CENTRAL MISSOURI

We sold the place the fall of 1943 and moved to a farm south of Knob Noster, Missouri, February 1944. After we sold the Texas County farm, we began looking for property--we didn't know what to do. We borrowed Etta Johnson's Model A Ford. We didn't have one that was very drivable at that time. She offered us the use of her car. We drove up to Warrensburg. Aunt Florence Andes lived in Warrensburg then so we stopped in to see her. Uncle Sam was dead by this time. We went to some real estate offices and couldn't find anything that sounded good. Aunt Florence said she had a neighbor, Hugh Kimzey, who had a relative who had a farm he wanted to sell. We inquired about it and found out he had eighty acres south of Knob Noster for sale.

We went over and looked at it. I think he wanted twenty-five hundred dollars for it. We put a hundred dollars, that we had gotten from Etta Johnson, down to hold the place until February.

That fall Mother and Dad moved to Aunt Florence's place. Aunt Florence wanted to be gone for a while and wanted someone to stay at her house and take care of things. So they stayed there.

In the meantime, we bought an old Chevrolet school bus when Claire was there. It had been run off into the Jack's Fork River in high water. The crankcase got full of water and burned out one of the connecting rod bearings on the crankshaft. But Claire told me it was a good buy. I think I gave one hundred dollars for it.

Claire said, "You take it home, take that out, get a new connecting rod bearing, put it back in and put some bearing blue on it. When you turn it over you'll find out where the high spots are on the crankshaft. Then get some emery cloth and a file and work it down. Then do it again and again until you get it round. You can do it."

I spent all day at it, but I did it. I took the old school bus body off and put a truck body on it. That's what we moved with--Dad and Mother's and all our stuff. We moved up to the Knob Noster farm with it and drove it for a year or two. Later I traded it to a fellow in Knob Noster who wanted it to move to Texas. I traded it even up for a Chevrolet roadster. I built a little shell on the back of it. I drove it for a while then finally sold it to L.G. and Barbara.

We bought the eighty acre farm south of Knob Noster. They told us it was on a dirt road, but that didn't mean much to us because dirt roads in the Ozarks were passable in wet weather. When it rained, we found out what they meant--the roads were impossible to travel.

We farmed with horses and mules. The year we left this farm I bought an old Case tractor from Sammy Andes, but I don't think I ever used it on that farm.

We lived there for two years. Bishop Ted Beck, then advised us to sell because of the mud roads and because we just didn't have enough land to make a living. We sold the farm to Fred Wheatley for two or three hundred dollars more than we paid for it.

We didn't know where we were going.

People thought we were crazy and ask, "What are you going to do?"

I said, "We'll find something."

We looked around but just couldn't find anything and Bishop Beck couldn't come up with anything either. We finally went into one real estate office and told them we couldn't afford much over eighty acres.

The agent said, "Well, I've got two hundred ares about four miles north of Warrensburg that can be bought cheaper than a forty or eighty acre farm."

We bought that two hundred acres from the Ross estate for what we had sold the other place. Because it was an estate we bought it cheaper. We lived there three years. We farmed it with the Case tractor we had bought from Sammy Andes. We had pretty good crops.

While we lived in the Ozarks, we had gotten electricity but didn't have any at the Knob Noster farm. Now at the Warrensburg farm we didn't have any either. World War II had come along and taken supplies of wire. The Missouri Public Service high line went across our farm, but they wouldn't hook us up. Just before we left there, we did get R.E.A. to get us electricity. Then, Missouri Public Service wanted to hook us up, after R.E.A. came in.

While we lived south of Knob Noster, we went to church at Knob Noster. I was assistant pastor for a while. I also taught a junior high church school class for a time.

When we moved to the Warrensburg farm, of course, we started going to church at Warrensburg. The Stake President, Ward Hougas wanted me to take the pastorate at Knob Noster. I said, "I don't hardly want to. Besides, Felix Hacker lives half way between Warrensburg and Knob Noster. Why don't you get him to do it?" So they put Felix Hacker in and I didn't go to Knob Noster any more.

At the Warrensburg church, I was church school director for a period of time.

