The rest of the story: Grishams share highlights from the history of their Century Farm – and a Century Farm in the making

A story in the latest Hootin an Hollarin magazine, published this week and available wherever the Times is sold, describes the Century Farm designation earned this year by Larry and Sonja Grisham's property near the Caney Mountain Conservation Area. The honor will be presented before the Hootin an Hollarin parade on Saturday, Sept. 20. 

But there's more to the Grishams' story than would fit in the magazine space, so we're sharing it here. It includes more of Larry Grisham's memories about growing up on his parents' Ozark County farm (the Century Farm he now owns). And it also includes a Century Farm-in-the-Making not far away, where Larry and Sonja's son Keith Grisham lives with his family on property Sonja's grandparents bought in 1925, the same year the Grishams moved near Caney Mountain. 

Growing up on Caney

When Christy Grisham (1898-1976) and Alaska Kibbe Grisham (1903-1983) bought the 160-acre property that's now a Century Farm, it included a small log house. Christy, then 27, and Alaska, 22, had been married four years and had no children when they bought the place. But, expecting a family, they replaced the old log house, and in 1929, their first child, Virginia, was born. Bobby came next, in 1933. Then, 11 years later, Larry was born in the house in 1944. 

Through the decades and the different generations of Grishams who have lived in the house, the structure has been remodeled and enlarged several times. And although it stands less than a hundred yards from Caney Creek, it has never had water inside during any of the major floods that have wreaked havoc in Ozark County. The creek's cold, clear water comes from a big spring that arises from the earth a mile or so away in the Caney Mountain Conservation Area. 

When Larry and his siblings were growing up, the creek was more than a place to play and water the livestock. The Grishams had a well to provide water to the house, but there was no indoor plumbing except a faucet and water heater in the kitchen. So the family's toilet was an outhouse and, except in the winter, Larry said, "Our bathtub was the creek."    

Alaska and Christy didn't get the house plumbed until shortly after Larry graduated from Gainesville High School in 1962. By then, the house had already been wired for electricity. It came in 1948, courtesy of the Howell-Oregon Electric Cooperative. As the co-op worked its way across the eastern third of Ozark County, "we were the last one to get service from them," Larry said. Residences and businesses west of the Grishams' house, in central and western Ozark County, are served by the White River Valley Electric Co-op.

The Grisham kids grew up helping their parents raise cattle and milk cows on their farm. Even after the farm had electricity, the family continued to milk by hand. "The milk truck came to pick up cans of milk," Larry said. He thinks the milk was delivered to the cheese plant that operated in Gainesville near what is now the junction of Highways 160 and 5 north. 

School transportation: Dad's 1942 Plymouth

The two oldest Grisham kids, Virginia and Bobby, started school at the one-room Nebraska School up and over the hill just north of the farm. That school had closed out to Gainesville and Bobby and Virginia had gone on to high school by the time Larry was old enough to go, and he went his first three years to Caney School, several miles north of their farm on what is now N Highway. 

His dad provided student transportation to the Caney School in his 1942 Plymouth. Larry was his first passenger, of course. Then he picked up Leroy Morrison and the "Coatney kids," whose dad worked at the conservation area. Next he picked up other students along the way to the school. Later, Bernice Morrison, Leroy's dad, took over the school-transportation job. 

Life on the Grishams' farm was good, but hard – and not always profitable. The summer after Larry finished third grade, "my folks starved out here and had to go to California to work for a couple of years," he said. 

They left the farm but continued to own it. Their neighbors, Bernice and Velda Morrison, looked after the place while the Grishams were away. When they returned from California, they went back to farming. By then, Caney School had closed, and Larry rode Siegal Amyx's school bus into Gainesville; he graduated in 1962. In 1965, he married his high school sweetheart, Sonja Luna (a 1964 GHS grad). Except for a short time living in Springfield, they've been in Ozark County ever since. 

In 1975, Bobby and Larry bought the farm when their parents retired from farming and moved into town. Bobby owned and lived on the land north of Caney Creek with his wife, Imogene, and their daughter, Greta. Larry and Sonja owned and lived on the south side, raising their two sons, Ray and Keith, in the house where Larry had grown up. 

In discussing the Century Farm designation, Larry noted that his parents owned the farm 50 years, from 1925 to 1975, and he had owned it 50 years, from 1975 until now. 

Bobby sold his part of the farm a few years ago and now lives in Gainesville. Virginia Grisham Kastning, died in 2022 at age 93. 

Several years ago, Larry and Sonja bought adjoining land to the west and built a new house for themselves on the hilltop overlooking the farm, which they continue to own. They turned over their former home to their son Ray and his wife, Missy, who raised their sons Lincoln and Wyatt there. Now Wyatt, and his wife, the former Kiya Head, are living in the home with their own two sons, Wylee and Waco. 

The other side of the family

 Not far away, closer to Gainesville off what is now County Road 304, also in 1925, another young couple, Albert and Clora Sanders Allen, bought a farm and began another long family-ownership legacy. 

Albert was 22; Clora was 19. They were both Ozark County natives and were married in August 1921. They had no children when they bought the land, but the next year, in 1926, they had a daughter, Opal Fay. She would eventually become the mother of three daughters, making Albert and Clora grandparents. Keith Grisham, the son of one of those granddaughters, Sonja, now owns Albert and Clora's original property.

