Ozella’S General Store Cook Station, Missouri

By Tammy Tucker

Nestled in the foothills of the Missouri Ozarks is the tiny town of Cook Station. A rich heritage and good-hearted people are its legacies. One of those people came to call Cook Station her home in 1930. Her name was Ozella Gorman. She and her husband owned and operated the general store as well as several other businesses. She was rich in many ways, and she was honored to be able to share her wealth with others. She was known far and wide for her generosity and benevolence. She was a brilliant businesswoman who had many irons in the fire. Still, she made time for friends, family, and those in need. She was all things to all people, as was her first husband, Jeff. Walk with me back in time to learn the amazing story of this woman and her little corner of the world on the banks of the Meramec River.

• Language: English
• Publisher: WestBow Press
• Release date: Jul 31, 2013
• ISBN: 9781490801544

Tammy Tucker

Tammy Tucker was a nurse for more than fifteen years. While writing The River Bottoms, Tammy’s mother said she wished she could write the story of her aunt. After Tammy’s first book was published, she got right to work on her story. Norma Tucker is the voice of this story.

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Copyright © 2013 Tammy Tucker.

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ISBN: 978-1-4908-0153-7 (sc)

ISBN: 978-1-4908-0155-1 (hc)

ISBN: 978-1-4908-0154-4 (e)

Library of Congress Control Number: 2013912976

WestBow Press rev. date: 7/31/2013

CONTENTS

Dedication

Preface

Acknowledgements

1. The Funeral

2. A Glance at the Past

3. Cook Station

4. Aunt Ozella

5. Cook Station Mercantile

6. Aromas, Smells and Odors of the Mercantile

7. Mr. Carr

8. Meramec Hideouts

9. Family Vacations

10. Charles and Dean

11. Jeff’s Cardinals and Ozella’s cardinals

12. Six Irons in the Fire

13. Uncle Jeff

14. Down to the River

15. Fannie Bonebrake

16. Mrs. Lyons

17. The Surprise

18. The Beginning of Cook Station

19. The Orphanage

20. The Little One

21. Victoria’s Sorrow

22. A Soldier Comes Home

23. Mineral Rich

24. Bartering with the Hill Folk

25. The Egg Lady

26. Fire Stations and Festivals

27. The Leggs

28. The Healer

29. Crime and Punishment

30. Poor Lucille Hart

31. Dr. McNeeley Comes to Cook Station

32. Taking the Census of 1950

33. Craters, Caves and Springs

34. The Legend of Fallen Rock

35. Basements and Barber’s Chairs

36. One Day On The Liar’s Bench

37. Jeff’s Time

38. Floy Brand

39. A Trip with my Family and Friends

40. The Golden Years

41. The Beginning of the End

42. Carry On

Also by Tammy Tucker

The River Bottoms

2012

DEDICATION

T o my mom, my friend and my inspiration. Also to the memory of my Great-Aunt Ozella Velma Finley Gorman Brand, a truly remarkable woman.

PREFACE

W hen I was just a little girl, our family would take vacations to Tennessee. We would stop in Nashville and then take I-40 on to Gatlinburg. One time we saw some ladies stopped on the side of the road with car trouble. Dad pulled the station wagon over and offered to help. When he could not fix their problem, he took one of the ladies on to the next exit to make a phone call. That exit was Lebanon. He asked the lady if she knew of a good place to eat. She told him of a new restaurant that had really good food. It was called ‘Cracker Barrel Old Country Store’. As we sat and looked around the walls at all of the antiques on the walls mom mentioned that it reminded her of Aunt Ozella’s general store. She told us stories of her childhood spent visiting her aunt in Cook Station, Mo.

Ozella Velma Finley was one of three daughters born to Charles and Clara Simms Finley. They also had four sons, one having died as a small child. My grandmother, Opal was her sister. Ozella, Grandma and Aunt Jessie Olive were all beautiful souls. Ozella was soft spoken when dealing with friends and family and matter of fact when dealing with customers and salesmen. She was smart, wise and a very spiritual woman as well. Ozella was a brilliant businesswoman and a great philanthropist in her community.

When I decided to write a story about my dad and his family, my mother told me that she had always wanted to write a story about her aunt Ozella. She knew that Ozella was an extraordinary woman and had a beautiful story to tell. Once mom started in telling me everything she could remember about going to Cook Station, I knew it too. This book is collaboration between between us. I give her the credit for the inspiration to write this story. As you read the story, my mother is the storyteller. It is through her voice that you will learn the story of this seemingly ordinary woman who was far from your every day shopkeeper.

