Kathy has been telling me about some things she reads on Facebook about people from Gallatin reminiscing and we got to talking about our lives when we first moved there.
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It was a cold day in March, 1952, when our moving van pulled into Gallatin and the ground was covered with snow. Of course the first thing we had to do was go to Preston Robertson’s Hardware Store and buy a Seigler oil heater. We were moving into an old house with no furnace. After living in new homes for the past five years this would be a new experience for us.
When we got our furniture arranged and the house was warm, our neighbor to the west, Helen Tuggle, came to the door with a plate of homemade cookies and invited our girls to go to Sunday School with her the next morning, which was Sunday. The Baptist Church was right across the street, but I think we didn’t take her up on the offer since we were Methodists and our church was just a block away. She and her husband, Floyd, were great neighbors, and we enjoyed their friendship.
We didn’t realize until evening that there were no shades on the windows, but our landlady, Jessie Smith, our neighbor to the north, told us to go to Gann’s Bargain Store Monday morning and buy them and charge them to her. As I recall J. W. Gann came to the house and measured the windows and hung all of them. We were thrilled with all the special attention we got from the good friendly people in Gallatin.
We had brought only a small tabletop kitchen cabinet and being used to walls full of built-in cabinets, we didn’t know what we would do, but dear Mrs. Smith provided us with an old fashioned kitchen cabinet which included even a flour sifter. The kitchen also contained an ancient oil hot water heater. We had to light it every time we wanted hot water. It wasn’t too long until she replaced it with a new, modern one.
The next night, Scout Harrison who owned the newspaper at that time, took us to supper at the Legion Hall, which, I believe, was where the Mary Arlene Apartments are now, and we met the undertaker, “Stub” Richesson. He told us he would be the last person to see us, but he beat us to the grave.
My first morning at the newspaper office on Monday was a bit scary as Scout had a meeting in Kansas City and left me to introduce myself to the merchants around the square. As the new editor of the Gallatin North Missourian and Gallatin Democrat it naturally caused quite a discussion and lots of comments around the community. However all those with whom we came in contact, largely dispelled any fear of being a stranger for long. I had worked on a large city newspaper and published several weekly newspapers of my own plus serving on General MacArthur’s press staff during two wars, so I wasn’t too frightened.
Our family got acquainted pretty fast with neighbors. Mary Nixon lived on the opposite corner of our block. She and Kathy Ann were the same age and soon became playmates and friends. The Tuggles grandchildren lived less than a block away and Margaret and Janet Paul fitted right in agewise for neighborhood playmates. Their parents, Bob and Jane Ann Paul, remain lifelong friends. Our first out of neighorhood friends and playmates for our girls, were Raymond and Velma Miller and their daughters, Linda and Sharon. We still keep in touch with Velma.
Joining the Methodist Church produced more friends and we sang in the choir all the nearly 50 years we lived in Gallatin and our lives were pretty well involved in the church. We do truly miss it.