WANDERING THE OZARKS : Ruby Graf reveals more to the story of the hanging
Posted on Thursday, November 20, 2008
Thursday night I was privileged to attend a reunion of sorts, at least a get-together of some 17 members of the Doss and Graf families. We gathered at Sky Vue for a delicious dinner, then I settled back to hear some stories. That’s always what happens when kin gather. They exchange stories.
Ruby Graf, age 91, who journeyed all the way from California, and her sisterin-law Geneva Doss, who lives out around Black Oak off Sunset Road, sat beside me and we talked memories of the old days. Ruby, who has read my column for years, courtesy of Geneva, who clips and sends it to her, wanted to set something straight. I’m always ready for that, because from one story comes another, and that’s how folk tales are born. That’s how we set down our memories for everyone to read and enjoy.
Once, a long time ago, long before a few of us picked up ourselves from the destruction of the beloved Washington County Observer and moved to Elkins to start the White River Valley News, I interviewed Erbul Osburn. He told me an eerie tale about a hanging tree that sat beside Sunset Road near the old Dockery place. At that time the road was not paved and was known as Number 10. This huge white oak tree once grew alongside that road. Here’s how Erbul told me the tree earned its name: The Hangin’ Tree.
“ This guy come through the country and he asked if he could sleep in the Hodges’ barn. Hodges had him an old milk cow and had it staked out to green grass. He’d tied her with a brand new rope. It was early in the morning, and the fellow Skelton was coming on down that hill. He seen this ole boy hangin’ up there in the tree right out over the road. He’d tied this new rope around the limb and his neck. Skelton, he plowed mud with his bootheels getting help. They cut him down and he didn’t die neither. ”
Well, Thursday night Ruby Graf set that story straight for me. She was there, a girl of no more than 10 or 11 years, when the man hung himself. Well, she didn’t see him hang himself, but here’s what she told me really happened.
Miles Monroe Doss was her father, and it was his brand new rope. The fella didn’t take it off a stakedout cow, either. He took it from her father’s barn. Brand new rope. Robert Skelton come along and told them someone had hung himself. Uncle Charlie Smith was the one who cut him down, sawed that new rope in half doing it. Said to the man, “ You crazy fool. If you wanted to die you wouldn’t have hung yourself over the road. ”
And that’s the way Ruby told it. She said that the limb on which he hung himself was over the trail she took to walk to school each day. She changed her trail to the other side of the tree, cause that old trail was scary. At the time she attended Sunset School. She recalled that her first grade teacher was Don Holliday.
Her father’s parents settled in Combs when they came to Arkansas, then her father bought property at Sunset. Ruby remembers that James Lawson Docker owned a country store and blacksmith shop at Sunset at the time. Everyone called him Uncle Bud.
After James Jefferson Dockery homesteaded in the Black Oak Community he donated the land where the Black Oak Church of Christ building stands today. The Dockerys are scattered all over these hills. His son, James Lawson Dockery, known to Ruby as Uncle Bud, and his wife Mary Elizabeth Skelton Dockery raised eight children on top of Sunset Mountain. They lived just under where the towering Educational Channel tower now stands. Their original home burned in 1914 and another was built to replace. In later years, one of James Lawson Dockery’s granddaughters, Aileen Parmenter and her husband Jack built a brick home nearer to the road below the old home place. She once filled me in on this brief Dockery history.
Another story Ruby spoke of was the tale of how Dogtown School got its name. Her version is the same as the one written by Robert Winn in an article, “ Unusual place names, ” published in the Observer many years ago. It bears repeating for all of those who’ve never heard it.
Once there was a school located at Clifton, but it was inconvenient for many pupils, so folks got together to see about building a new school in a better spot. This was around 1900. Taylor Porter donated the land, other residents supplied materials and labor, and the schoolhouse was built for very little cost. Miss Grace Hedrick was hired as the first teacher. When the building was completed and ready to open, a great celebration was held. There was singing, and speechifying, and the best thing of all, dinner on the ground.
Winn said that in those days everyone had a dog and they tended to trot along beside them when the family took out in the wagon or on horseback. So there were plenty of dogs at the celebration. Attracted by the aroma of the delicious fried chicken and other fixins, they gathered round to devour the bones tossed in every direction.
Then it came time to come up with a name for the school. The previous school had been known as Clifty, but they didn’t feel this was appropriate. Someone jokingly said, “ Well, from the looks of things we ought to call it Dogtown. ” Everyone laughed, but the name stuck, and so what might have been Clifty School became Dogtown School instead.
It was truly a pleasure to visit with members of the Doss family, and if I made any mistakes, I’m sure Ruby will let me know. She’s as sharp as a quilting needle, and knows her recollections well. I know Geneva will clip this story and send it off to her sister-in-law. She told me the two had grown up together and had always been great friends.
If you have stories or photos to share, call me at 634-3151 or write my email address.
------Velda Brotherton is an award winning fiction and nonfiction author. She has had 10 books published. She lives in Winslow.
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