November 2018 - Autumn in the Ozarks

​Beyond a stone wall,
The creek and the bridge, the first
Red leaves of autumn.

​My father’s extended family, the Murdocks and the Picketts, have been holding family reunions intermittently since 1982. For thirty-six years, I have gathered with relatives now scattered all over the country from our original home base in Joplin, Missouri, and the neighboring town of Galena, Kansas, where both of my parents grew up.

Every family has a story, and ours is tied to the mass immigration in the 1840s from County Monaghan in Ireland to the Tri-State area (Missouri, Kansas and Oklahoma) where lead and zinc were discovered in the early 1870s. The Tri-State area was once the lead and zinc mining capital of the world, and the boom lasted until after the Second World War. My ancestors were on the ground floor of this both lucrative and lethal bonanza.

We are the descendants of Patrick Murphy, a resourceful and colorful figure who is recognized as one of the co-founders of the city of Joplin. His family monument and grave reside in Mt. Hope Cemetery in Webb City, Missouri, my mother’s birth place.

​In bright autumn air,
A ground hog stands on the grave
Of Patrick Murphy.

​
In Galena, Kansas, where my father, Patrick Murdock, was born, my grandmother, Margaret Murphy Murdock and her sister, Rose Anna Murphy Pickett, Patrick Murphy’s relatives, are remembered in a memorial stained-glass window in the charming little brick St. Patrick’s Church.
​

Our family reunions always focus on our affection for one another today and our love for our ancestors. Fortunately, my cousin, Margaret (Marny) Pickett, still a Missouri resident, and my nephew, Michael Murdock, a member of the next generation, have felt called to the study of genealogy, and both have done extensive research into our family history. Our reunions always include visits to the local cemeteries, and Marny and Michael know where all the bodies are buried. Cemeteries in the Ozarks are beautiful places, filled with gorgeous old monuments, ancient oak, walnut and magnolia trees, scampering squirrels and the graves of Civil War soldiers. We view our cemetery excursions as happy family outings, and we were blessed with cool, clear autumn weather and deep blue skies for our visits to the Galena Cemetery and Mount Hope.

---

​The four o’clock train
Rolls through Joplin, whistling in
The crisp autumn air.

Getting to Joplin from the Honolulu airport was no simple feat. My journey entailed a red-eye flight to San Jose where I met the co-author of myteaplanner.com, my niece Kathleen Pedulla (daughter of my sister, another Margaret Murdock,) followed by a connecting flight to Dallas, another flight to Tulsa, and a road trip up the Will Rogers Turnpike to Joplin.

​As the sun rises
Over the concrete runways,
A large crow takes flight.

​Two huge hawks perch on
A fence in Oklahoma
As the trucks roll by.

Our home in Joplin was the Creative Cottage, an ultra-charming two-bedroom apartment comprising the entire upper floor of the 1905 historic Kleinkauf House, a craftsman bungalow in the Murphysburg (yes, named after Patrick,) district of Joplin. As it happens, the Kleinkauf House in located right across the street from the Pickett family home, an elegant Victorian. Our accommodations included a private bedroom for each of us, a spacious and comfortable living room, a large and well-equipped kitchen, and a bathroom with the original claw-foot tub. Our hostess, Ann, who could not have been more gracious, even rushed outside with freshly baked chocolate chip cookies when some of our family members came over to join us in a walking tour of the gorgeous old houses of Murphysburg, many of them the homes of mining tycoons.
​

​Ever eager to explore, Kathleen and I kidnapped Marny for a short excursion on Highway 44 from Joplin to the town of Mansfield, Missouri, to visit the Baker Creek Seed Store and the Laura Ingalls Wilder Home and Museum, both nestled in the lovely rolling hills of the Ozarks. The Baker Creek Seed Store, located on one of the oldest homesteads in Missouri, is part of a low-key and not overly commercialized pioneer village where visitors are welcome to wander at leisure through the gardens, the herbal apothecary, the barns and the blacksmith shop. Chickens, turkeys and other poultry wander along with the guests, and very happy looking cattle moo among the black oak trees in their very green and peaceful meadow. 
​

​The Rippee family lived on this farm in the 1800s, trading with the local Osage Indians and caring for wounded and hungry Civil War soldiers. This quiet rural setting seems filled with echoes from the past, and we saw black-clad Amish farmers trotting along the side of the highway in their horse-drawn wagons as we approached the tranquil town of Mansfield. Visitors to the Seed Company really can buy seeds for their own vegetable and flower gardens, and an entire room in the old -fashioned mercantile store is devoted to sewing supplies, where home seamstresses can purchase bolts of cloth, notions and dress patterns to create hand-made clothing.

There is also an excellent vegan restaurant next to the Baker Creek Seed Store where we were delighted by a delicious and well-cooked lunch in this menu-less and donation only venue. Our choices for the day were pad Thai or vegetable curry with either tofu or chickpeas for protein. Clearly someone on this farm has been exposed to cuisines from beyond the Ozarks. Among us, we ordered all three of the available preparations and agreed that each was delicious and loaded with the freshest vegetables imaginable. When we had finished, the polite young server offered us vanilla ice cream which of course we did not refuse. It turned out to be a very tasty vegan dessert made with coconut milk.
​

The nearby Laura Ingalls Wilder house, the home of the Little House on the Prairie author after her marriage to Almanzo Wilder, is also a lovely place to visit. Sited on a hill surrounded by holly, fir trees, black oaks and lowing black cattle, this simple farm house has the unassuming charm that makes the Ozark region such an alluring destination even today.

