Information Sheet

 

 

R         Vickery, Margaret Ray, 1914‑1971.

366                  Papers, 1887‑1974.

                                    One hundred five folders.

 

MICROFILM

 

THIS COLLECTION IS IN OFF-SITE STORAGE. AT LEAST TWO DAYS' ADVANCE NOTICE IS REQUIRED FOR ITS USE BY RESEARCHERS. THE MICROFILM COPY IS AVAILABLE FOR IMMEDIATE USE AT THE OFFICE.

 

 

These are papers of Margaret Ray Vickery, a newspaperwoman and author of Salem, Dent County, Missouri.  The papers consist of clippings, correspon­dence, photographs, and miscel­la­ne­ous historical research material, most of which pertain to her award‑winning weekly col­umn, “Sugar and Spice,” published by the Salem News, 1952‑1971.  The collection also includes pa­pers of the Vickery and Ray families.

 

Margaret Lois Ray was the daughter of Ben L. and Edna Moore Ray of Salem.  She was born and reared in Salem, and was educated in the Salem schools and at William Woods Col­lege in Fulton, Missouri.  In 1932, she married Robert L. Vickery, a graduate of the University of Mis­souri School of Journalism.  After following her husband to jobs in several different cities, she re­turned to Salem in 1950 when Robert Vickery and Charley Stacey bought the Salem News.  Mrs. Vick­ery was involved in nearly every facet of the publishing business at Salem, but was most well‑known for her “Yesteryears” historical features, and for her weekly column, “Sugar and Spice,” which ran from 1952 until her death in 1971.  She was also the author of the Sugar and Spice Cook Book (1962), and Ozark Stories of the Upper Current River (1969) both pub­lished by the Salem News.

 

Margaret Vickery was active in the Missouri Press Women and the Dent County Histori­cal Society.  She helped organize the Dent County Senior Citizens Club, and was a prime mover in founding the Dent County Museum, which was established after her death.  She was survived by her husband, Robert L. Vickery, publisher of the Salem News, and by two sons, Robert, Jr., an ar­chitect, and Walter Ray Vickery, a former Navy jet fighter pilot who suc­ceeded his father as pub­lisher of the news­paper.

 

“Sugar and Spice” was Margaret Vickery’s most acclaimed work.  Pub­lished weekly for nearly twenty years, the column won awards in state and local newspaper contests, and her work garnered first place in the competition at the National Press Women’s Association meeting at Los Angeles in 1960.  Initially, the column focused on local women, their hobbies, homes and activi­ties.  Nearly every column included some family history and a recipe contrib­uted by the subject of the story.  Within a few years, “Sugar and Spice” became the primary ex­pression of Mrs. Vick­ery’s interest in Dent County’s history and lore, the character and ac­complishments of its people, the beauty of its natural attractions, and its changing nature as the area was affected by the devel­op­ment of mining in the new lead belt and by tourism in the Current River region.  Although Sa­lem and its citizens are well ­represented, Mrs. Vickery did not neglect the rural communities and peo­ple.  She claimed to have traveled every country lane in the county and in the process filed stories on Barnitz Lake, Battle Axe Post Office, Brooks Pond, Cedar Grove, Howe's Mill, Lake Spring, Sligo, Viburnum, and the White River Trace.  She was an important contributor to a sur­vey of historic sites in Dent County by the State Historical Society of Missouri in the 1960s.  Al­though Dent County remained her pri­mary interest, Mrs. Vickery also wrote of her travels out­side of the United States to Greece, Israel, Mexico, and Spain.

 

 

Most of the Vickery papers consist of clippings of “Sugar and Spice” columns, with corre­spondence, photographs, and other items per­taining to them.  There are a few folders of Vick­ery and Ray family materials, including correspondence with her brother, Edward Ray, of Texas, and another relative, Nathaniel Ewing of Philadelphia.  There is a folder containing correspondence from her son, Robert Jr., then studying architecture in Spain, and a folder with material on the Navy career of her son Walter Ray.  There are also obituaries and death notices for members of the Cortelyou, Moore, and Ray families.

 

Vickery’s organization of her papers into topical and bio­graphical sections has been largely retained.  There is also an in­dexed, chronologically‑arranged section which contains most of the “Sugar and Spice” columns, 1952‑1971.  Although there is some dupli­cation in the material, es­pe­cially in clippings of “Sugar and Spice,” the arrangement allows easy access to the collection.  The topical and biographical files are the most useful for historical research.  They include Mrs. Vickery’s columns on various subjects, as well as vary­ing amounts of earlier pri­mary material col­lected by her such as correspondence, family papers, printed programs from churches and schools, and photographs of individuals, businesses, and community events in Salem and Dent County.  The files are useful for research on the communities at Battle Axe Post Office, Lake Spring, and Sligo, the Salem Academy and other schools, the Salem Fire Department, the Salem Centennial, and historic sites in Dent County, including the White River Trace.  The biographi­cal and chrono­logical files often include the photographs which were published with the col­umns.

 

The Vickery collection has been microfilmed to ensure preservation of the newspaper clip­pings, which were beginning to darken and deteri­orate.  The clippings have been discarded, but all photographs and miscellaneous primary materials have been retained.  Asterisks pre­ceding folder descriptions on the shelf list indicate that some material has been retained.

 

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