'I just knew him as Dad' - Maynard Wallace's influence was recognized statewide

By Sue Ann Jones

sueann@ozarkcountytimes.com

Editor's note: Some of the information in this story is adapted from "Old log cabin represents Mahan and Wallace families' deep roots on Pondfork Creek" in the May issue of Old Mill Run, the quarterly newsletter of the Ozark County Genealogical and History Society. The newsletter is available for purchase at the Ozark County Historium. 

Like most of us whose fathers have died, Michael Wallace spent time Sunday replaying poignant memories of the good times he'd shared with his dad, Maynard Wallace, who died unexpectedly in 2021.   

"When he died, I got a world of messages and texts from people all over, referring to what he did as their coach or their school superintendent or as a state representative or as a member of the state board of education or whatever," Michael said recently. "They talked about the influence he had had. But I didn't really know him that way. I just knew him as Dad."

Michael, now a dad and school superintendent himself, treasures all the time he spent with his dad, who died at age 77 in the Thornfield home he shared with Linda, his wife of 53 years. 

"Whenever Dad and I would talk, we never talked about legislation or whatever he was working on with the state," Michael said. Instead, the two were more likely to talk about family, farming or fishing. All three were important to the Wallaces. 

A career in education and public service

Maynard was born in 1943 in a log cabin built sometime soon after the Civil War on the land near Pondfork Creek that his maternal great-grandparents, King David and Mary Tennessee Stone Mahan, had homesteaded. His mother, Ruby Mahan Wallace, was gravely ill and unconscious when Maynard was born. The family believes she survived due mainly to stubbornness. "She always told her family that she was determined to raise her own child. No one else was going to," Michael said.

Maynard's parents, Archie and Ruby Mahan Wallace, sent him and his three sisters to one-room schools. Maynard finished seventh and eighth grades in the bigger Thornfield School after the smaller districts consolidated there. He graduated from Bradleyville High School and was the first in his family to attend college. After two years at what is now College of the Ozarks, he transferred to what is now Missouri State University in Springfield and graduated with a degree in education in 1966. 

Growing up, Maynard was very athletic but didn't have the opportunity to play team or school sports. Like his father before him, who had plowed a field with horse-drawn team as a young boy, Maynard worked hard on the family farm from an early age. Despite not playing sports in high school, his first job out of college was coaching basketball and baseball at Sparta, where he also taught academic classes. He met and married Linda Kay Larson there in 1967; their family eventually grew to include three children: Michelle (Nilges), Michael and Nicole (Keller). 

The family's next stop was in Butler, where Maynard coached football, basketball and baseball, and then moved into administration after earning his master's and specialist degrees from what is now Central Missouri University in Warrensburg. 

After two years at the Clarksville schools north of St. Louis, Maynard worked as Forsyth superintendent for 15 years and then as Ava superintendent for five years. He retired in 1999 after 33 years in education then was elected in 2002 to serve in the Missouri General Assembly. He was re-elected and served a total of eight years in the legislature then served six years on the Missouri State Tourism Commission and three years on the Missouri State Board of Education.

A best-friend dad  

Despite living away from Ozark County during parts of their childhood, Michael and his sisters spent plenty of time here, especially during holidays and summers when Archie and Ruby would welcome their grandkids back to the homestead to visit. Michael and Michelle were closest in age and often came together. 

"Grandma told me once that she could remember taking me crappie fishing at night and having to change my diaper. That's how young I was," Michael said. "Grandma said, 'You and Michelle just always acted like you belonged here.' And we did."

Sometimes the youngsters would stay a night or two in the old log cabin during visits. (They also visited their maternal grandparents in Sparta.)

Michael also spent lots of time with his dad during those growing-up years. He remembers being a young boy sitting on the bench sometimes when his dad was coaching. Then, back in Ozark County, they shared many hours working on the farm – and playing on the lake or river.

"Dad probably became my best friend when I was 10 years old," Michael said. "Some of the best times I had with Dad were when we would go down and put out trot lines, using Styrofoam blocks as "jugs" to keep the line afloat. We had an old bathtub-fiberglass boat, and we'd put the jug lines out. Then we'd sleep on the boat and wake up soaking wet and cold. But there was no complaining. Dad drove the boat, and I collected the jugs. We caught a lot of catfish together. A lot."

He also remembers the excitement of going gigging with his dad and Grandpa Archie on the Little North Fork of the White River or on PondFork Creek. "I can remember ice hanging off the gig handle and freezing to Grandpa's leather gloves. The seat of my pants would freeze to the boat seat, and I remember thinking, more than once, 'I'm going to freeze to death.' But I didn't care. I was just excited to be with Dad and Grandpa. You never complained, or they would leave you at home. And you would rather have died than have that happen," he said.

Sometimes Maynard would put 10-year-old Michael in the boat and send him out to go catch bait. And when he was 12 or 13, Michael said, "Dad would put me out on the lake in the boat, with its 50-horsepower motor, and I'd fish most of the day by myself. Not many parents would do that today."