​
​Among the sparse black
Walnut leaves, two red headed
Woodpeckers chatter.

​The sumac was turning red, squirrels frolicked under the oaks and among the fallen black walnuts, and maple leaves shimmered gold and orange in the bright afternoon sunlight. We were treated to the very best of autumn in the Ozarks.
 
On previous visits to Galena and Joplin, more than a touch of poignancy prevailed, as both towns appeared to be fading into disrepair and obscurity decades after the end of the mining boom. Galena, once the location of the world’s largest lead smelter, seemed no longer to have a reason even for existing. And when I traveled there twenty years ago to clean out my grandmother’s house after she died at the age of 103, there was not a single restaurant in Galena. I was hard pressed to find a loaf of edible bread and a carton of yogurt at a local grocery store. All that has changed due to some surprising twists of fate.

First of all, it seems that Highway 66 (of the song “Get Your Kicks on Highway 66” fame,) supplanted years ago by the sleek, multi-lane Highway 44 in Missouri and the Will Rogers Turnpike in Oklahoma, has once again become a pop-culture icon and back-country road trip destination. Galena’s charming old-fashioned Main Street, right on Highway 66, is now a thriving little hub of shops and restaurants, including retro street lights, a sign for the old Galena City Jail and a park dedicated to Howard Litch, a colorful character whom I remember vividly from my childhood as a friend of my grandfather and owner of the local garage.
 
Ironically, another impetus for the revitalization of both Galena and Joplin was the May 2011 tornado which destroyed large portions of Joplin, requiring massive rebuilding. Galena assisted with the reconstruction by providing for the hauling and disposal of huge quantities of rubbish and debris. As a result, Galena now has a sparkling new Medical Center with a nice little café, the Red Onion, where we enjoyed a well-prepared and healthy lunch.
 

---

The revitalization of Joplin is evident in the stylish new shopping centers, trendy restaurants and beautifully restored Victorian homes, especially in the Murphysburg neighborhood. The elegant brick 102-year-old Gryphon building on Joplin’s Main Street, once the headquarters of the Interstate Grocery Warehouse, has been repaired and repurposed as a multi-use retail and professional complex. Indeed, there is evidence everywhere that the citizens of Joplin have demonstrated great respect and restraint in preserving the city’s Victorian charm in the reconstruction process.
 
Our favorite eating places from our grandparents’ era, like Wilder’s and Fred and Red’s, are still thriving, essentially unchanged. At Wilder’s on Main Street, families can still gather after church for Sunday dinner or for steaks and Manhattans as our ancestors did on Saturday nights. Fred and Red’s a quirky chili, tamale, spaghetti and pie joint right on Highway 66, still serves the same chili my parents and grandparents ate at the same counter stools.
 

​Highway 66 Chili is something of a local phenomenon, having no relationship whatsoever to Mexican or American Southwestern cuisine. My father made pots of Highway 66 Chili throughout my childhood, and he guarded his secret recipe, which strongly resembled Fred and Red’s, religiously. He did admit that no tomato should ever come near a bowl of Highway 66 Chili and refused to eat any chili that contained tomatoes in any form.
 
To my knowledge, Fred and Red’s has never divulged their recipe either, but just from snooping around the kitchen when my dad was cooking, I have surmised that the primary ingredients in Highway 66 Chili are high fat content ground beef, large dried red chilis, soaked and pulverized, cumin seeds and loads of salt.
 

There is an art to dining at Fred and Red’s. There are no tables, and everyone sits on stools around the u-shaped counter. If all the stools are occupied, new arrivals wait their turn by standing against the walls. There are no chairs or waiting area. The menu, posted in the center of the counter where the waitresses dish up the food, includes chili, beans, tamales (no one knows how tamales found their way to Joplin, Missouri,) spaghetti and pie. A Tamale Spread is a tamale with chili on top, and Fred and Red’s specialty is Spaghetti (pronounced “spaghetta”) Red, plain spaghetti noodles topped with chili, and for those in the know, dill pickle slices and chopped raw onion on top. For the uninitiated, this local specialty requires a leap of faith. I believe that every member of our family made it to Fred and Red’s before our reunion concluded, including Kathleen and I.
​

Multiculturalism is also part of life in the new Galena and the reborn Joplin. Mexican food is now available in Galena, and in Joplin, visitors can feast on Thai food, Vietnamese Pho, or at the elegant but unpretentious Greek restaurant, Mythos.
 
At the end of our journey, cruising back down the turnpike to Tulsa, Kathleen and I relished one last dose of local food at the Cherokee Restaurant, a truck stop in Big Cabin, Oklahoma. Kathleen had the best pulled pork she had ever eaten, and I had a nostalgic and truly satisfying fried egg sandwich with potato salad, just like Grandma used to make.

---

I am grateful that I had the opportunity to spend hours of quality time with my cousins, nieces and nephews in the glorious Ozark autumn among the memories of loved ones from long ago. How lucky we are to have a home town and family, living and dead.