Mary Dillard Ley, of Greene County pioneers, holds family land for 180+ years

Without good roads to take folks into town, a few miles east of Springfield felt a whole lot farther in 1929 when Mary Dillard Ley was born in a little white house covered in vines. The land’s rural location, however, didn’t stop time travel: More than 180 years ago, her family claimed the land where she was born, and still lives today.

William Dillard, her great-great grandfather, arrived from Tennessee and bought land for his family with gold from the government. Official records point to an arrival by at least 1839, but newspaper accounts and family information say it was even earlier.

It’s a story, however, that will ultimately conclude: Ley, now 93, is candid about the next chapter for the legacy land.

“I’m just keeping it, and when I die — I talk about this all time to my kids, it’s reality — it’s to be sold and divided,” she says.

Ley sits in her kitchen, a pot of stew simmering on the stove. A large window overlooks the place where each day moves further from when her ancestors first saw the fields she now sees.

Delaware tribe displaced

The Dillards, however, weren’t the first people to walk the land. Before them, she says, there were Native Americans, whose land was taken by the U.S. government and ultimately sold back to settlers.

“They didn't have surveyors back then. They just walked around and claimed it. And then you went to a courthouse-type place in Springfield, the nearest one that had those kinds of officers who had the authority to do this kind of thing. So that's the way that went.

“Most all of these early pioneers had food on their mind; ‘How do we feed our family?’ They looked for land that was suitable for planting, and access and things like that. This right in here is hilly, but it's accessible. The mountains aren't that difficult. So I think they just chose, and he paid gold for this from the government — not to the Delawares.

“This land had been given by the government to the Delawares, and some of them were still here. There was a little village right there.

“The president of the United States wanted the annihilation of the Indians. They didn't ever call it that. But essentially, that's what it was, wanted to get rid of them. And this was true all across the country, even on the coast of the West. They had a bad deal, the Indians did.”

Parents eloped after meeting at a card game in Springfield

From William Dillard, the family grew through three generations — George, James L. and James D. — before Ley arrived in 1929. Three years prior to her birth, her parents took up residence in the home where she was born. They eloped in 1926, perhaps an unexpected match for the couple who met at a card game in Springfield: Thelma King, her mother, was a student at what was then Southwest Missouri State Teachers College, the daughter of a privileged family in Linn Creek, Missouri.

“When Mother married Dad there was an impetuous thing where she left a ‘pillow’ note: ‘I'm eloping.’ I think she probably thought it was romantic. I don't know about that. But she didn't get much. My dad was just a dirt farmer, poorly educated, his whole family was ignorant. She didn't know that; she really married somebody she didn't know.

“My mother had never been around cattle and pigs and chickens and all that. Or farming. But my dad expected that of her probably.

“You know, there's a lot of work to these kinds of situations. They had no soap, no water even. When she came here, dad offered her that old house. It had been used as a barn; storage for cattle feed and so on. No water was here. They had a dug well, which collapsed, and so when they wanted water you had to go somewhere and get it.

Despite the challenges, life continued.

“She said she didn't ever leave … because she believed in her marriage vows. She said that many times over and over to me.”

A move to Linn Creek

In Ley’s early years, the family moved to Linn Creek to be closer to her mother’s parents. Those were the days of construction of Bagnell Dam — creating Lake of the Ozarks — which was completed in 1931 and resulted in the flooding of “old” Linn Creek. Some families chose to move their homes before the flood, and the Linn Creek of today came to be.

“This mother of mine was born in old Linn Creek under the Lake of the Ozarks. During the time it was being built, old Linn Creek had businesses. They even had a jail in the courthouse.

“My grandparents on my mother's side had already built a pretty new 10-room house. They moved it out of the basin of the lake so it didn't flood. In those days, they had to use caterpillars and mules and so on. They moved that 10-room house, and my grandmother cooked on the woodstove the whole time. My mother always told me that I sat on her lap on a pillow when they pulled the house off its foundation. Then they took several weeks to move it to the new location.”

“Mom’s father (Leonidas King) was influential. He owned a jewelry store and made clocks and watches and held all kinds of positions. He was in the state legislature. They now have this as a state park. He was the legislator that introduced the bill to have that happen.

“It began to be a tourist attraction, and my dad got paid by wealthy people in Kansas City and St. Louis to go find fishing areas.”

