Information Sheet

 

 

R         Beemer, Mary Alice.

496                  Photograph collection, ca. 1885-1955.

                                    Thirty-seven views.

 

 

 

These are photographs of the town of Newburg and vicinity in Phelps County, Missouri.  In­cluded are views of employees, equipment, and facilities of the “Frisco” railroad, businesses, buildings, and street scenes, and miscellaneous photographs of locations near Newburg includ­ing the Dana Lead Mine and Stonydell Swimming Pool.

 

Mary Alice Beemer was born in Quincy, Illinois, and grew up in Creston, Iowa.  In 1963, she and her husband, Gene, moved to Kansas City, where they lived until 1972.  In that year, the Beemers moved to Newburg and bought the Johnson Funeral Home, which they operated until its sale in 1994.

 

Mrs. Beemer was an author whose credits include two books of poetry, three historical works, and two historical novels.  She began writing in the 1940s, and was a founding member of the Iowa Poetry Association in 1941.  In 1963 she authored a history of the Farmers Coop­erative of Creston, Iowa, and continued her historical writing with a history of Newburg, Hello From New­burg (1976), written and published during the Bicentennial of the United States.  Later she ex­panded this work for publication as Newburg’s First Hundred Years (1984).  The Newburg area was also the setting for her historical novels, The Branch of My Planting (1981), and The Iron Sounds of Summer (1988).

 

The Beemer photograph collection was gathered over a period of twenty years, and was dis­played at the Johnson Funeral Home in Newburg, where it was the subject of much discus­sion and reminiscence.  Included are original photographs, copy prints, postcards, and photo­copies.  Most of the collection concerns the town of Newburg proper.  The subject matter is heavily-weighted toward the Frisco railroad, which reflects the town’s origin in 1883 as a divi­sion point and engine-servicing facility.  The remainder of the views are of businesses and buildings in Newburg, in­cluding the Houston House, Spradling Store, Grayson blacksmith shop, Williams hardware store, the public school buildings, and the Methodist Episcopal Church.  Two signifi­cant views are of the Dana Lead Mine near Newburg, 1908, and the fac­tory and employees of Barrett & Hilp, manufac­turers of prefabricated housing for Fort Leon­ard Wood, 1941.

 

 

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