Douglass Family, Collection, 1838-1990 (C3978)
1.4 linear feet, 13 audio cassettes
INTRODUCTION
The Douglass Family Collection consists of land deeds, personal and business correspondence, oral history
transcripts, photographs, volumes, and other miscellaneous items dealing with farm life and agriculture in McBaine, Missouri. There are also records dealing with a flourmill belonging to Northcutt & Brothers in Mexico, Missouri, and an account book for the Oakdale Graveyard in Shelby County, Missouri.
DONOR INFORMATION
The Douglass Family Collection was donated to the State Historical Society of Missouri by Margaret Sue Kyd on 3
July 1978 (SHS Accession No. 2172). Additions to the collection were made by Marie Sloan on 25 August 1993 and Mrs. Albert M. Price on 20 September 1993 (SHS Accession No. 2978) and by Mary Jane Richey on 28 November 1995 (SHS Accession No. 3083)
BIOGRAPHICAL SKETCH
The grandparents of Thomas Rankin Douglass came to Shelby, Missouri, from southwest Virginia. Thomas R. Douglass was born in Shelby County on September 8, 1888, and died in 1958. Thomas Rankin Douglass married Marian Alletta Mitchell on June 29, 1914. They had four children: Elizabeth Batterton (Sister), Thomas Mitchell (Tom), Margaret Sue (Sue or Susie), and Virginia Bell (Ginny). Elizabeth was married to Myrl Gene Windmiller on September 8, 1938. Tom married Bette Heideman on January 12, 1941. On July 19, 1943, Susie married Stirling Kyd. Ginny married William Hopper on February 14, 1949, whom she later divorced. There were several grandchildren.
Benjamin F. Douglass was a partner with William H. Northcutt in the flourmill in Mexico, Missouri. It is unclear how he is related to Thomas Rankin Douglass and his family or when he came to Missouri. Legal documents for the mill place him in the vicinity of Mexico, Missouri, around 1860.
SCOPE AND CONTENT NOTE
The Douglas Family Collection documents the lives of a McBaine, Missouri, farm family and is arranged into
two series:
The Douglass Family series contains all documentation that relates to the family's personal history. All records prior to 1900 are in this series. There is a small amount of personal correspondence as well as land deeds and land surveys from April 1849 to April 1860 for Audrain and Boone counties. The records pertaining to the flourmill consist chiefly of receipts for materials to build or repair the mill. There are a few legal documents dealing with sources of funding for the flourmill. The oral histories and photographs are key components of this series
The oral history cassettes are accompanied by transcripts and contain interviews conducted by Marie Sloan in
1990 with the children and in-laws of Thomas Rankin Douglass and his wife, Marian Alletta, of McBaine, Missouri. The oral histories tell of farm life from 1915 to 1957. The photographs depict the Douglass farm in 1990. It should be noted, though, that the photographs showing the family home were taken after extensive renovations in the late 1980s. While many items in the house appear to be original, they are actually pieces collected by Bette Douglass or designed to fit the house's architectural context. Also included in the last folder of photographs is a set of contact prints showing additional exterior and interior views of the home.
The Douglass Farm series deals with the farm as a business. The time period covered is from 1943 to 1957. While some of the information in Thomas R. Douglass's volumes is personal in nature, such as anniversaries, sicknesses, or births, the majority of the material relates to the day-to-day running of the farm in McBaine. He records when the river flooded, the loss of crops, the buying and selling of livestock, vet visits, and the sale of seed. He goes into detail about how many acres were planted with certain crops or how many pigs, cattle, or pieces of lumber were purchased or sold on any given day. He also records his travels to St. Louis as a member of the
Producers Livestock Marketing Association. Enclosures are included in the folders with the volumes. These enclosures range from loan figures to acreage calculations and livestock figures.
