serves as the only record as to the cost of the buildings and blasting. Octa recalls that concrete was 25 cents a hundred pound bag.

The Hannahs were the first family in western Christian County to have running water in their house. Dad concreted the well, built a pressure system, and buried pipes in the hillside above the floodline, put a holding tank and pump in the house. Overflow went into the house troughs outside.      Dad was mechanically minded and often invented contraptions to fit his needs. His indoor plumbing was a attraction in the neighborhood. Before his death in 1916, he fully intended to put a bathroom upstairs.       The cattle barn and sheep sheds were log structures lived in and use by the Fisher family prior owners of the property. They were old and in disrepair when the Hannahs purchased the land.       Each person had assigned chores that did not vary or alternate until that person either outgrew the chore and went on to a more difficult task, or married or moved to another house. For example, they younger grade school aged children milked cows, separated the milk, while  the older boys cared for stock. Everyone was taught by his father how to preform the chore exactly, then everyone was expected to take pride in his work. The oldest four children being sons was a financial asset as they helped in providing necessary labor

This is the spring that the Hannahs used as a refrigerator for their food.

     Farm equipment was used as often as possible and loaned or traded to neighbors. For instance, Charles Skaggs had a wheat drill for spring planting, the Hannahs had a wheat binder for harvest. They helped one another to avoid the exchange of money. When labor was hired, the cost wast about $1.00 a day.

Some animals were considered a part of the family. Bonnie's dog Souphound, Lenville's pet goat, and especially a team of horses named Ike and Bald. The team was electrocuted when a windstorm blew electric wires down into the Finley River at Ozark Mill. The two boys driving the wagon in for a load of feed, Bonnie (14) and Lenville (6), were nearly electrocuted themselves. The death of the horse was received "just like a funeral ar our house. We raised them horses. We kids just dearly loved them and they was just as fat as mudballs. They were so gentle and easy to work with. To us kids, they were just like one of us," related Weltha. "The power company told us to go out and buy the best team of horses available. We did, but they were never the team that we had. There was never another team like Bald and Ike," remembers Lenville.

1917 Photo: Arvil Dixon, Frank Hannah, Amos Hannah, Morse & Nola, Mother holding her prize sweet potato. This Horse is one of the Team that was killed in the river at Ozark.

A close neighbor, Charley Skaggs, was considered a fair animal doctor, though he was a carpenter and farmer by trade. His father was an veterinarian, so Charley knew a lot about animals. He stitched up wounds in the neighbor's animals, but if a serious problem arose, a bonafide veterinarian was called from Ozark or Highlandville.

"I remember from the time I was old enough to play, going down to the branch and catching minnows, and catching fish out of the crick down there, and why, my main play thing was my pet goat and my cart. Now my brother-in-law Arvil Dixon, had built me this two-wheeled cart, and I had my pet goat, and my other brothers and sisters chipped in and they all bought this set of harness and it was first class traveling. And I'd go around to the neighbors on this cart and with the goat. And that was my main play for years, besides my dog."                                                                                                                 .....Lenville Hannah  Arvil Dixon had this cart and goat harness made for our pet goat. He drove this rig through the spring branches..visited the neighbors all over. Trouble of it was he wouldn't let me ride it and that was where the battle started."                                                                                                            .....Nola Hannah Story
		Lenville, Age 5 years2

     Amos, who tended the sheep, reports he was able to shear a sheep in 2 minutes, 18 seconds by tying their feet and laying them on a table. He claims to never nick or cripple the animal, and to have a clean and solid fleece. He reported observing a sheep shearing contest in Chicago at the World's Fair later, and the best shearing time was 2 minutes, 28 seconds. The sheep were nicked, bleeding, and crippled from pressure on their spine, and the fleece was scattered and dirty. "Dad never allowed that," Amos said. "We'd better do things right and take care of our stock, or we were punished. Once Jim Wasson, owner of much stock in the valley, asked me to shear his sheep because his hired man was sick. Jim was amazed that I sheared faster, charged less, didn't maim his flock, and left the fleece intact. I didn't know any different but what Dad expected of me, which was to do it right."

