John Alogan Bias, Jr.

My dad was born August 10, 1927, at home with a midwife in our old homeplace at Dugginsville,Ozark County, Missouri. It was only 1/2 mile from Bull Shoals Lake and the Marion Co., AR state line.

He was the youngest son of John Alogan Bias, Sr. and Amie Malinda FRIEND.

Dad was a little mischevious (as both he and my aunt (Mary Lethian "Mildred") tells me. Being the youngest child, he was also a little spoiled...:-)...Aunt Mildred and Dad told stories at our last Christmas together at her house and I was fortunate enough to get it all on a video tape. I will cherish that tape ALWAYS! Aunt Mildred is the only living sibling now.

One story they told me was about Aunt Mildred getting up on a wagon hitched up to horses when they were little and the horses taking off with her. Dad was about to get up there with her, but couldn't reach the wagon. Aunt Mildred was thrown off and broke her arm.

Another familiar one was when they went to the spring below the old homeplace. Aunt Midred made him mad and he threw rocks at her.

Apparently they were together more than the other children and were very close.

When playing "town ball" at the old one-room schoolhouse at Dugginsville, MO, he thought he had gotten her "out" and she refused to believe it. Dad called her an "SOB". The teacher, Ida HART, told him if he ever said that again, she would tan his hide. He always laughed out loud when he told that story. When Ida was in a nursing home just before she died, he went to see her. She STILL remembered him as "that little SOB" at age 90-plus. He loved to tell that, too.

He married my mother, Thelma Lorene HAMPTON, daughter of Oscar and Callie (ADAMS) HAMPTON September 2, 1947, at Mountain Home, AR. Three children were born of this marriage: Thelma Louise, Katherine Lorene and Lisa Michelle.

They moved to Dugginsville in a house built from a torn-down house, barn or church. We lived there until I was in about the third grade at Lutie School in the town now known as Theodosia, MO. The name was changed from "LUTIE" while I was still in grade school by a man who came in to develop the area. Theodosia is an indian name supposedly about indian tribes that had lived in the area many years ago.

We moved to Springfield, MO, where I went to first grade at York Elementary School. Dad worked at an ice plant there for about 10 months. When he quit that job, we moved back to our house at Dugginsville and I went to the same one-room school at Dugginsville that Dad did.

Not too much later, Mom or Dad saw and ad for correspondence courses. One was for television repair. With Mom's help, Dad passed the course and opened a television repair shop at Theodosia. That was what he did for the rest of his life.

He joined the Masonic Lodge at Theodosia and was proud of his achievements there.

Dad played the guitar ever since I can remember. Music was a BIG part of our lives. I started to sing with him playing backup when I was pretty small. Dad often said, "You can't sing that song. It's too high for your voice."...but I always managed to sing it (to prove him wrong, I think...:-).

We would go to "music parties" and sang at Marshall, AR on the square and went to the lake and sang for the tourists......everywhere we could find a place they would let us sing. These are some of my fondest memories. Dad was proud of our performances and we would sit for hours and practice. I never felt closer to Dad than when we were doing this. Even in the last video I mentioned earlier, we were singing with him playing the guitar. I had recorded the song "Daddy's Hands" a short time before he died and my sister requested that it was played at his funeral because it was the last song that we ever sang together so I gave the preacher that recording with me singing it. I'll always be glad I did that.

Dad and Mom split up in 1969 and Dad eventually opened a TV repair shop in Liberal, MO where he retired a few years ago.

Dad married Imogene Ward-McGinnis from Ocie, MO on August 7, 1984 in the state of Nevada.

He had diabetes and athlerisclorosis (sp??)..hardening of the arteries of the heart...which eventually killed him.

He died October 21, 1997 at St. John's Hospital in Joplin, MO.

We got the call one morning that he had a heart attack and was in Pittsburg, KS hospital. My sister, Katherine, and I went right on up there. I remember the happy look on his face when we walked in....as if he thought we wouldn't come or something....and we talked a good long while.

He had a Masonic funeral and is buried at the front of the Lutie Cemetery, Theodosia, MO.

Contributed by: Louise Hill.