The family enjoyed water-skiing as well as fishing. "Some of my greatest memories are the time we spent at the lake," Michael said. 

They also attended "one or two Cardinals games – once in a while a Cardinals and a Royals game in the same summer," he said. His dad coached his baseball team one summer in Forsyth. 

Michael and his dad worked on the farm together too. "In my sophomore year of high school, we bought some cows and put them on rented land. Then Dad bought land in Thornfield where he and Mother built their house."

 A tradition of competition – and rules

Wherever they lived, the Wallaces played backyard "Indian ball," a peculiar game played with a softball, baseball or wiffleball – and a unique set of rules.

"You have ghost runners, an infielder and an outfielder. If you hit the ball between bases on the ground or overhead, it's a base hit. If you swing and miss one time, you're out. If you hit a foul ball, you're out," Michael said. "The ball has to make it to the bases, or it's an out. If you hit it over the outfielder's head, it's a home run." 

He thinks his dad may have played the game with his sisters as they were growing up. All he knows now is that "we played it forever." Sometimes his sister Michelle and mother played against Maynard and him. "Sometimes we would have big groups playing, mostly at family events or social picnics," he said. "When we lived in a subdivision in Forsyth, our elderly neighbors would bring lawn chairs and watch. When we moved . . . the neighbors told us they were going to miss the ball games."

Michael and his sister Michelle would sometimes challenge their dad to a game of driveway basketball. "It might be 10 degrees, but we'd be out there, going at it," he said.

When the family was going somewhere in the car, they would often sing together, a family tradition carried over from Archie Wallace's well-known gift for music. Archie sang often with his brother Louie, "who could play anything with strings," Michael said. "And Grandpa sang at probably thousands of funerals through the years."  

There was also discipline, of course. "I spent a lot of time with my parents and grandparents, and when they told me something, it was what I call 'Come to Jesus time.' They didn't ask me if I understood or if they were clear, because they always went right straight at it. What they said, they meant," Michael said. 

The underlying rules were simple: work hard, treat people right, be fair with everyone. 

Maynard's role as Michael's best friend continued into adulthood – and so did their pleasure in working and playing together. "It's kind of unexplainable. Each of us knew where the other would be, whether we were fishing or baling hay, cutting wood or whatever it was. We just always had that connection."

Love and loss

Like his dad (and his Grandpa Archie, who taught one year in a rural school), Michael became a teacher, eventually working as the administrator at Thornfield School and now, in his 27th year as an educator, he serves as superintendent in the Chadwick R-I district. That career and his dad's service in state government meant they often attended the same educational conferences around the state during a typical school year. And that's where Michael's favorite experiences occurred.

 "We would see each other at those conferences, and we would introduce each other to the people we happened to be with," Michael said. "Then Dad would go do his thing, and I would do mine. And then, later, we'd get back home and be like we always were, doing our thing together and always knowing where the other one would be." 

In retirement, Maynard often said that, of all the jobs he had held or accomplishments he had achieved, nothing compared to his pride and enjoyment of his children, grandchildren and great-grandchildren working together, fishing, playing ball or whatever else they did together. With that kind of closeness, the Wallace family was crushed when Maynard and Linda's oldest child, Michelle Wallace Nilges, died of cancer in 2017 three days after her dad's 74th birthday. 

Michael and his family have lived on the family's Pondfork-area farm since 1996, "but I've helped work this place my whole life," he said. Michael has three sons of his own, Casey, Cale and Riley, who are the sixth generation of Mahans on the old homestead. They're also the seventh generation of Wallaces to live near Pondfork Creek. 

Michael and his wife, Lexie, with Michael's sons Casey, Cale and Riley, and Lexie's son Hoyt, were in that home one January evening in 2021 when they all went to Maynard and Linda's house nearby and played cards. It was one of Maynard's favorite family activities, but that night, "Dad was on the losing end," Michael said. 

The next night, Michael's three sons, along with Lexie's son Hoyt, returned to their grandparents' house for a rematch of the previous night's card game. 

Michael and Lexie stayed home that night, but "we were calling back and forth for updates," he said. When the boys came home, he asked, "How'd it work out?" 

"Grandpa won it all," one of the boys replied. 

Michael smiled.

The next morning, his mother called him to come to the house – quickly. Maynard had apparently died in his sleep. 

It was a devastating loss for the family, but they were comforted to know that, on the last night of his life, their beloved husband, father and grandfather had enjoyed playing 10-point pitch with his grandsons – and "won it all."

In the year before his dad died, Michael had considered retiring. "I had 25 years of teaching in and could have taken an early out. I thought I might retire and help Dad on the farm. But then I did some soul searching and decided to accept the job at Chadwick," he said. 

"If Dad hadn't died, I probably would have retired that next year," he said. "But then, after his death, I didn't have him, so I wanted to continue to do what I could for kids."