In 1948, while we were going to the Warrensburg church, I was ordained a high priest and set apart to serve on the Central Missouri Stake High Council. Then August 8, 1959, while Emery Jennings was Stake President, I, along with several others, were asked to resign from the High Council. Several were dropped because of age, but I never knew exactly why I was let out. Jennings said it wasn't because of anything I had done but he just thought I should be replaced.

When Ray Huggett was Stake President, I was put back on the High Council July 16, 1972. I still serve on it.

The fall of 1948 the Fergusons came from California and wanted to buy a farm and have us go into partnership with them. I didn't have any money but he did. We looked all around the country for farms but couldn't find anything we wanted to buy. They went home disgusted. Not long after they had gone back home, Bishop Beck came to me one day and said, "I've found a one hundred seventy-five acre farm out by Pittsville that's nice. I think you can afford it."

We went and looked at it. They wanted twenty thousand dollars for it. I called Fergie over the phone and we discussed it back and forth two or three times.

Then he said, "Why don't you offer them eighteen thousand."

They said, "We'll compromise and take nineteen thousand.

I called Fergie back and he said, "Okay, we'll take it."

They moved back here in the spring. We moved over to the Pittsville place in February of 1949. In the meantime, I'd sold the Warrensburg farm to a fellow from Warrensburg. He was a carpenter and contractor. He built a lot of houses on it. I took the money from the sale of the farm and put it with Fergie's to buy the Pittsville farm.

We divided the house--two kitchens, two living rooms and bedrooms. We lived together for one year. Then the next year we rented a farm near Kingsville and the Fergusons moved over there.

The following year we split up the partnership. We borrowed money from the Federal Land Bank to pay off Hunter. We paid nineteen thousand for it, but when we dissolved partnership, I paid him twenty-one thousand for it.

I didn't have any money to farm with. I'd spent every dime I had to buy the place. I decided to go to work off the farm. I went to work first for Dick Langford at Olathe, Kansas. He ran a fix-it shop and he had more work than he could take care of. I worked a few months with him.

Then, by the time I got through helping Dick, Marion had decided to build a big apartment house in Independence. I went and built the apartment house for him.

Before I got it completed, Cecil and Ruth, his wife, were having trouble and split up. Anyhow, he wanted me to finish up his house that he hadn't finished. So when I finished Marion's, I finished Cecil's house for Ruth.

That took about two years all together. Then I applied for a job with Wilmer Andes. In a month or two I went to work for him. I worked for Andes and Roberts Construction Company for eighteen years all together. I had never worked as an official carpenter so I told Wilmer I wanted to work as a carpenter's helper.

Wilmer said, "We can't hardly do that. We don't have anything like that. You could work as an apprentice but I think you know too much for that. Why don't you just come in and work for a day or two and then we'll get you into the union. Everyone here is union."

So I went to work. On that first day they had eight or nine new men they had just hired. They had just joined the union and they knew I wasn't a union man. They didn't want to have anything to do with me. Micky Goodyear was the foreman, he said, "You just work as a laborer."

I took off my carpenter overalls that I wore and borrowed another pair from Paul Roberts (which were way too big). I went to work as a laborer for them. But the fellows wouldn't let me do anything because they were strictly union. I'd pick up a board and hand to them and they would reach down and pick one up for themselves. That was the hardest day's work I ever did.

The next day Wilmer came around and said, "You go to the union hall and see what you can do there."

I went to the union hall, took my exam and got instated in the union. Then I was all right. I worked with them for several months.

When I started, I'd told Mick that I only planned to work a short time, maybe a year, until I could get a little money ahead. Then I was going back to farming.

After a while, Mick came around and said, "We'd like you to stay on longer. We'll give you a twenty-five cents an hour raise and put you on as foreman, if you'll stay with us for awhile.

I decided it was a pretty good deal and stayed with the company for eighteen years. I know there were more than twenty-five hundred houses I helped build in Independence, probably nearer to three thousand. They were building low-cost housing. It was a good experience and I enjoyed it. I hated to quit, but I was having so much trouble with arthritis in my feet and legs that I thought it was wise. We were working on rough ground all the time because it was a new building project. Often, we'd move on to a new project before it was all back filled and there would be a lot of rough clods and dirt. When I got to be sixty-two and could retire with my social security pension, I just quit.

