A Personal History of Parma

Webmaster Note: I have had the privilege of receiving several letters and pictures from a person with ties to very early Parma.  I have put together these recollections and pictures as much as possible as I have received them starting with this letter below.

Dear Good Folks of Parma,

            My name is Cary Webb Tolman, a name that should mean absolutely nothing to any of you.  That is, except for my middle name, Webb.  My mother and her siblings were born in Parma right after the turn of the last century.  Their father, my grandfather, was one of the original founders of your city.  He was an attorney and at one point, I am told, he was mayor of Parma.   He was also a candidate for congress but lost the election.  My mother always felt that he lost because he ran as a Republican in a solid Democrat district.

            My mother, Ruby Elizabeth Webb, was born in their Parma home in February of  1909.  The actual date is in question since no birth records were kept at that time.  She had an older brother William (Billy) who was born in 1906 and two younger sisters, Elsie (1910) and Jessie (1912). They are all gone now with my mother the last to die on September 9, 1999 at the age of 90. 

            My grandfather, Wiley Jefferson Webb, was born in Dexter in 1866 and my grandmother, Esther Huston, was born in Buckley, Ill. in 1874. 

            I feel very fortunate that I stumbled onto this site.  Over the years my mother told me many stories of life in Parma and I would like to relate a few of them to your records before my mind goes blank.  I am now in my 70’s, so I will write as fast as I can. 

            You must accept that what I know of Parma came from a little girl who left Parma at the age of 10.  But I learned to trust her recollections when she identified photos of houses and buildings I had taken on a brief detour through Parma in 1969. (More about that in another letter).  I believe her stories were facts sometimes wrapped in a little fantasy but her memories of Parma were always quite clear.  I will sometimes add a little conjecture only to tie things together.

            Very often history finds itself limited to WHO did WHAT, WHERE, and WHEN, while WHY is lost to the years.  This is the little shred I hope to add to the history you already have.

            Like, why would a group of established businessmen ascend on a little crossroads out in the cotton fields to suddenly build beautiful, solid stone and brick business buildings and a row of large fancy Victorian homes?  Remember, Wiley was a 40 year old attorney.  And 40 was not young back then.

            I suspect that H.L. Boaz started the dream and recruited my grandfather and others to help build Parma around a marshalling yard for rail cargo.  At this point I must say that one thing my mother told me turned out to be wrong.  She believed that there was also a major north-south rail line that crossed the Cotton Belt at Parma.  Correct me if you will, but I have found no record of this line.  Picture a 7 or 8 year old girl hiding under a table listening to the businessmen talk about their plans.  I believe that this north-south line was the key to their goal, their dream, their gamble.  They probably had wind of this line being built somewhere and their job was to show the railroad owners that Parma was the perfect place for it.  “Look at our beautiful city, we are here to stay. You bring the goods here and we will send them anywhere in the country.”                                    

            From the start Parma grew quickly.  So quickly in fact, that when the doctor arrived he needed to build his home but didn’t have any plans.  He borrowed the plans that were drawn up for Wiley.  He wanted his house to be the best in town so he added a bigger columned porch on the outside and enlarged some of the rooms inside.  If the houses are still there, you will find them, they are a block apart, just west of Broad St. 

            One of the stories that my mother related about the house was that as a very small child she would climb out of her bedroom window to an area over the porch bringing with her a set of small chairs and a table to have “tea parties” with her friends.  I look at a photograph of the house and realize how dangerous this was and how lucky I am to be here. 

            A special treat for the family was the occasional drive (yes, they had an automobile) to Dexter.  She never explained why they went there but I assume it was to visit Wiley’s family.  What amazed my mother was that they had a drinking fountain on one of the downtown sidewalks.  What stayed in her memory was that Dexter had a shop that sold ice cream and when she paid for her ice cream the clerk would count the change back to her in German. 

            Your beautiful veteran’s monument brings to mind another patriotic event.  When the word came to town about the end of the First World War everyone in town stood around cheering.  It was my mother who ran home to get a flag and started marching up and down the middle of Broad Street.  Soon other folks got their flags and fell in behind her to form a big parade.  Good to know Parma still has the spirit. 

