James Reed was only 12 years old when he fell in love with McDonald County.

The Tulsa pre-teen made the trip to Powell every summer with his family to celebrate his grandmother's birthday in August. He played in the creek, fished and loved the lush, green countryside.

"We stayed at the Parsons' cabins," he said. "I always loved it. For a city boy from Tulsa, this was like heaven," he said.

Reed remembers looking out the window and thinking, "I'll live here one day."

Now, in his retirement and back in Powell for good, Reed is painstakingly serving as a scribe, writing an account from his great-grandfather's stack of newspapers which he edited for 60 years.

"I want to get all that information out before the newspapers turn to dust."

Carrying on the Family Tradition

Reed's great-grandfather, Claiborne Duval, sat in the editor's seat at the Pineville News and the Pineville Herald, from 1883 to 1942.

Two people assisted him with typesetting, but Editor Duval oversaw all operations.

"He wrote about everything that happened week after week after week."

Duval brought home three copies each week, laying them on the floor of his closet. When he died, family members cleaned out his home and his belongings.

Reed and his father put the two 8-foot-high stacks of old newspapers into a car, making two trips. The newspapers were stored in Tulsa.

Some 20 years later, Reed went through the newspapers and hand-wrote a 3,000-page account of the history of Pineville.

Still, Reed felt compelled to organize an overall look at the entire county, mainly due to the urging from then librarian Zella Collie.

"I had the papers and I thought, 'What a goldmine.'"

There's weekly news of births, as well as accounts of untimely deaths from consumption, Bright's disease or cancer. Other news includes social gatherings, the tying of marital bonds, the death of a valued mule or the public admonishment of menfolk who drank too much Saturday night.

Accounts of family members visiting adorn the pages, along with stories of those who moved into the area or sold their land.

The pages reveal those who moved to somewhere in "I.T.," Indian Territory or went to New Mexico to improve their health.

There are accounts of those who went for dental work, neighbors who formed a Pineville cornet band and news of new jobs.

The unfolding of lives, Reed finds, is fascinating. Stories lay themselves out and dramas unfold. Such is the case of the murder of Clarence Mosier, a popular teacher. Charles Heath was accused of murdering the school teacher in cold blood after Mosier tried to discipline Heath's daughter.

The case was "one of the longest and hardest-fought criminal cases ever tried in Southwest Missouri."

The star witness was 13-year-old Vester Terry, who was in the witness chair for four hours and relayed how the teacher was shot and killed on Feb. 22, 1907.

On Dec. 5, 1907, Heath was found guilty, but the case was appealed to a higher court and he was released on a $10,000 bond.

The weekly ongoing stories intrigue Reed, who doesn't consider himself an author or a historian, but a scribe.

"I'm taking what was written and preserving it," he said. "I now know a lot about history and I'm continuing the saga."

In his retirement, Reed is creating a detailed look at people's lives from the past.

"You can look up history, line by line, and it all adds up to a picture of that person's life."

Historical Solitude

Reed found solitude here and was pulled to this area, time and time again.

So, for 33 years, he made the switch from a mainframe computer operator in Tulsa to the peace and serenity of his home in Powell.

He purchased land in 1974, splitting his time between Powell and Tulsa. His interest in geology, paleontology, astronomy and shooting has led to several interesting excursions. In the late 1970s, Reed assisted Missouri State Archaeologists in the excavation of Bee Bluff Indian Site, which is a half-mile north of Powell. That prompted him to write several newspaper articles.

In the 1990s, Reed made five-month-long trips to Poland and amassed one of the largest collections of Baltic amber in Missouri.

He and his wife Galina, whom he met during one of his trips to Poland, have built onto their home, creating a warm, rustic cabin-like environment. A cannon sits in his front yard.

Reed enjoys combing through the stacks of newspapers left behind by his great-grandfather. Other family members deferred to him. It was always sort of understood that he would take on the newspapers, and he didn't have to compete with his sisters -- or niece or nephews -- for them.

Organizing his books has been a 10-year labor of love. It takes him six months to one year to go through one year of newspaper publishings, each book tells of a particular year's happenings.

He sells his publishings while continuing to carefully organize other works. The feedback for his books has been rewarding.

"People have told me that it's absolutely astonishing that, nowhere else in the county or state, can you learn so much so quickly about your family," he said.

He plans to finish through all the years of the newspapers he has. Based on the rate at which he works, that will take him another 10 years to completely finish.

"I hope I live that long," he said, smiling.

"I want to see what's in next week's paper," he said. "That's what wakes me up every morning."

To order a book, call Reed at 417-435-2241, or email him at [email protected].