While I was still working for Andes and Roberts, Jack decided he wanted to farm when he came back from the army. I bought some cows from T.J. Slack and was milking up to twelve to fifteen cows before and after I worked in Independence. Peg would wash up, clean the barn and do all that.

When Jack came home, he took over the farm work. He farmed for two or three years. I'm not sure how long. It didn't work out too well. He was having trouble with milk inspectors. He wasn't keeping the barn cleaned to suit them and they were always riding him. Finally he said, "Dad I want to quit." I said, "Okay, what do you want to do?"

"What about going to work with you?"

My reply was, "I don't know, we'll see."

He started work at Andes and Roberts with me, as a carpenter.

We sold off everything on the farm and put the land in the Soil Bank--a ten year program. The government paid us not to farm it. We put it into grass. The Soil Bank payments paid off the rest of the mortgage to the Federal Land Bank, so that paid for the farm.

Jack worked at Andes and Roberts for quite a while. He went to night school and got some more college training. Then he decided he would have to take a year off and finish up for his degree. He couldn't get it all at night school.

In the meantime, we had bought sixty acres up north of us. When Jack and I split up partnership, I said, "I'll give you that sixty acres for your share of the partnership." That suited him just fine. So he sold the sixty acres to finance him through a year of college.

Jack got his degree but still was working for Andes and Roberts occasionally. He was having a lot of back trouble. He went to the doctor and was told he would have to quit doing so much lifting. On the job they had been building pre-fab houses that required a lot of lifting when unloading. Jack left and worked as a Job Corps carpenter-instructor in Wisconsin. I stayed with Andes and Roberts until I retired in 1970.

When Dick graduated from high school, he didn't want to go to college. He thought he wanted to learn to be an electrician but there was no opening for him on the job. There was no opening as a plumber either. I think it was Elsie's husband, Wendell, who found an opening as an apprentice sheet metal worker. He got his journeyman card and was very successful until house construction slacked off. Then he went to work with Joan's husband, Jean Cox.

During the twenty-three years we live at Pittsville, I was pastor of the Holden Congregation three different times. I also served as the Church School Director during the time that Charles Robinson was pastor.

After I retired, we were going to stay on the farm and keep a few head of cattle. We planned to travel with the money from the increase of the herd. Then, our daughter, Barbara, suggested we sell the farm and move down on their farm in Henry County. I looked around; Joan and Jean lived in town and I couldn't live there; the same was true with Jack and Dick. We decided we'd move down to Barbara and L.G.'s farm. We sold the farm to T.J. and Tom Slack, bought a mobile home and moved to the L.G. Hutchinson establishment in 1973. We moved the trailer down in November 1972. We didn't move in until January 1973.

Just before we moved into our mobile home at Barbara's place, I was asked to be pastor of the Harrisonville Congregation. I served there for almost a year. Then we started going to church at Clinton. Peg and I have both been involved in worship and activities there. I served as Bishop's agent for several years.

L.G. thought he had part of the farm sold in 1980, so we decided to buy an acre on the part he wasn't selling. We moved the trailer to it. At the last minute the sale fell through, but we moved anyway. During 1981 we got our yard and garden established and the place fenced. We are very happy living here.

I know there have been many interesting events that have taken place since we came to this area--we spent two weeks in Mexico; made our second trip to Alaska, spent a week in Colorado at the Andes family reunion, flew to Hawaii for two weeks visiting four islands and stopped over in California for two weeks on the way home. We made two trips to eastern Canada and the northeastern states and to Florida. Also a trip to the desert southwest and several shorter trips to Wisconsin. This summer we went on a two-week trip with Barbara and L.G. to New Mexico, Texas and Louisiana.

Now that we are getting older, we will probably be doing less traveling but hope to continue our church attendance, reunions and short trips for family visits. Our extended family has always meant much to us--Now I can only say, "I don't have a complaint in the world. The good Lord blesses me every day."

                     (signed)Burr Bronson
                        November, 1982