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

T his book started with stories from my mother, Norma Tucker. I would also like to thank my Uncle Rev. Dean Blackburn and his wife Nancey and also Uncle Charles Ray Blackburn who gave me anecdotes as well. I would also like to thank the many neighbors and friends who remembered stories of Ozella. I was very lucky to find people in Cook Station and Salem, Mo. who knew her and had such fond memories of her.

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CHAPTER ONE

The Funeral

I n the middle of September 1985, my husband Marshall and I were on the road to the Ozark Mountains. We were not traveling there from our home in southern Illinois for a vacation or a short weekend get-away. In fact, we were headed to Cook Station for the second most devastating funeral of my life thus far. The first had occurred two years earlier and was my mother’s. This was for my mother’s sister, my beloved Aunt Ozella.

Mom was close to her sisters. Ozella moved to St. Louis when she was a young woman and has lived in Missouri ever since. I would say it was the late 1920’s when she moved to St. Louis. It was right after my mother and dad were married which was in 1929.

Traveling with us was my father, Bill Blackburn. Occasions like this made him especially melancholy ever since mom passed. He was never much of an emotional man until the day she died. They had been married for about 55 years when she passed. Now having to go through it again so soon with his sister-in-law was very painful. In fact, until the day he died at age 91 in 1998, he mourned and grieved terribly for the love of his life. Every day to him was just one more day to wait for God to call him home.

Dad sat in the backseat of our Station wagon, asleep with his head tucked between the top of the seat and the window. We were just south of Cuba, Missouri heading south to Steelville. The roads were getting curvier, winding up and down over the foothills and causing my ears to pop as we slowly ascended. I resorted to a trick I taught my children years ago on trips to the Smoky Mountains; I reached into my purse and pulled out a stick of ‘Juicy Fruit’ gum and started to chew. It gave my ears a little relief.

Dad is beginning to stir as the car whips side to side. Marshall is in his own little world and not paying attention to his passengers sliding in their seats.

Henry, can you slow down a bit? My stomach can’t take these hills. I ask using his middle name. It was an inside joke between us because when he was a child, his parents argued over whether his name was Marshall Henry or Henry Marshall. He had to write to the Hamilton County Seat for his birth record to find out for sure. He always went by Marshall but I called him ‘Henry’ as my pet name for him.

Oh, whoops! I’m sorry. Wasn’t paying attention to how fast I was going. He said apologetically.

We slowed to a reasonable pace for awhile until he started off on one of his tangents about other drivers. He is a very animated person and slaps the steering wheel from time to time. Then I have to remind him how fast we are going. Most of the time I just used body language by holding onto the dashboard and the door handle. He gets it and slows back down.

We stop at the gas station in Steelville to let dad use the restroom. I got out of the car to breathe my first breath of mountain air. It was fresh, crisp and cool so early in the morning. I knew it would not be long until the noon day sun would turn the cool, light air into hot, muggy heaviness.

We load up again and drive on to Cook Station. I noticed the flag in the town square was flying at half-mast. A local legend, heroine and beloved citizen has been called home to be with her Lord and Savior.

It was heart-warming to see the signs of love and respect shown to my aunt. The shops in town were closed. There was a special service last night for her because she was a member of the Mason’s auxiliary, The Eastern Star. All Masons and Eastern star and Eastern Star members are given this special service when they pass.

We arrived at Uncle Floy’s house and freshened up a bit. He told us we could go on up to the funeral home in Steelville to have a private viewing. Dad, Marshall and I did so. Marshall walked behind us and let dad and me have our moment alone with her. Dad pulled a hanky from his back pocket and wiped his eyes and blew his nose. I studied her for a long time taking in every nuance of my beloved Ozella. I was a little girl again visiting my aunt in her mountain home which would now be her final resting place. I gazed at her curly reddish-gray hair that was perfectly coiffed, the pearl necklace that matched her earrings, her periwinkle blue dress that was remarkably similar to the one we buried mom in and then I noticed her arthritic and crippled fingers that eventually made it impossible for her to play piano or even sign her name. They were folded across her waist.

The casket was a cream color with a soft, pink satin lining. The flowers atop and at each end were beautiful pink rosebuds sent in from St. Louis. Roses were her passion and her yards were full of the loveliest bushes of all colors of blooms. They were still blooming and were breathtaking. She would be so proud. Someone had cut some of them and placed them in a vase at the front of the chapel. It was nearing the time for the service and Uncle Floy arrived.