Return to Greene County and the farm

The Dillards remained there until before Ley began to attend school, when the family returned to Greene County and a rural life.

“To access this place, we had to come through the barnyard and come down here to our house. We didn't get much company. It was difficult to go to work or anywhere away from here, so you could not have a teenage job of any kind. I had to stay home and help with the work. It didn't hurt me — it was probably good for me.

“You’ve got to go out and break water for the chickens if it's frozen. You do feed them and water them twice a day, gather the eggs and look for trouble spots like a snake in the hen house. I mean — that’s just normal.

“Grandad Dillard had a big barn where they stored hay and things like that. He had a big old horse, two of them. Those were used to plow with; they plowed everything.

“I can remember in the 1940s when granddad decided they needed a tractor. Already gasoline was rationed, and then there was the money. He felt like it was a big expense. He came around and talked to all the different kids at their homes, because they were all married by then and had families. He didn't think that having a tractor was necessary. But people like my mother knew it was, and she encouraged it. So they did get a tractor and then it was faster to do the fields, the plowing and the crops.

“They grew whatever crops were necessary; their feed for the cattle and horses. If you had a surplus you could sell, you did. Then in the early days, it was grow your own wheat, grind it up for flour, grow your own corn to make cornmeal. If you didn’t do that, you didn’t have it.”

Her education was found both at the farm and the rural Oakland school where she walked more than two miles, carrying lessons — and today, memories of the local rural store.

“They couldn't get teachers back then. There weren't any. You know that there are cases where a 13-year-old was a teacher. These one room schoolhouses were just thrown together, often with no floor. They certainly had no paper, pencils, any of that. Things who are not like they are today. I found that interesting that the parents wanted their kids educated, but it was hard to get it.

“You wouldn’t believe what was in a store back then. There were store shelves back against a wall, and the counter and the storekeeper. He stood behind that counter and you asked for what you wanted. They’d go get it from a shelf and bring it over, and you’d pay for it — you didn’t go get it. There's no wagon or none of that.

“Then there was the day when some delivery outfit brought fresh bread. People would come there to buy bread every day if they wanted it. They just put it in the big box on the front porch. It wasn't locked. Because nobody ever stole bread.

“Every day, I’d go home with my homework and sit by a coal-oil lamp; we didn't have electricity. You’d do your homework, this poor light, and hope for daytime — it's better. Mom put a blackboard in the kitchen, so that if she was in there peeling potatoes or something either one of us kids could be there at the blackboard.

“We could do problems, we could learn to spell. We could draw, do pictures. Because paper and pencil were hard to come by. I can't, in my mind, remember having paper and pencil much — just a little bit.

“I've benefited greatly by having a mother who educated me. She homeschooled when it wasn't called that.”

Mother taught skills passed down through generations

Ley’s mother also taught her skills such as knitting and tatting, the latter a form of lacemaking, that has continued through the family line for generations.

“If anyone wants to learn to knit, I'll try to help them. I also know how to tat — nobody does that anymore, because it's not as applicable a skill. It used to be, but it isn't anymore. They used to have that in the antique things. It was fashionable on a collar, or on your pillowcase. And that’s not what anybody wants.

“In fact, do you think it's shocking that nobody has a Hope Chest anymore? I hate that, because that was such fun when I was a high school kid to accumulate. We all wanted to get silver. I even bought a set of aluminum pans. I didn’t get china, but I got sterling silver, which I never used.

“Today’s girls, they don't do that. I think they're missing something. They’re missing that anticipation.”

The World War II era saw new changes for the family, including the addition of more work for her father, who was a mechanic for the Frisco Railway and worked in Springfield’s north yards.

“It was big and busy and took all their time. In the war, they actually had a sixth day of work part of the time, because I guess they felt like they couldn't get it all done with their manpower, so they had an extra day of pay and work.

“You would see trains go by that had the tanks, Jeeps and all that kind of thing was on there.”

It also saw her mother enter the workforce.

“I had gotten out of eighth grade and was starting into high school when the war started. The principal came knocking, asking mother, ‘Would you be interested in teaching?’ And she said, ‘Well, I'll try it.’ She always really liked school teaching.”

To reach her classroom, Ley’s mother would ride the school bus along with her children.

“Mother would go walking down. This was all gravel. There was no paving, any of these roads out here; they were all gravel. So that makes an additional hazard with holes in the road.