     Leonard was caretaker of the hogs. The hogs were butchered in late fall so they could be frozen and preserved quickly. One year after Willard and Edgar were married, Dad butchered 21 hogs for the three families. amos recalls working until w or 3 in the morning cutting and packing them, getting them out of the night air. Dad took the pork into the corner of the smokehouse and salted it down, side meat first, then shoulders, then hams. Or the hams would be coasted with a sealer and smoked. Weltha says, "Law! We made sausage! We'd make our own sacks to put our sausage in, we made our own seasoning, and then we'd stuff the sausage in the sacks and keep pressing it down. There in the smokehouse we'd drive nails real close, just so they wouldn't touch, and they's stay in there all winter and freeze, when we'd bring some in the house. We'd have the best sausage."

     Charley Skaggs kept goats to kill brush. Every year he'd kill a fat goat and the Hannahs would buy a portion of the meat. The goat meat was said to be delicious, not greasy like mutton. The Hannahs did not butcher sheep.

     Usually the boys helped with general farming chores, but the girls also helped outside. All children helped at some time with the milking. Of Weltha's years, she said "I turned the separator 'til I was blue in the face. And I had to clean it in soapy water, sterilize it in boiling water, leave it out in the sun all day, rinse it out and put it together in the evening. Now that's what turned me so against milk." After the milk truck came through every day, the separator fell by the wayside. The cheese factory at Ozark took the milk.

     Octa, being the oldest girl, helped with many kitchen chores. She washed the dishes at such an early age that she stood on the opened oven door in order to be able to reach the dishwater on the cookstove. Her brother, Amos or Leonard, helped to dry the dishes they didn't throw at one another. Octa also stood on the opened oven door of the wood stove to turn meat in the frying pan. She learned early to make pastry and baked most of the family deserts. Cobblers were made the most frequently as they fed many with the least amount of effort.

     Mom solely tended the chickens. She normally kept between 200 and 250 white leghorns. She kept the roosters for eating, then sold the leftovers. She tended the chickens twice daily, in the henhouse and brooder house down the road towards Skaggs'. When gathering the eggs, the clean ones were placed in egg crates and stored in a cool place. The dirty eggs were washed and consumed by the family. Thirty dozen clean eggs were taken to town on Saturday and sold at 12 cents a dozen. The money received went to by more chicken feed in white or printed feedsacks, oyster shells for grit, and then groceries if they were needed. Lenville remembers, "If our groceries cost $5.00, that was a lot of money." He was usually given a quarter from the egg money to spend as he wished, usually buying a soda, candy, or a French harp which he claims to play still with some expertise.

     Mary Doss records that "Saturday was trade day for farmers. They brought their eggs, butter, and poultry to town to town to trade for groceries. In later years they sold cream." Mom did take cream to the store that Weltha had so diligently separated, but the skim mild was mixed with shorts and fed to the hogs.
     
     

    This is a 1991 picture of the house and barn that Alvin Hannah built before his passing. The eight-room house had five bedrooms. 

     The Gilmores operated the mill at Riverdale. First built before the Civil War, it had been modernized as it changed ownership. When the Gilmore family gained ownership in 1870, the mill was grinding flour, corn meal, and bran. Flour was stored at the mill. After a family had their wheat ground they left a portion to be used by them later. As they went in throughout the year, credit was given for the flour used. Mr. Gilmore's fee for grinding was a percentage of the grain. He used this to fatten a drove of hogs to use for his family or to sell on the market. The Gilmores opened a store to handle other staples and established a post office in their store. A smithy opened a shop across the river and the community thrived sufficiently to warrant a second general store.  There were two licensed stills using spring water.