The minister gave a good sermon and paid a loving tribute to my aunt. He spoke of the devotion and charity she showed to the community for the last 55 years. Everyone knew her and she knew everyone by name. Carolyn Legg played the piano while her son Clinton played his guitar in a moving tribute to Ozella. Carolyn was the young lady who took over for Ozella playing the piano several years back when she could no longer reach her fingers along the keyboard. They played an arrangement of Ozella’s favorite hymns; In the Garden, What a Friend, It is well with my soul and Church in the Wildwood. Several townspeople stood up to give eulogies. Floy was the last to speak. He thanked everyone for the kindness they had shown to him and his family. The words he spoke in tribute to his wife were so moving.

I have been through this before. When my first wife died, I thought my life would be just an existence until it was my turn. Then, I met this wonderful lady and fell head over heels. I was like a kid when I was with Ozella. She was my life. She made it worth living again. I made her a promise that I would not just exist if she were to go before me but that I would live my life carrying on the good works that she did here on earth. That is what she wanted for me. She did not want me to mourn her passing but to celebrate her life and the lives of those she touched. I need time to grieve but then I plan on doing just exactly what I promised her when she first got sick. We didn’t know how much time she had but we lived every day as if it were the last because we just didn’t know. I am thankful to God that he gave us that time. I just wish I had one more day but that would never be enough with a woman like Ozella, never enough.

That brought a tear to my eye. Marshall wrapped his arm around my shoulder and passed me a hanky that he had in his back pocket. I held it in my hand because I didn’t want anyone to see that I was crying. I don’t like to show my feelings in front of others. Ozella had been diagnosed with a brain tumor about ten months earlier. I had done a lot of weeping for her when no one else was around. Marshall and I had come down to visit her when I first heard the terrible news. I didn’t let her see how devastated I was. I just cherished the time I spent with her. I knew what Floy meant. There was a lot to celebrate about Ozella. She was an extraordinary woman.

They placed the casket in the back of a black hearse and one by one we filed out of the parking lot and followed along behind it as it drove down through the hollow and slowly climbed the mountain road. The hill was straight up on my side of the car and the drop was straight down on the opposite side. It was a very narrow passage. The overgrowth was thick and scraped the top of the cars. We came to a clearing where the cemetery gates could be seen in the distance. We were now up on the ridge. The cemetery was up high over Cook Station. It was just outside a tiny little town named Wesco and the cemetery shared the name. I thought it was a lovely resting place and it reminded me of an old hymn that I knew: Go rest high, on that mountain. But I remembered the cemetery in town where the founding father was buried and thought that she should have been buried alongside of him. But this is what Ozella wanted. She was buried next to Uncle Jeff. She wanted to be able to look over her little town, even from the other side. She would not have thought she deserved a place in the hallowed and historical town cemetery. A short graveside service was held and then they lowered the cream-colored box into the ground. Someone started singing, ‘When we all get to heaven’ and then others joined in. I was too choked up to sing but I mouthed the words.

Many people I talked to that day thought as I did about the cemetery in town. They knew that it was Ozella who had kept the town going during the Depression and the War years. Without her and Uncle Jeff, many people would not have been able to make it. She was a good steward of what God gave her. said an old man who was bent over at the waist and carried a cane. She always gave what people needed but she never let people take advantage of her good heart. She was very smart that way.

Ozella would have gone on listing the names of citizens who were more worthy of notoriety for holding the community together than she. That is how she was. But she knew how special her adopted hometown was. It reminded her of where she came from. People were good to each other and never hesitated to lend a hand. The Ozark Mountains were full of people like that.

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CHAPTER TWO

A Glance at the Past

W e stayed with Uncle Floy that evening and he and dad talked about the ‘good ole days’ fishing on the river. The rest of the family stayed for the dinner that the ladies of the church made and then they went on back towards home. I took a notion to open Ozella’s closet and look at her dresses. They were all so familiar to me even though I had not seen her as frequently as I had as a child. Marshall and I had taken the kids down to visit a couple of times but it was hard to get away from our business. Ozella and Floy came up to see mom and dad a lot though. They had retired and had more time for traveling. We loved to see her and my kids were doted on by her just as I had been. The kids were fascinated by the resemblance between her and their grandma.

As I combed through her dresses, I remembered an occasion she had worn each one. She had all of her day-to-day dresses together and then her good Sunday dresses on the other end. That is how my mother had kept her closet. Many of the dresses were quite similar to those my mother wore. They were either cotton or seersucker. There was