When the Times wrote about Opal Fay’s surprise 80th birthday party in 2006, the story said she was born in a log cabin. It’s assumed that “log cabin” was the one-room, 800-square-foot house that stood on the land when Albert and Clora bought it. 

The Allens had two other children after Opal Fay and, with an apparent fondness for rhymes, named them Ola Ray (Stewart), born in 1934, and Otis Nay, born in 1944. 

The “Abstract of Title,” or “plat book,” tracing the land’s ownership from 1885, when it was homesteaded by E. A. Sylvester, until Albert and Clora bought it in 1925 shows that during those first 40 years, the property had several owners who bought the farm for prices ranging from $45 (in one of three sheriff’s sales) to $3,000. 

Albert and Clora paid $399 for their 40-acre parcel on the 1885 homestead in 1925. It is believed to have included the one-room cabin and an old in-ground barn with a stone foundation. A nearby spring provided water and primitive refrigeration.

Albert was a skilled carpenter as well as a farmer, and a few years after they bought the land, he built a new, two-bedroom house for his growing family. 

In 1952, after owning the farm 27 years, Albert and Clora sold it to an Albuquerque couple, Ezra and Bessie Horner, for $2,850. The Allens moved into a house Albert built for them on Highway 181 near its junction with County Road 304. 

The next generation

Then, on May 12, 1960, a member of the Allen family took up ownership of the homeplace again when Albert and Clora’s daughter Opal Fay and her husband Raymond Luna bought the property back from the Horners. The two families had been friends while the Horners owned the Allens’ first home. When Bessie Horner died in 1961, Albert and Raymond were two of her pallbearers.

Raymond and Opal Fay had married in the late 1940s, and at first, they lived in a dirt-floor log cabin on Albert and Clora’s land on what is now Highway 181. A little later, they moved into a two-room house that Raymond and Albert, his father-in-law, built for them next door to the cabin. Then, in 1960, Raymond and Opal Fay bought the original Allen farm from the Horners for $4,500, according to the plat book. 

Raymond was 51, and Opal Fay was 34 when they bought back the family land. Raymond, a World War II veteran, farmed and was active in politics. With the help of her three daughters, Opal Fay operated Luna’s Cafe in Gainesville. The restaurant was open seven days a week for 17 years. 

A bedroom in the wellhouse

The Allen family’s fondness for rhyming names continued with the first two of Opal Fay’s three daughters: Sandra Kay and Sonja Fay. But that tradition ended when third daughter Mary Lee was born in 1948. “Daddy said I looked like his sister Mary, so they named me after her,” Mary Lee said recently.

When the three girls were little, the two-bedroom house worked just fine for Raymond and Opal Fay’s family. “All three of us girls slept in the same bed,” Mary Lee said. 

But when they got too big to fit into a single bed, Sonja and Mary Lee let Sandra have the bedroom, and the two younger sisters created a bedroom in the small, rock-faced wellhouse just a few feet from the southeast corner of the house. 

The wellhouse had electricity, and that meant Sonja and Mary Lee could leave the radio on all night without anyone complaining about it. Shelves on one end were used to store the family’s home-canned vegetables, and a water heater provided warmth – but not always enough. “In the winter, Sonja and I would back up real close to the stove in the house and get really hot. Then we’d run out the kitchen door to the end of the porch, and if we jumped far enough, we would land right in front of the wellhouse door,” Mary Lee said. 

When Raymond and Opal Fay bought the house in 1960, the property had electricity and a well, but the family continued to use an outhouse toilet. The only “running water” in the house was a single faucet in the kitchen. Mary Lee remembers when a bathroom was added. “Mom wanted a pink bathtub and sink,” she said. 

She and Sonja moved back into the main house after Sandra graduated from Gainesville High School in 1963 and left home. Sonja graduated in 1964, Mary Lee in 1967. 

Raymond and Opal Fay continued to live in the house after the girls left home. After selling the cafe in 1969, Opal Fay worked for the telephone company in Gainesville and then moved to Branson to continue working for the phone company there.

A 92-year legacy

Raymond died in 1990 at age 80, and in 1994, Opal Fay sold the farm to Larry and Sonja Grisham’s son, Keith. The terms showed how glad Opal Fay was to keep the property in the family: nothing down and $200 per month until it was paid off. When she returned from her Branson job, Opal Fay settled in the house on Highway 181 that her parents had built when they sold the farm in 1952. Opal Fay died in 2020 at age 93.

Keith lived in the house Albert had built until 2008, when he had a new home built on the property. Keith gave the house Albert had built to Kenny Ericksen on the condition that it be moved off the land to make way for the new home. Ericksen moved the house to Lilly Ridge near the cedar mill.

Keith still lives on the farm with his wife, Becky. Keith works for MoDOT; Becky is the librarian at the Gainesville Elementary School. Their son, Kenny Grisham, grew up on the farm and now lives in Dora with his wife, the former Kaitlin Conrad of Thornfield, and their two daughters, Motley, 3, and Halen, 5 months. Kenny is the manager at Forge and Build in Gainesville. Kaitlin works at West Plains Bank.

The Allens’ original farm has been owned by a member of their family for 92 years of the last 100 years – with an eight-year break in the middle. It’s not a Century Farm, but it still has a pretty impressive family record. And with its beginning of the Century Farm qualifying time reset in 1960, there’s now just 35 years to go until 2060.