On Monday, May 28 from 1-4 p.m. the Friends of the Historic Columbia Cemetery will be hosting their second annual History Comes Alive event to teach attendees about notable citizens buried in this historic cemetery. Seven different “famous” former residents of Columbia will be represented by various talented actors in period dress who will explain why they were important to local history. The actors are being directed by Chris Campbell, executive Director of the Boone County History and Culture Center. Monica McMurry of Stephens College Theatre Department is in charge of costumes. You will be guided to each of their graves to experience these brief monologues.
In a previous post we talked about Victor Barth and John Lange, Sr., and in this installment we will discuss Brigadier General Odon Guitar and James L. Stephens. Continue reading “History Comes Alive: Odon Guitar & James L. Stephens”
Have Memorial Day plans? Mark your calendar to spend time with us as some old faces of Columbia come to life at the Columbia Cemetery. On Monday, May 28, the Friends of the Historic Columbia Cemetery will be hosting their second annual History Comes Alive tour of notable people buried in the cemetery. This free event will have local actors portraying the lives of seven of the citizens who helped make Columbia the community it is.
Last year’s event was very successful — many enjoyed the sunshine while re-enactors explained their lives and what they did to become a “notable” in their lifetimes. This year should be just as great! Below are highlights of just a couple of the citizens being featured. Continue reading “History Comes Alive: Victor Barth & John Lange, Sr.”
The first reference I heard to orphan trains was when my dad and I were at the New Hope Baptist Church Cemetery located southeast of Centralia, and he said, “That guy buried there came on the orphan train.” Dad was head deacon of the church at that time, and he knew most of the people who were buried in the small church’s cemetery. I later found out Charlie Rose came to the area on the orphan train, lived with a local family and later married a local girl, Maggie Mayes. His brother Donald Rose — also an orphan form New York — was sent to a family in the Rolla area. Both brothers settled around Mexico, MO for a while, and Donald married Maggie’s sister Janie. Though Donald would later die near St. Louis just months after his wife Janie, both couples were buried in this little church cemetery outside Centralia.
Fourteen children came to the area from the Children’s Aid Society on June 10, 1910 in hopes they would find a new home. Ranging in ages from 4 months old to 14 years old, 11 of them went home with families in the area. I have been able to locate either the names of the children or the names of the families that took in these children, and I’ve also discovered a total of 25 orphans who came to northern Boone or western Audrain counties to live with new foster families homes. A partial list is provided below.
The library will be hosting several programs this spring highlighting the orphan train experience. Phillip Lancaster and Alison Moore will be performing a multimedia program combining live music and storytelling along with interviews of survivors: Continue reading “The Orphan Train Comes to Central Missouri”
We are in the middle of NaNoWriMo, which means if you’re participating in this intense creative exercise you should have half of a new modern classic written. It probably has a rich sense of place, complex characters that the readers will love despite their flaws, romance, suspense, melancholy, hopefully a little karate and reading it will be a transformative experience. Or maybe the weight of these expectations has left you paralyzed.
If you’re stuck, I can relate. I’ve struggled with this blog post for a long time. At first I thought it would be funny to start a blog post about inspiration and writer’s block with jokes about how I couldn’t write it because of my writer’s block. Ha. After pages of hilarious riffing on that theme I realized it was trite and deleted everything. Back to the drawing board. Back to the blank screen. The screen stayed blank. For what seemed like hours I stared and the screen stared back. Then I thought I heard a voice coming from the screen. That was it! Someone discovers they have a talking computer screen and a beautiful friendship develops. No, a spicy romance. No, a professional rivalry. But what is the screen’s name? It has to have a name … Continue reading “NaNoWriMO: Halfway Point Malaise?”
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On Monday, May 28 from 1-4 p.m. the Friends of the Historic Columbia Cemetery will be hosting their second annual History Comes Alive event to teach attendees about notable citizens buried in this historic cemetery. Seven different “famous” former residents of Columbia will be represented by various talented actors in period dress who will explain why they were important to local history. The actors are being directed by Chris Campbell, executive Director of the Boone County History and Culture Center. Monica McMurry of Stephens College Theatre Department is in charge of costumes. You will be guided to each of their graves to experience these brief monologues.
If you are an adoptee born in Missouri, access to a copy of your original birth certificate will now be available to you! As of January 2, 2018, a new law in Missouri will allow those 18 and older access to a copy of their original birth certificate without the need for a court order. To help celebrate this milestone event, 
“As long as poverty, injustice and gross inequality exist in our world, none of us can truly rest.”