Sunday, Sunday, Sunday and it promises to be a bright cool morning. Heres the whole story I mentioned yesterday, as far as I know it. Murphy Ross was my great grandfather and as colorful a person who ever graced this little river town. He was known as “Popeye” and from all accounts was destined for infamy. He married my great grandmother, Irene, when she was 14, in Pike County around 1904. He was nearly 30 by then, not an unusual, for the day. Their only son was Archie Nathanial Ross and the man I call Dad was his junior or “Little Arch”, as he was called. Anyway, when dad was about 5, in the middle of the depression, his father, “Big Arch” managed to save up enough for a new suit. This would be the suit he was buried in not much more than a year later. Big Arch spent that Saturday night strutting up and down Georgia in his finery. Everyone took note of the new suit and Popeye was eager to take advantage of that fact. Sunday morning, Popeye happened by his sons’ home on Prospect drive and “borrowed” the new suit of clothes. After some time, he returned the suit and left again in a big hurry. Just as Popeye rounded the corner at prospect drive and 7th St, heading for downtown, an Illinois state trooper and the Louisiana city marshal arrived at the house, demanding to see Big Arch. He had been seen in his new suit stopping folks on the Champ Clark Bridge, exacting extra toll in order to pass. My grandma Ruby, big Arch’s wife, set them straight and off the posse went in pursuit of Popeye who would by this time be in the B&B tavern on Georgia St. As the law entered the seedy dive, Popeye was making his escape out the back to his waiting son in a flatbed model A pick-up. They sped down the then gravel Hwy 79 to Ellsberry, where Popeye was to hide out with some cousins. That was the last anyone in our family heard from Popeye. It is assumed he made his annual trip to Kansas to swindle wheat farmers and met with foul play, the law or both along the way. True or not, it’s our story and we’re sticking to it. Have A Daybreak Sunday!
Posted on: Sun, 26 Oct 2014 05:42:51 +0000
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