            Life was not always good in those days.  Things we now take for granted, like modern medicine, didn’t exist.  At one point my mother was very sick.  She was taken to doctors as far away as New Madrid but even they said “She is dying.  Just let her live as normal as you can until the end”.  She had lost considerable weight and was a mere rag doll.  Her parents would prop her up with pillows and set her at her regular place at the dinner table.  At one meal she noticed a plate of sliced tomatoes and indicated that she wanted them.  In those days tomatoes were considered poisonous for small children.  The plate was quickly pulled away from her followed by much family discussion.  Finally my mother recalled hearing someone say “Oh let her eat them, she’s going to die anyway”.  The plate was set in front of her and she remembers using both hands to stuff the tomatoes into her mouth.  By the next morning she was nearly well.  As near as we can figure it was the lack of vitamin C  in their normal diet.  Something akin to scurvy most likely.

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Mr. Husted,

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Today it is two school photos.  There is no date on either photo but I believe it is either 1917 or 1918 judging from the age of my family members.  In the first photo the girl seated in the center of the first row with the white bow and dark hair is my mother, Ruby Elizabeth Webb.  The girl seated next to her on her left (viewers right) I believe is her sister Elsie.  On the viewers far left is another girl with a white bow whom I believe to be the youngest sister Jessie.  In the second photo my uncle Bill is seated in the front row fifth from the viewer's right.  It was customary at that time for elementary schools to have K through 8th grades.  So the photos would have been split K-4 and 5-8.  With Jessie in kindergarten, that would have made her 5 years old and the date would be 1917.  Hopefully there is someone in Parma that can help us pin it down.   ---   Cary W. Tolman   ---

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At the time Wiley and Esther were married in 1894, they were living in Hayti.  Their first child, Ruth Irene, was born in 1899 but died after only three weeks.  I do not have a date that they moved to Parma but all their four surviving children were born there. 

   

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Here are two photos of the same three boys.  The taller one is Bill Webb and the other two are named BillJoe and Eddie.  My mother talked of them often.  We know that their mother was Wylie's sister Ada.  We do not know their last name or what became of them.  They were very close to the Webb children. 

            In l969 I had occasion to travel from Carbondale, Illinois to Lawrence, Kansas with my friends Al and Maggie and their two children Wayne and Kit.  I asked Al if he would make a detour south to Parma, my mother’s birthplace.  In spite of it being late in the afternoon and a long drive back to Lawrence, he agreed.

            We arrived in Parma to find no people on the streets.  We figured that this was due to the fact that it was dinner time.  I decided that the best thing to do would be to photograph as much of the town as I could.  Then I could later show the pictures to my mother in Seattle to see if she could identify what I saw.       

            I am sure that the residents must have thought that I was crazy because I literally ran from one street to another, shooting photos of as many houses and buildings that I could.  My allotted time was running out when Wayne found me and said that Maggie had found someone to talk to.

            Maggie had cornered a gentleman who was rushing to close his store for the day.   I wrote down his name but my notes are long gone.  His store was named Morgan’s Dry Goods.  After many questions he said he remembered, as a child, going to a Mrs. Webb’s to sing Christmas carols.  This made sense because my grandmother and her sisters were all music teachers.  Music and teaching were about the only professions a woman was allowed at that time. 

            It was very late when we finally got back to Lawrence, but I felt that the detour was very successful.

            Back in Seattle I showed the photos to my mother and after fifty years she was able to identify nearly all of what I had seen.  I asked her if she would be interested in a journey back to Parma.  She thought for a while and then said “It would be too emotional”.  Later I showed the pictures to my aunt Elsie.  She was so inspired that about a year later she and her husband, Art, did make the trip and was warmly welcomed by the people she had known as a child.      

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First Presbyterian Church:   The Webb family attended church here, Esther played the music for the services.  I mentioned earlier that there was no birth registry in the early years.   Many years later my mother was able to get her passport by obtaining a copy of her baptism record from this church.