How the Clampett family came to be from Bug Tussle —
My mother’s mother was born in 1897 in Hickory County the child of a successful drover with a drayage business.
Well over six feet high in her heels she had a mane of curly and wavy coal black hair to her waist, and at age 14 graduated from Royal School and became a mule skinner and drove the line from the depot at Weaubleau to Camdenton.
In her old age she’d take us grandkids out back of her large white rambler home in Hermitage and crack her long mule whip at bugs in her garden.
A famous local beauty, she would ride white horses in parades for women’s suffrage and for Prohibtion in a long white gown.
He fiancé was killed in Balleau Wood a month before the war ended, and on Armistice Day she was watching the revelers light bonfires when she looked down from her window and saw what she later said the the cutest man she’d ever seen.
(My mother would remark it didn’t hurt his looks any he was the wealthiest widower in Hickory County who owned 2,000 acres of bottomland and a new car and new buggy both)
She was 21, he was 38, and his first wife had died In May.
The wedding pictures show a little bald headed man with a bride towering over him and he’s smiling from ear to ear.
They lived happily ever after (especially Pa) and his new bride became a writer for The Index newspaper.
Sometime in the early twenties, after their first child was born, she started writing a weekly column in hillbilly vernacular in The Index about the adventures of Ma and Pa.
She refused to syndicate the column like Al Caps and Lil Abner.
She refused even to go to the newspaper, and insisted the owner drive to her home at Dooley Bend to pick up the proofs and pay her a percentage of the circulation.
By 1946 when my father met my mother the Hermitage Index was the largest circulation small town newspaper in the United States.
In 1954 when my father and mother were building a new home Ma and Pa came by to see it and Emmett Molder and Dora, were playing pitch at the kitchen table.
My father introduced Emmett as the Mayor of Bug Tussle and thereafter, the weekly columns incorporated multiple characters and stories from Bug Tussle.
In 1958 the daughter Saydee what lived over a half mile South of Bug Tussle was blessed with a fair haired baby boy.
As a child she’d walk with me out back of my home and ask
Can you show me where Bug Tussle is?
I’d say Bug Tussle is right over there Gramdma, can’t you see it?
She’d squint and say all I see, is an old house across the fields,,,,
Let’s go to the milk barn and have your Daddy tell us all about how Bug Tussle was years ago—
The characters Granny, Jed, Jethro and Ella Mae are modeled after my Grandmother’s characters and their vocabulary is purely hers, as is the dead pan humor.
My grandmother’s 1963 book had an order of 200 copies for $400 to the producers and directors of the Beverly Hillbillies, and all litigation was settled.
She still has a small, aging fan base.
The most asked question I get is did Ma write the columns with an eighth grade education or was it Pa, a college graduate.
My thoughts are it was mostly Ma, and Pa helped her.
My mother was never sure, herself.
My mother’s mother was born in 1897 in Hickory County the child of a successful drover with a drayage business.
Well over six feet high in her heels she had a mane of curly and wavy coal black hair to her waist, and at age 14 graduated from Royal School and became a mule skinner and drove the line from the depot at Weaubleau to Camdenton.
In her old age she’d take us grandkids out back of her large white rambler home in Hermitage and crack her long mule whip at bugs in her garden.
A famous local beauty, she would ride white horses in parades for women’s suffrage and for Prohibtion in a long white gown.
He fiancé was killed in Balleau Wood a month before the war ended, and on Armistice Day she was watching the revelers light bonfires when she looked down from her window and saw what she later said the the cutest man she’d ever seen.
(My mother would remark it didn’t hurt his looks any he was the wealthiest widower in Hickory County who owned 2,000 acres of bottomland and a new car and new buggy both)
She was 21, he was 38, and his first wife had died In May.
The wedding pictures show a little bald headed man with a bride towering over him and he’s smiling from ear to ear.
They lived happily ever after (especially Pa) and his new bride became a writer for The Index newspaper.
Sometime in the early twenties, after their first child was born, she started writing a weekly column in hillbilly vernacular in The Index about the adventures of Ma and Pa.
She refused to syndicate the column like Al Caps and Lil Abner.
She refused even to go to the newspaper, and insisted the owner drive to her home at Dooley Bend to pick up the proofs and pay her a percentage of the circulation.
By 1946 when my father met my mother the Hermitage Index was the largest circulation small town newspaper in the United States.
In 1954 when my father and mother were building a new home Ma and Pa came by to see it and Emmett Molder and Dora, were playing pitch at the kitchen table.
My father introduced Emmett as the Mayor of Bug Tussle and thereafter, the weekly columns incorporated multiple characters and stories from Bug Tussle.
In 1958 the daughter Saydee what lived over a half mile South of Bug Tussle was blessed with a fair haired baby boy.
As a child she’d walk with me out back of my home and ask
Can you show me where Bug Tussle is?
I’d say Bug Tussle is right over there Gramdma, can’t you see it?
She’d squint and say all I see, is an old house across the fields,,,,
Let’s go to the milk barn and have your Daddy tell us all about how Bug Tussle was years ago—
The characters Granny, Jed, Jethro and Ella Mae are modeled after my Grandmother’s characters and their vocabulary is purely hers, as is the dead pan humor.
My grandmother’s 1963 book had an order of 200 copies for $400 to the producers and directors of the Beverly Hillbillies, and all litigation was settled.
She still has a small, aging fan base.
The most asked question I get is did Ma write the columns with an eighth grade education or was it Pa, a college graduate.
My thoughts are it was mostly Ma, and Pa helped her.
My mother was never sure, herself.
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