     Wash day was described by Lenville: "I remember when I was very small, Mom had clotheslines practically all over the yard. We had two iron wash kettles out in the yard--wood had to be carried up and split up to build a fire around them and get the water boiling hot, then we had to carry it and put it in the wash tub. We had an old hand cranked washing machine, and I dum near cranked that thing back and forth until I was blue in the face. But between the washboard and washing machine and kettles, we had clean clothes and plenty of them. Some of 'em was getting kind of threadbare at times, but they were clean. Mom always made her lye soap out in the wash kettle in the yard out of the cracklins from when she rendered out the hog lard. She always saved her cracklins to make her soap, and used some of them cracklins to make cracklin corn bread. That was pretty good, too."

     The girls helped with the housecleaning, cooking, sewing, gardening, and canning. The family used a cold pack canner. Vegetables were cleaned and prepared, then put in tin cans, using a capper to seal them. "We'd clean out the scalding pit where we dressed our hogs, build a hot fire, and law! We could can a hundred cans in there at a time," said Weltha.

     Vegetables grown for canning were green beans, tomatoes, spinach with poke, mustard greens, corn, carrots, pumpkin. The children gathered blackberries for jelly and jam. Fruit was generally gathered from the orchard and canned in glass quart jars, such as apples, pears, peaches, and some berries for future use in cobblers and pies. Jelly and jams were also put into jars and sealed with paraffin. Kraut and cucumber pickles were packed in crocks for pickling. Mon felt that her canning season was insufficient if she didn't have around 1200 quarts of vegetables and fruit in the cellar, according to Lenville.

     Other garden produce was stored in various ways. Turnips were dug up and then buried in a straw-lined pit in the garden, covered with straw and tim and boards. Cabbages and apples were stored in this manner also.  Sweet potatoes and onions were stored in crates in an attic closet to stay cool and dry. Irish potatoes were stored in the root cellar in five potato bins, measuring about 3x5x2 foot. Each fall the bins were full. The last year's potatoes were cut up and used for new plants.

     Sewing also occupied many hours. Material was obtained from animal feedsacks for undergarments (slips, bloomers, underpants), nightgowns and pajamas, sheets and pillowcases. Weltha described making a sheet: "A sheet took five feedsacks. She'd sew four together and make a square, then she'd slip one and put it at the foot, then she'd hem them all around and reinforce them seams. There wasn't no raw seams to them when she got through with them. And the pillowcases....when they got to buying feed in printed sacks, why, them was pretty pillowcases. And aprons and dresses. That's where we got our every day dresses."

     Each girl had Sunday clothes, one good dress, school clothes, and work clothes. Only the one good Sunday dress was store bought for a teenaged girl who was sparking. It was made of taffeta. The younger boys had a suit jacket and knee breeches. Shoes were the hardest to come by. Often in warm weather the children walked to school barefoot. But they had shoes for church and work shoes, often doubling as school shoes. Most of the boy's clothing was store brought...their long underwear for winter, overalls and suits.

     Burlap feed bags were unwoven, dyed, and rewoven into throw rugs. Neighbor ladies would do the unraveling and dying and a third, who owned the loom, did the weaving. Quilting was also a neighborhood process. After the quilt was pieced, four ladies could quilt it in one day. When the quilt was finished the unmarried girls would each grasp a corner, place a cat in the middle of the quilt and toss the cat up in the air with the blanket. Whichever corner the cat jumped off nearest meant that girl would be married next.

     The Hannahs were close while growing up, and nearly every one of the children had a nickname. This warm and friendly relationship extended to the neighbors also, as they had nicknames as well. Examples of nicknames that have existed to date over 50 years are Lenville "Bun" Hannah, John "Uncle Bud" Collins, "Whistler" Oscar Skaggs, Elizabeth "Zo" Collins, Juanita "Surrey" Dixon.

     Not to make the scene sound too tranquil, Mom had a slight ulcer for many years, having had children at home for forty-six years. Fourteen children, plus other relatives and friends in and out every day was most assuredly hectic if not bedlam.

