Walter Allen "Hoolie" Bowermaster 1932-2014

I have my former classmate Eunice M. (Ward) Brown to thank for passing along this program of the memorial service for Walter Bowermaster whom we both remember even though he was two years ahead of us at St. Charles High School.

Because he was three years older, Walter was not a close friend of mine, but he was one of a number of older boys we younger boys respected, because in those days they were worthy of respect.  The commonplace social plague known today as bullying was both rare and short lived in those days at St. Charles High School, as I recall..  Older boys were generally charged by their parents and other adults in the larger community with the responsibility of "looking out" for younger boys.  To behave otherwise, was, well, simply disgraceful.

Regardless of your class, however, in the "high school" of St. Charles in those days, we were generally a closely knit group with relatively little class "rank," with perhaps the exception of seniors, of course.  Walter's fellow juniors included (as pictured in the yearbook) Jack Dempsey, Ruth Tuck, Jimmy Horton, Neva Graves, Doris Dawson, Charles Bisswanger, Leo Padgett, and Charles West.

This same year I was in the freshman class with twenty-one classmates.  Sixteen of us would graduate the spring of 1953. - DPW

Vicki and Darrell and Schwab Store Museum

The Store after it was closed (1990s?) with the Post Office Attached: Vickie (Schwab) Gardner Post Mistress

Over the more than half century since I last lived in Crockett's Bluff I've often been asked, after I tell people who inquire where I was born and grew up, just how many people lived in the Bluff.  My reply is always an indefinite "it depends."  I then go on to explain since there were no acknowledged city limits, the number of its residents would depend just how far down Rt. 153 in either direction one wished to go before you cease your census.  To the south it would be when you found the first folks who claimed they lived in St. Charles or DeWitt -- about 10 or 15 miles.  In the other direction toward Stuttgart, perhaps twice as far.

This old notion came to mind recently when during my most recent visit to Arkansas County a few months ago I stopped by Schwab's Store where I was greeted by Darrell Gardner, the son in law of Eddie Schwab who established and presided over the most general of general 

stores in the areas for decades.   More of a museum of sorts today, having been closed as a business in the late 1980s, the store remains, thanks to the care of Vicki and Darrell Gardner, a solid and spacial structure housing, amongst its eclectic collection, the original anvil used by the elder blacksmith Sebastian Schwab whom we all recall from our childhoods in the 1930s, as well as Darrell's recently acquired practically new Model A Ford and an assortment of tractors.

Darrell with his New Toy - Oct. 2013

DPW and Vicki (Schwab) Gardner - Oct. 2011

DPW and Darrell  - Oct. 2011 - a true pot-belly

Sebastian's Major Tool

Darrell and Vicki might properly be labeled the last true residents of Crockett's Bluff proper at the site of the long closed Schwab's Store that rests - as the Google Earth view below indicates - near the former residence of Cora Prange Swindler where Rt. 153 turns westward from the banks of the White River.

Even Model Tractors Welcome

Everywhere the stuff of memories underneath Eddie's fan belt assortment.

Prange Family Visit Videos 1986

These videos, shared by Jim Prange, from the vast collection of Prange Family archives.  Priceless.  (Obviously incomplete, but open for enhancement, I hope.)