“I always thought what a pain that must have been for her because she had to deal with making lunches for us here, one for dad, one for me and my brother, and herself. They didn't have hot lunches for a long time.

“She maybe had an armful of papers that she'd have to carry back. And she always said, ‘I have to make myself presentable.’ She never was a makeup person, but she did like to have jewelry; a necklace, or earrings, but nothing elaborate. I always said I won the lottery with a mother.”

Graduation from Strafford and move to California

Ley was graduated from Strafford High School in 1946, after which she started to college and ultimately met her future husband, B.J. Shelley. The marriage led to five children and a move to California for Shelley's job with today’s Lockheed Martin, an aerospace manufacturer, leading to a heady time as the United States raced for space — until tragedy struck the family in 1966.

“One day, I just went upstairs and found him gone. It was a terrible shock.

“He came down and had a cup of coffee with me that morning. And then went back and didn't come back. The kids were getting out the door going into their different schools. My oldest at the time was just barely 16. Nobody was driving a car yet. Things were hard for us.

“Maybe it was something he inherited. We’ll never know. But I’d been told that when he was born, he was not the right color. He was blue. And they worked over him to get him to breathe. So he got 18 years with me. And then just all of a sudden gone.”

The tragedy set in motion life changes that took the family from California to Colorado and into the ownership of the Dude Corral, a restaurant and motel.

“I wasn’t going to stay in California with my kids. I wanted them to have a different kind of chance in life than this kind of influence. Right now, today, I’m glad I don’t have young kids because our environment is not good.

“So, after he died, I thought: ‘How am I going to do this — you know, feed them and take care of them?’ I did go back to school to get me a degree, but didn't ever use it.

“A person came to me and made a proposal — not of marriage, but of business that I could invest in in Colorado: A restaurant and motel. The kids could all work and get the school that I wanted for them. And I went with that, and I did it.

“They hated the restaurant, of course, and the motel. But I've always told them, ‘You got a benefit you don't realize: It's meeting the public. You don't learn that out of a book.’ That's so valuable. They come to you every day in the public sector, whether you're into grocery, or a drug store, or hospital, every single person is different with a different story.

“You have to make that and try to help them, or tell them what they need. I considered that was an education in itself.”

After more than a decade, challenges led the couple to divorce. Ley ultimately remarried Elmer Ley, of a German family in Colorado. After her father passed away in 1979, her mother ultimately moved West to be with her daughter and son-in-law.

“My last husband just adored her. He missed his own mother, and he said, ‘Let's just see if she wants to move out with us so we can help her and look after her.’ I was delighted because … most husbands don't want a mother in law. They just don't.

“We enjoyed her tremendously. She was a lot of fun, and she made new friends among all those people. And best of all, she didn't have allergies like she did here.”

A need to come home

But after her mother died, Ley felt the need to come home. She moved back to where she was born, where generations before her began, by 1995. It's where she stayed after her last husband died in 2013.

“I had to assume responsibility for this farm. At that time, there were 80 acres and I needed to be here because things were happening.

“I asked this realtor, ‘What if I sold some acreage and built me a new house? Would that be possible?’ And that's just what I did. I told that builder, ‘Build me a house for old people so I can stay in it longer and won't have to go somewhere else.’ So that's what I got. I love my little house.”

Ten acres remain where Ley and her daughter, Cindy Shelley, live. The passage of time has brought changes, but Ley still looks to the present and future, and works to help those around her.

“We do volunteer work at the senior center in Strafford. We like to spend time there because those are people who need help. They come there to eat, and you can give a really nice meal for $3.50. You can't do that good at a hamburger joint — costs more than that.

“Wisdom is hard to say for anyone else because everyone's an individual. I kind of think I was lucky in a lot of ways to have grown up in this rural atmosphere. People are more friendly and more genuine. They're not trying to rip everything away from you, and I think that's a benefit. I don't know that I have any real advice for anybody because it depends on where you are and what you want out of life. I don't know what I want out of life. Just to be comfortable. And healthy.

“I like to have fun. I like to laugh a lot. Every day I do that. I'm still here, so my kids just got to deal with it — that’s what I tell them.

“I didn't think about living so long. No one does.”

This story is published in partnership with Ozarks Alive, a cultural preservation project led by Kaitlyn McConnell.