Lives Between the Dimensions

ELIZA BERRY AND FAMILY ORIGINS/SOLVING THE ANCESTRY  KEITH RAGAN·WEDNESDAY, NOVEMBER 14, 2018·  FOR ALL MY FAMILY, AND ESPECIALLY FOR AUNT MARY, UNCLE JUNIOR, AND MY BROTHER KEN   It felt like my heart jumped a few inches upward in my chest the first time I was able to make out the defining characters on Eliza Berry Moore’s crude sandstone grave marker. Buried underneath almost 125 years of forest debris, appearing for all practical purposes like just another rock littering the glade where the mortal remains of my Moore ancestors now lay; weathered and barely legible, I made sure it now stood upright once more in the shadowed recesses of the Woolard Cemetery in Wayne County, Missouri.   Just as my brother Ken Ragan and I had felt compelled to find the final resting place of Great-Grandmother Leoto Gardelia Toller Wilson several years before, we were on a quest on this day to find the final resting place of Great-Great Grandparents John Moore and Eliza Berr...

WHO WILL REMEMBER? Cherish the Storytellers When the giggles and whispers of the teen-age girls at the spring house with their milk jars become but an echo and rhapsody of fable… Who will remember? When the grave of a grandfather without a marker--- save for the stone gathered from the oak and hickory clad hill--- is covered by the humus of the decomposing garment of summer majesty… Who will remember? When the loving hands of a father fashioning a marker of concrete in the shadows of a barn for the tiny corpse of his infant son-- are stilled, and the tears but ancient vapor in the winter mists… Who will remember? When backward glances from wagons and ancient truck windows say goodbye to land owned since Delaware and Shawnee Indians were neighbors and elk and bear denizens of the deep forests;  fathers and mothers and children and blood kin by the hundreds, original pioneers of the land, buried in the rocky hillsides… Who will remember? When the old swimming ho...

  For Pam, Dan, and Mike Foreword My Aunt Marie, sister to my mother Iva Delores (Dee) Wilson Ragan, was born July 11, 1916 to Clarence Madison Wilson and Bessie Edith Moore Wilson near the now ghost town of Ojibway in Wayne County, Missouri.  More correctly, she was born in what was known as the Moore Community. Her formative years were not easy.  She was born with polio and endured a number of operations at Shriner's Hospital in St. Louis, Missouri, a condition that left her with a slight limp in her adult years, but in no way detracted from her attractiveness as she reached adulthood.  She was a pretty woman, and her disease and pain did not define her. Her voice was deep and raspy, her demeanor always pleasant when I was around, in spite of trials and tribulations in her personal life.  She was warm, deeply religious and always proud of her children and extended family.  My mother used to drive frequently from our home in Paducah, Kentucky to vi...

The subject of Eminent Domain came up at the last Moore Family Reunion in Arnold, Missouri on September 6, 2014... specifically as to how many acres of land were owned by Daniel Moore at the time of the government seizures.  I had read somewhere of 120 acres, and Uncle Cecil Wilson clearly stated that he felt it had been much more than that.  I knew he was right, but, couldn't get a fix on where I had come up with that figure. Since our next reunion is at Rucker in Wayne County, September 5, 2015, and a visit to the Moore Spring and the old home sites along Wet Fork Creek in the Ojibway Valley, I felt the subject was due some research. I believe we all will have an enhanced appreciation of our sight line from the ridge where Daniel Moore's home once gave shelter to  Bessie,  Ann, and Ted  (Doad), across the creek valley in front in one direction and to the wooded hills in the back as a result of the research.  We can only imagine at the effort and sacrifi...

When Hilda Lorraine Dees McCafferty presented me with the photograph of Blanche Moore with the children of the Moore Community I was taken back with a longing, a wistfulness, and nostalgia for a time I hadn't even experienced.  My eyes were not just riveted on the sheer happiness radiating from the face of my mother at approximately four years of age, but of the other children in the company of Blanche.  And in Blanche, herself.  It is easy to see the love there, each for the other, and that Blanche's care of the children that day was a labor of love.  Happy Times in Old Jibby.  Photo circa 1924 in the Moore Community of Wayne, County, Missouri near Rucker/Ojibway.  My uncle Clarence Madison (Bud) Wilson believes this photo was taken at the homestead of Daniel and Susan Moore, my Great-Grandparents.  The young lady in the photograph, center, is the author of "Momma's Apron", Blanche Moore.  The children are, Back row, L-R: Wilbur Eugene Dee...

                                                                  For all of your Grandsons and Granddaughters, Now and for Generations to Come Nowhere was guerrilla warfare more fierce and widespread than in southeastern Missouri, and Wayne County in particular.   The Cavalry Militias in Wayne County for both Union and Confederate forces were commonly engaged in this form of warfare, hunting each other in the bottoms of the St Francis River and the mires of Mingo Swamp. Their engagements were bloody, often, and feudal in nature. The families on opposing sides knew each other and most lived close to each other at the war’s outset.   The hostilities and feuds would continue on for many years after the Civil War ended in Wayne County. The prominent Union Militia was the 12 th Regiment Cavalry...