Remembering 1920s-era Woodson

June 02--As a child, Mary Frances Alkire knew all the inhabitants in her quiet hometown of Woodson.

"Woodson was a place you felt safe living in," said Alkire, who recently celebrated her 100th birthday. "No one locked doors. Soon after my mother died in 1925, we moved into Woodson. I knew everyone in Woodson in those days. I could walk up and down the streets and tell you who lived in each house."

Alkire said her roots in the Woodson area go back to before the town was founded in 1859. One of Woodson's founders was Richard Henry, who may be a relative of Alkire.

Alkire, the daughter of Francis "Frank" and Mary Emma Lena Culp Henry, was born in North Dakota but spent several years on a farm about 1 1/2 miles southwest of Woodson before moving into town.

"Richard Henry [the Woodson founder] and other Henrys who settled in and around what became the Woodson area were all from the same general area of Kentucky, but I can't prove that I'm related to Richard Henry," Alkire said.

"There are also Henrys at Nortonville and around Jacksonville who don't seem to be kin to any of those in the Woodson neighborhood. But they all came here before 1835."

Alkire recalled that during the 1920s Woodson had at least a dozen businesses, as well as two physicians -- Dr. G.W. Miller and Dr. Ralph Jones.

"Herb Owings ran the LaCrosse lumberyard," she said. "His wife, Margaret, helped him at the lumber company. I remember my dad took her a large cucumber one time, and she ate the whole blooming thing and almost died."

The other Woodson businesses in that era included Shirley's general store, Fitzsimmons' general store, Woodson State Bank, Steinmetz's restaurant, Baxter's plumbing shop, Kehl's blacksmith shop, a barber shop, the Woodson grain elevator run by Hugh Hagan, Hawks' restaurant, Hawks' garage and the Woodson Sale Barn operated by Jesse L. Henry.

During Alkire's youth, the town also had a Chicago & Alton Railroad depot, a telephone company office, a post office, Woodson Christian Church, Unity Presbyterian Church and a school.

"When the grade school burned in 1922, we went to school upstairs over Baxter's plumbing shop," Alkire said.

The school was a wood-frame building with two large rooms. Ruth Mueller, which was pronounced "Miller," taught first through fourth grades in one room, while Chester Colton taught grades five through eight in the other room, according to Alkire. Colton later became a well-known insurance agent in Jacksonville.

"Miss Mueller was an excellent teacher that all the kids liked," Alkire said. Mueller taught grade school in Woodson for many years.

Alkire also recalled Dr. Miller, who doubled as pastor of Woodson Christian Church for several years.

"He was a preacher and a physician," she said. "He worked on your soul and on your body. He was the delight of the village of Woodson. Dr. Miller brought a lot of people into this world, and he also married people and buried them."

He served the spiritual and medical needs of the town for about 50 years. "Dr. Miller preached really long sermons, and extra long ones on the Sundays we had basket dinners at the church," Alkire said. "I guess he thought we had a little extra time to listen to him preach on those days."

This Way We Were story was first published June 12, 2006.

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