Here are the rest of my picture of the Graham Street Fair Parade. I tried to shoot every entry into the parade, but I know I missed a few.
I was distracted at one point by a thundering herd of Nodaway/Holt County teenaged beef running past. It seems that the Spartan cheerleaders had launched a sneak water balloon attack against the Spartan football team (more on that tomorrow), and the boys sought refuge further down the street.
Come back tomorrow for my final installment about the Street Fair … you’ll read what I learned at my first visit to the Graham Street Fair in 38 years.
This is part 1 of my pictures of this year’s Graham Street Fair parade.
The event took place on Saturday, 8/29/15, with my mother, Letha Shull Mowry, as the Grand Marshall. She led the parade, of course, so let’s get started!
My mother was selected to be the 2015 Grand Marshall of our hometown parade at the Graham Street Fair. It seems only fitting, as you will learn, since she helped plan the first Street Fair 64 years ago.
Here is her story, as told by her in the “Cruz’n To The Fair” program book for the 2015 Graham Street Fair:
Letha (Shull) Mowry was born southeast of Graham on the 2 March 1930 to Lee Edison & Ruth Mary (Decker) Shull. Dad was a renter so we moved from my birthplace to northeast of Graham, then moved west of Maryville and then southwest of Maitland. It was from there I started school, in a rural school at the ripe old age of 5 years.
I later went to Maitland Elementary School for a couple of years, and then moved to the farm the folks bought northwest of Graham. I attended Elkhorn rural school until it closed and we went to Graham for my eighth grade year.
James Woods Decker. Graham High School teacher, principal and Grandfather.
It was quite an experience to have science taught by my Grandpa Decker – and to be scolded by a Senior girl for not paying respect to Mr. Decker! He then announced in each class that I was his granddaughter and could call him Grandpa!
The Pipeline Booster Station was being built near our house northwest of Graham, and a better road was needed. In the fall of 1943, the hedge on either side of the road was bulldozed out into the road in preparation … October came and it rained and rained and rained. No school bus could go up that road, and we were 3.5 miles from the blacktop. My third grade little sister, Mary Nelle and I couldn’t make that walk twice a day, so it was determined Mom, Mary Nelle, James Leroy and I would go to Maryville to live with Grandma (Cora Baugher) Shull. I enrolled in Horace Mann High School, and Leroy was enrolled in Kindergarten there. Mary Nelle couldn’t go there (they had limited enrollment and the third grade was full), so she had to go to Eugene Field Elementary School.
The Shull Kids, 1940
Mom and the kids went home for the summer, but I had to work, so I stayed on with Grandma. I baby-sat and cleaned houses for the hefty sum of a quarter an hour! I chose to stay on to graduate from HMHS as there was work available – and I thought the opportunity for college was here, too.
Letha Shull, Senior Picture, 1947 Horace Mann High School, Maryville, MO
My senior year in High School I went to college in the morning and high school in the afternoon. I went to college that summer and ended with 29.5 college credits. That fall (1947), I taught at Lincoln rural school north of Oregon, MO.
I was offered a contract for the next year, but declined as Bob Mowry and I were married 16 June 1948 in the Methodist parsonage at Maitland, MO and I became a farm wife.
I was active in the Good Luck Club and joined Decker Rebekah Lodge # 843 in 1952.
In 1951, when the Graham Street Fair was started, I helped with that also. I was the Good Luck Club representative. The Lyle Club was responsible for the planning. We met at Cora Lyle’s home to begin the planning for that first fair.
Robert & Letha Mowry, 1948
Bob and I remained living southeast of Graham where our children Mary Elizabeth (16 Oct 1951) and Henry Lee (15 July 1956) were born and grew up. Both are graduates of Nodaway Holt R-VII. In 1971, Bob and I bought a home in Graham and lived there until Bob’s death 28 Oct 1985. By then, both kids were gone from home and married.
While living in Graham, I became active in the Graham Historical Society. In fact, when the first history On The Banks Of The Elkhorn was put together, it was assembled around our dining room table by Earnest & Ardith Kneale and Bob and I. It was about that time that both Earnest and Bob threatened us with divorce if we did another book.
The next volume came out a year later but no divorces – nor was it assembled around a dining room table.
After Bob’s death, I needed to go to work so I was determined that I needed more education. I enrolled in the NWMO Technical School in Maryville, MO under the Displaced Housewives program. I was enrolled in the secretarial education class to learn computers. My education cycle had come full circle – my teacher was Elizabeth! I DID earn my grades!
1 Jan 1987 I began work as Deputy Recorder of Deeds working under Donna Carmichael, Recorder. Commuting from Graham to Maryville each day was not easy for a widow woman, so in the spring I purchased a home in Maryville and moved there in April.
Graham is still “down home” in my heart and will remain so!
Letha, with Henry & Elizabeth. 2006. This is the photo that will forever be known as Mom’s attitude photo! It was Sis’ fault, honest.
