Group continues 91-year tradition with stories

By Murray Bishoff Special to Monett Monthly

On Sept. 21, the 91st annual reunion of the 12 pioneer families, who came to southwest Missouri and began populating southwest Lawrence County and the Monett area, was held at the Monett City Park Casino. 

This year’s event drew 30 descendants of the Boucher, Mann, Schooling, Brite, Moody, Spilman, Cagle, Morris, Woods, Hewlett, Pruitt and Wormington families. Kristin Nama of Pierce City again served as reunion president. 

Activities included taking photos of individual families, sharing a meal and telling stories about previous reunions. A moment of silence was held for family members who had passed since the last reunion.

Some of the more amusing tales recounted what Monett’s South Park was like in the 1950s when several modern attendees witnessed it as children. Karen McCormack recalled a great white gazebo in the park where children were ordered to stay. She described a “great big teeter-totter down the hill” from the Casino that challenged the children. Doug Moore recalled playing on that teeter-totter with a cousin who liked to bounce him on the downward rotation. 

Roger Pruitt recalled attending a reunion when he was about age 8 when he and a cousin tried tossing rocks down by the park lake at ducks for target practice. 

“An old guy – I don’t know if he was a ranger or a concerned citizen – gave us the one-two,” he said.

Pruitt recounted how he and his brother, Cary, became immersed in genealogy and history research. To them, the reunion offered a chance to dig deeper, meet the people their research revealed to them, and explore mysteries. 

Pruitt told the group how they had never been able to find the graves of Moses and Candice Pruitt. In the 1970s, Orville Goodman, attending one of the reunions as a descendant of Pruitts and Cagles, told them he knew where the graves were. 

He took them to a farm north of Pierce City, owned by Raymond Pruitt, and directed the brothers to go to a hedgerow he identified, cross a field, find a tree, look back, and they would find the markers. And they did. They had to negotiate with what Roger called “a grizzly bear-sized dog,” but that made the adventure even better. 

Cary Pruitt III was recognized as the longest attending person at the reunion, beginning in 1952 when his father returned from the Korean War. 

“I met all the guys who were part of the history,” he said. “I found out my great-grandfather, Ewing Bunyon Pruitt, and one of the Spilmans set a date in 1935 that this reunion should take place each year. They decided on the third Sunday in September. Then, I started studying up. We don’t hunt or fish. Doing history and genealogy is my hobby.”

He noted actor Brad Pitt is a descendant of the Hillhouse and Spilman families. He has never attended the reunion, and may never have received an invitation. 

Cary Pruitt recalled an account in the Missouri Historical Review in 1954 that gave the complete history of the Spilman school, located east of the Mt. Olivet Church and west of Freistatt. Part of the school still exists, and is now on the back of a red barn on the Hewlitt farm. He noted the Pruitt clan settled on part of Clear Creek, collecting in such numbers that they called it the Pruitt branch. 

“This was the time when the Missouri Red Legs and the Kansas Jayhawks were raiding each other,” he said. “They used each other for protection.

“Grandad told us what it was like to live in Pierce City, how his brothers would gather with their dates at the bandstand. He talked about the tricks they’d play on the railroad, like finding old clothes, filling them up, and laying them on the railroad tracks.”

Tracing the family story offered intersections with history. Pruitt recounted how his great-grandparents left the immediate area when there was a gold rush in Indian Territory, what is now Oklahoma, in the 1890s. They resettled around what is now Broken Arrow until the sheriff came one day and told them there was a cholera epidemic heading their way, for which there was no known defense at the time, and they should move. 

The family moved north to Coffeyville, Kan., but could find no work there. In Parsons, however, the Katy Railroad was coming through, offering many jobs, so they moved to Neosho County, not far from the Neosho River, which becomes the Grand River as it progresses southward. 

They lived not far from Trotter’s Ford on the Osage Trace, a place where families could cross the river without heavy fees from rafters. Historic records show that was the place where Laura Ingalls Wilder and her husband, Alonzo, crossed on their way to Missouri from South Dakota. She would later write the “Little House on the Prairie” books. 

Following story time, the group closed singing, “God Be With You Till We Meet Again.” The next reunion was set for Sept. 20, 2026. 

Histories of each of the 12 families are now available as e-books. Information about the group is available by emailing 12pioneerfamilies@gmail.com.