Business correspondence includes letters from the Producers Livestock Marketing Association about the sale of
livestock sent to St. Louis, letters pertaining to insurance or loan contracts, or letters dealing with acreage allotments for crops that were being subsidized by the government. Additional loans and contracts unaccompanied by correspondence can also be found in the miscellaneous folders. Some receipts are also included in this collection. These receipts deal primarily with livestock sales and show the weight and price of lots or individual animals. These receipts are also the primary source for information on the logging that went on at the farm, although there is some additional information in the business correspondence and rare references in Douglass's volumes.
The miscellaneous folders contain a variety of items ranging from an advertisement of a cattle sale and a Scotch
Highlanders cattle placemat to seed licenses and minutes and accounts reports for the Producers Livestock Marketing Association.
FOLDER LIST
| f. 1 | Douglass Family Tree |
| f. 2 | Personal Correspondence, 1838-1860 |
| f. 3 | Oakdale Graveyard Account book, 1876-1891 |
| f. 4 | Douglass Land Deeds |
| f. 5 | Flour Mill, 1858-1859 |
| f. 6 | Flour Mill, 1860-1861 |
| f. 7-9 | Douglass Oral History Transcripts |
| f. 10-13 | Photos |
| f. 14 | Sue Kyd reminiscence |
| a.c. 1-13 | Oral history tapes
|
| f. 15 | 1943 volume |
| f. 16-17 | 1944 volume |
| f. 18-19 | 1948 volume |
| f. 20 | 1949 volume |
| f. 21 | 1951 volume |
| f. 22 | 1952 volume |
| f. 23 | 1954 volume |
| f. 24 | 1955 volume |
| f. 25 | Tom R. Douglass Livestock Accounts for 1955 |
| f. 26 | Volume, n.d. |
| f. 27 | Business Correspondence, 1949-1950 |
| f. 28 | Business Correspondence, 1951 |
| f. 29 | Business Correspondence, 1952-1953 |
| f. 30 | Business Correspondence, 1954 |
| f. 31 | Business Correspondence, 1955 |
| f. 32 | Business Correspondence, 1957 |
| f. 33 | Receipts, 1946-1950 |
| f. 34 | Receipts, 1951 |
| f. 35 | Receipts, 1952-1954 |
| f. 36 | Receipts, 1955 |
| f. 37 | Miscellaneous, 1939-1955 |
| f. 38 | Miscellaneous, Producers Livestock Marketing Assn. Minutes & Accounts 1949-1953 |
| f. 39 | Miscellaneous, n.d. |
INDEX TERMS
These index terms are the subjects, people, places, etc. under which this collection is listed in all available indexes at the Western Historical Manuscript Collection-Columbia. If you are interested in a specific index term, please contact the reference staff.
- Advertisements--Cattle
- Agriculture--Missouri
- Broadsides--Cattle
- Cattle--Scotch Highlanders
- Diaries--Agriculture--Missouri, 1940s
- Diaries--Agriculture--Missouri, 1950s
- Douglass Family
- Douglass, Benjamin F. (1858-1860)
- Douglass, Jonathan
- Douglass, Marian Alletta Batterton (1890-1972)
- Douglass, R. W. (1876-1891)
- Douglass, Thomas Mitchell (1918- )
- Douglass, Thomas Rankin (1888-1958)
- Farm buildings--Missouri, Boone County, 1990s
- Farm life, 1910s-1950s
- Flour mills, 1850s
- Hopper, Virginia Bell (1926- )
- Kyd, Margaret Sue (1924- )
- Land transactions, 1840s-1850s
- Livestock, 1940s-1950s
- Missouri—Audrain County—Mexico, 1850s
- Missouri—Boone County—McBaine, 1910s-1980s
- Missouri—Shelby County, 1870s-1890s
- Northcutt & Bros., Mexico, Missouri, 1850s
- Northcutt, William H. (1858-1860)
- Oakdale Graveyard, Shelby County, Missouri, 1870s-1890s
- Oral history
- Oral history—Douglass Family
- Warren, Silas
- Windmiller, Elizabeth Batterton Douglass (1915- )