When we have 2 full moons within a single month, the second full moon is often called a “blue moon.” Hence the phrase, “once in a blue moon.”
Except that’s not right, exactly.
The actual origin of “once in a blue moon” is cited by the Maine Farmer’s Almanac in the early 1900s as the just-about-as-rare time that a season has 4 full moons. When that happens, the 3rd of the 4 full moons was called a blue moon. Following the way our calendar works as set out by the Gregorian calendar reform (as we have since 1582), this kind of blue moon only happens in February, May, August and November.
However, the magazine “Sky & Telescope” helped to change that definition when it defined a blue moon as the second in a calendar month … that, in a twist only history can give us, used data received from the editor of the Maine Farmer’s Almanac that used the other definition!
So, whether you subscribe to the ideas of the Maine Farmer’s Almanac, or the more popularly accepted but historically poorly edited Sky & Telescope magazine, here’s a picture of last night’s moon.
Some will say it’s a blue moon. Some will say it’s yellow, at least in this picture.
The “blue moon” as seen from the City of Rocks National Monument. Tweeted by the US Department of the Interior, 8/1/15.
Protestors in Birmingham, AL, gathered on the state capitol’s steps after the Alabama governor removed the Confederate Battle Flag from the capitol’s grounds. Note the last flag of the Confederate States of America, left.
The Confederate Flag is everywhere in the news right now, and I’ve taken that opportunity to learn about this suddenly controversial symbol.
Personally, I’ve never had any particular affinity for the Confederacy, nor have I identified strongly with “Southern Pride” or “the South.” I grew up a Midwesterner, I thought. When Mizzou merged into the SEC a couple of years ago, one Southern criticism was that perhaps Missouri wasn’t “Southern enough” for the SEC.
So what’s all this Southern pride in the Confederate flag really all about?
1. What everyone is calling “The Confederate Flag” really isn’t that at all.
This may just be verbal shorthand, but I think there is an important distinction here: the flag that so many people are celebrating as “The” Confederate Flag is more properly called the Confederate Battle Flag. The Battle Flag was an element of later Confederate flags, but only an element.
Battle Flag of the Confederate Army
This flag served as a battle flag for the Army of Northern Virginia. From Wikipedia:
The Army of Northern Virginia battle flag assumed a prominent place post-war when it was adopted as the copyrighted emblem of the United Confederate Veterans. Its continued use by the Southern Army’s post-war veterans groups, the United Confederate Veterans and the later Sons of Confederate Veterans and elements of the design by related similar female descendents organizations of the United Daughters of the Confederacy led to the assumption that it was, as it has been termed, “the soldier’s flag” or “the Confederate battle flag”.
The square “Battle Flag” is also properly known as “the flag of the Army of Northern Virginia”. It was sometimes called “Beauregard’s flag” or “the Virginia battle flag”. A Virginia Department of Historic Resources marker declaring Fairfax, Virginia, as the birthplace of the Confederate battle flag was dedicated on April 12, 2008, near the intersection of Main and Oak Streets, in Fairfax, Virginia.
A similar flag in a rectangular design became the Confederate Navy Jack, the flag flown from ships of the Confederate Navy after 1863:
Confederate Navy Jack
This symbol was used to rally and inspire Confederate soldiers & sailors. The purpose of those soldiers and sailors? Their job was to kill American soldiers and sailors … American citizens that were protecting the Union. That’s the origin of this symbol.
2. The Confederate States of America actually had three different official “national” flags.
The first version went through four revisions, with the number of stars standing for each state that had joined the Confederacy. However, all four of these were found to be too confusing on the field of battle: they looked too much like the flag of the USA.
Flag of the Confederate States of America (March 1861 – May 1861)
Flag of the Confederate States of America (May 1861 – July 1861)
Flag of the Confederate States of America (July 1861 – November 1861)
Flag of the Confederate States of America (1861-1863)
To create a flag that was less confusing to soldiers, a white flag with the battle flag (“stars & bars”) in the upper left field was created. This version was also confusing on the battlefield, as it looked like a surrender flag if no wind was blowing.
Flag of the Confederate States of America (1863-1865)
With that problem, the third and final flag version was created … all for a “nation” that lasted only four years.
Flag of the Confederate States of America (1865)
3. “Southern Pride” is symbolized by the Confederate Battle Flag.
This idea is very strong in some circles, and truly surprises me.
It’s fine to be proud of your heritage, and proud of where you’re from. Even the Beach Boys taught us to be “True To Your School.”
However, to take as your symbol the flag of a failed army is an odd choice. Here are a few incontrovertible facts:
The Confederate Army lost the war.
The Confederate Army surrendered their flag to the victorious army of the United States of America. General Robert E Lee counseled citizens of the south to stop displaying the battle flag, as he feared they would be accused of treason.
