Grandma Jaques
and the Robber

From notes by Elsie Jaques Stivers, reconstructed by Sylvia Stevens


In this story, Uncle Oscar is James Oscar JAQUES, son of "Bill" and Sarah E. (Ellis) JAQUES. The ‘I' in the story is Elsie, Sarah's granddaughter through Millard Nathan and Lenora (Hartung) JAQUES.

Around 1909, my Uncle Oscar was a railroad man and single. Jaunty and carefree, he was the pet of all the waitresses in Monett Missouri where we all lived. Oscar's light repartee with some of the local telephone operators brought forth scandalized observations from Grandma. One day Uncle Oscar's train was involved in an accident and Oscar ended up with a broken leg. Grandma had been notified of the injury and when the train came through Monett en route to the Frisco hospital in Springfield, wild horses couldn't have kept Grandma from meeting that train! When she saw her youngest son lying on a cot in the baggage car, her emotions knew no bounds. She knelt down by that cot and wept and wailed and became so hysterical that the conductor hesitated to make her leave. He contacted the yardmaster and after a time, that worthy gent showed up to settle matters. He entered the car, lifted Grandma up bodily and held her to keep her from going back . As he firmly escorted her from the baggage car, he told her in no uncertain terms, "Ma'am, y'all done layed out this train for over 40 minutes already, and by God this here railroad has to run! For this here railroad to run, this here damned TRAIN has to git outta TOWN. And to do THAT, YOU-all has to git outta this here train!... Now SET....Ma'am."

Grandma calmed down and Oscar continued on his way to the hospital. It might not be stretching things a mite to say that Uncle Oscar thoroughly enjoyed that broken leg. He flirted with the nurses and gave the doctors Hell and had generally a high old time. Still, fun as it was in Springfield, he knew Monett was home.

Uncle Oscar had a white Spitz dog named "Ted" . that dog worshipped Oscar, body and soul. Ted refused to take up with anyone else and when Oscar was out of town on a run, Ted would lie in the road at the top of the hill and watch as the trains from the Oklahoma Division and the Kansas Division came into town. Both trains came into Monett from the West. By some uncanny sixth sense, Ted always seemed to know the train Oscar was coming home on. Excited, the dog would jump and bark, wagging frantically, and Uncle Oscar would always go "on top" and wave as the train pulled up into the yards. Ted was very seldom wrong. Ted would then race down the hill , cross the tracks and meet Uncle Oscar, accompanying him home with a fanfare of barking. It was a wonder that dog wasn't killed by one of the frequent trains passing through, but he always made it.

Ted disappeared for days after Uncle Oscar's injury. Grandma couldn't find him anywhere. When Oscar got out of the hospital in Springfield, he found Ted. The dog had crawled far back under the front porch and died. We always thought he died of a broken heart. Uncle Oscar lovingly carried Ted's body out and buried him by the south tracks he had loved to watch for Oscar's arrivals. Later on someone notified the Monett police that someone had buried a child there, the grave being about the size that would accommodate a child's body. The police went out and found that grave and dug it up, revealing poor old Ted's body. They reburied him and to this day, somewhere by the tracks old Ted's ghost keeps an eye out for Oscar's train coming in from the West.

After Oscar left the hospital, he had a slightly gimpy leg, but it just added flair to his jaunty walk. He had that limp the rest of his life. By way of compensation, the railroad had given Oscar a bolus and when he came home, he was $1500 richer by virtue of his settlement with the railway company. he had it all in his pocket and all in small bills which made a considerable wad of cash by any standards. he spend most of the afternoon of his return to Monett showing it off to friends and acquaintances and a few who weren't quite so friendly, sort of flipping it under their noses and making jokes about how it paid to have had a nice rest in a hospital and with beautiful nurses and only incidentally to have a fractured leg. Just before bank closing time he carefully deposited all of the money except for a few dollars for himself and $20.00 which he gave Grandma "to treat the family to a show and a soda".

My father, Millard N. Jaques, also a railroad man, was out of town and so Grandma took my mother and my two younger siblings, myself and a visiting aunt to the only moving picture show in town after which we all had a soda and then went back to Grandma's home on Pearl Street. I never knew my mother, Lenora Jaques, to stay at home, winter or summer, if my father was out of town. We all trouped into the family room and stood around waiting for Aunt Lou who was feeling about for the matches to light the kerosene lamp. The table on which the lamp was placed was right next to the doorway into the back bedroom. As Aunt Lou was fumbling with the matches and before she managed to light one, a hand came out of that doorway and felt of her arm! Someone, evidently, was trying to determine if Uncle Oscar and his $1500 had come home with us.In a rather sharp tone, Lou said "Elsie! Is that you?" The hand found me and I said "No, is that you?"

Without answering, Aunt Lou bolted for the still open door. Like stampeding cattle, everyone rushed from that room. Except me. My brain screamed at me, urging flight, but my feet seemed stuck to the floor. I lifted my foot to run, but couldn't seem to move any farther. I have seldom been so completely terrified! I began to cry as I stood, frozen to the spot. It was then Grandma realized that I was still in the house. She came to the open door and began talking to me in a low quiet voice. "Come to Grandma, Honey."

I couldn't move. I stood, locked in an agony of fear as silent tears rolled down my face. Gathering up her skirts and her courage in one fell swoop, Grandma said over and over "Nobody will hurt Grandma if she comes in to get her little girl." It seems she said it a thousand times as she slowly walked across the room, picked me up in her arms, turned her back on that unknown terror standing not more than 3 feet away and quietly walked out of the house. What was the strength of an unknown, possibly armed man, compared to a grandmother's love?


Submitted by Sylvia Stevens