     Grandparents and kinfolk were integral parts of the family scene. Grandfather White suffered a stroke, his wife died the next year, then he was taken to his daughter's house where he lived and was cared for by her until his own death a year later. The Hannah children fondly recall their grandparents, and that tiny white-haired Grandma White chewed tobacco. Although there were few large family reunions on the White Farm, grandchildren were dropped off to spend a few days. The Whites had around 220 acres, and derived their extra income from their flock of leghorn chickens and around 30 beehives. They sold chickens, eggs and honey in addition to regular farming. Octa ice skated in regular shoes with her friend Minnie Glenn on her grandparents frozen pond. Octa also recalls doing the major portion of her sparking with Elmer Fox at her grandparents, as he was their next door neighbor. "I practically grew up on my grandparents' farm."  Octa said.

     Except during the school year, the family was together three times daily for meals. Breakfast was prepared by the older girls and Mom.  Sausage, biscuits and gravy, eggs, jams and jellies, honey and apple butter were served on a large oak table with a number of extension leaves inserted. During the school year, lunch was packed into gallon sorghum buckets or molasses buckets after breakfast. Several lunches would fit into one can. Since nearly 100 biscuits were baked each morning, the leftovers were spread with peanut butter and jelly or hunks of ham or sausage. Weltha recalls the day she opened her bucket for lunch and found a half gallon of sorghum instead.

     

Alice Hannah and Lenville, Nellie Brown Hannah (Edgar's wife), and Agnes. Taken October 15, 1917, one year after Daddy passed away.

The family physician was Doctor Wesley Wasson, a neighbor in the Finley River Valley who set up an office in Nixa. He delivered most of the Hannah children, altogether delivered around 3,000 babies in his career. He was assisted by Aunt Ettie Henderson, Alvin's sister, who lived on the next farm north. The doctor was fetched in only the most serious emergencies. Otherwise, home remedies were used. Lysol water was steamed over the stove everyday to purify the air and kill germs when Lucy was confined to bed with tuberculosis. Cough syrup was rock candy and whisky. "Talk about cutting that stuff out of your throat and lungs, now it did.  She would weaken it down with some water for the small ones." remembered Weltha. Also used for colds was polecat grease mixed with regular lard, Vicks Salve, and quinine, rubbed on the chest and covered with a dry, warm cloth.       Mom and Dad were Baptists who strictly and literally interpreted the Bible and sought to instill their beliefs in everyday life. Cards playing, smoking cigarettes, and liquor were considered sinful and immoral and were never allowed or tolerated in the home. Dad occasionally had a chaw of tobacco, as did his mother-in-law, but never smoked.      Church services were attended regularly at Riverdale Baptist Church every Sunday morning. "When that bell would ring, you could hear it all over the country," Weltha remembers. Evening services were held twice monthly. Sunday nights, the teenaged children rode by horse and buggy to Selmore or Highlandville to attend Baptist churches there when Riverdale wasn't meeting. Church going was a social event as well as religious. Baptism was held at the mill pond in Riverdale community about one mile from church.   Ozark picnic grounds: Nora Raper Skaggs, Grace Beard Hannah, Maggie Smith Hannah.

1917 Photograph: Clarice, Weltha, Lucy, Nola, Lenville, Milburn, Bonnie, and Morse Hannah

     The Hannah children attended Handy School, 1 ½ mile south of the farm. Around thirty children were enrolled in the one room school that housed eight grades in 1916. Five of those children, Clairssa, Weltha, Lucy, Bonnie, and Milburn were Hannahs. Altogether, ten families were represented in the enrollment. The Hannah children walked across fields and through fences to reach Skaggs', and then walked up the dirt road with their friends who would wait along the way. If children arrived before the first bell, they played ball in the school yard.

     The first bell meant "get ready", and everyone made two lines according to which side of the room he sat on. The second bell meant "march in." Extra seats were in the front row, and children were called to the front by classes to occupy those seats. Slates and a few books students possessed were kept at school throughout the school year. While one class was at the front, the other children did their studying. Misbehavior was punished by sending a child across the road to get his own switch, then wearing it out on him. The most popular school event of the week was Fridays spelling bee when parents were invited to observe their children's progress.