The designer of the Confederate Battle Flag believed that it stood for the right of the white race to enslave the black race.
4. 150 years after the Civil War ended, some are confused about what the War Between The States was all about.
Some revisionists claim the Civil War (or, “The War Of Northern Aggression”) was about states’ rights. Although there is a splinter of truth in that claim, it is a gross exaggeration to say the war was about states’ rights and not about slavery.
The Civil War was, in fact, about the Southern fear that Northern states would abolish their “right” to subjugate the “inferior African race” as slaves. Secession happened because too many Southerners feared Lincoln was an abolitionist (he was!). Four states actually wrote a document that outlined why they were seceding. CivilWar.org did an analysis of those documents, and found that slavery was overwhelmingly the reason for secession cited by the state governments as they were seceding.
What you learned in school was correct: the Civil War happened because Southern states seceded so they could keep slavery. Lincoln abolished slavery, won the war, and stitched the Union back together again. There were many complications, of course, but that is the simplest view of what happened in the 1860s.
5. Some states still have the Confederate Battle Flag incorporated into their state flag. In 2015.
Alabama, Georgia and Mississippi all have state flags that have their origins in the flags of the Confederacy. Before you conclude that racism is over in our country, it’s best to check the symbology still being used today by our governments.
State flag of Alabama
State flag of Georgia
State flag of Mississippi
My Bottom Line
You want to personally display any of the flags that were used by that failed “nation,” the Confederate States of America? Knock yourself out. I believe in free speech. If you strongly identify with a flag that was created as a symbol for those that wanted to destroy the United States of America so they could keep what they believed to be an inferior race as slaves to support their area’s aristocracy, then go right ahead.
Me, I’ll just wonder what point you’re trying to make.
Full Disclosure: I come from Missouri, which was a border state in the Civil War. I have ancestors that fought on both sides of the conflict, but I have no evidence that any of my ancestors ever owned slaves. Shortly after the Civil War, some of my ancestors moved from North Carolina to Missouri … perhaps to escape from the toxic environment that was the Reconstruction Era South? We’ll never know for sure, but move away from the “Old South” to the “Midwest” is exactly what they did.
I’ve shouted from the rooftops about the quality of Velda’s cooking. She is a fabulous cook.
Here is the love of my life celebrating Turkey Day in her own unique style.
But.
There’s a dark side.
Here’s a dialogue over our holiday weekend lunch, faithfully recorded for posterity. And you.
He said: The soup is, uh….
She said: I wish I could taste anything. I’m tired of this gunge. I haven’t been able to taste anything for 4 weeks.
He: Is this the last of this soup?
She: What do you mean? It was frozen.
He: It doesn’t have much texture. It’s like it was reheated.
She: No, it was frozen.
He: Oh. I’m happy for the onions that give it some crunch.
She: It has no meat in it. Do you have any ham?
He: I think so. But the pieces are really, really small.
She: I have no ham.
He: There’s a little piece. And there’s a little one.
She: No ham. But … here’s some chicken skin. How did that get in here?
He: Some what?
She: Chicken skin. See?
He: What are we eating? This isn’t some dog food or something that you froze and forgot about, is it?
She: No, this is ham and beans. I probably started it with some chicken stock.
He: Is it OK to eat?
She: Sure.
He: How did you know what it was? Was it labeled?
She: Well….
He: What?
She: It was labeled “French Bread Crumbs.”
He: WHAT?
She: That’s what the bag said. But it’s ham and beans.
He: Are you sure it’s OK to eat?
She: Of course.
He: So, there was a package labeled “French Bread Crumbs,” but it had ham and bean soup in it, but that soup had chicken skin in it. Is it safe to eat?
She: Sure. Maybe I used chicken stock.
He: Really?
She: Maybe I should label things better.
He: Ya think?
The lunch was filling, and the conversation was lively. That’s all I’ll commit to at this point.
I was driving to pick up a load of lumber, and I just couldn’t take it anymore.
It was the music on The Highway, Sirius XM channel 56. This is their mainstream, contemporary country channel, and I couldn’t take one more song … that was Bro Country.
Bro Country arrived in 2011. It’s music trying to appeal to the young party crowd. Lots of drinking. Dancing ladies in cut-off jeans. Big 4WD trucks. You know, bro trucks.
I couldn’t take it when “Crank It Up” came on. I had to turn the channel. Your mileage may vary:
Then it hit me: I was old.
I didn’t like the music that (some) young people liked.
I was old. And yes, I’m still equivocating about it.
Since I couldn’t take the stylings of Colt Ford anymore, I hit the button to go to Prime Country, channel 58, which is targeted at a more mature audience.
Guess what was playing?
Garth Brook’s 1989 hit, “Much Too Young (To Feel This Damn Old).”
Here are the rest of my picture of the Graham Street Fair Parade. I tried to shoot every entry into the parade, but I know I missed a few.
