The Turnbo Manuscripts
by Silas Claiborne Turnbo
1844-1925
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HE THOUGHT HIS WIFE HAD CUT HIS THROAT
By S. C. Turnbo
I am told that Charles S. Gooley (Gooldy) was the first settler on Gooleys Spring Creek in Ozark County, Mo. Gooleys house stood in a beautiful hickory grove on the slope of a hill on the second bank of the creek. On the west side and 200 yards from the creek Tom Yarberry built the second house at the old residence on this place. After Mr. Gooley removed from here he sold his claim to G. W. (Wash) Webster and Webster sold it to Dr. J. T. Arnold and Josiah Collins. George Mahan is the present owner of this farm, he purchased it from Arnold and Collins. Mr. Gooleys wife was named Hannah and Gooley and his wife did not have any children. It is said that Mr. Gooley served one term as county judge of Ozark County. Mr. George Mahan furnishes an amusing story of Gooley and his wife while they lived on this land.
"One day" said Mr. Mahan, "while Bill Johnson and Pete Howard
were maldng whiskey at the Big Spring in the Isaac Mahan Hollow Mr. Gooley
paid the whiskey still a visit and bought a jug full of whiskey and went
home drunk and made fun of his wife who at the time was parching coffee
in a skillet and stirring it with a case knife. Mrs. Gooleys was opposed
to her husband visiting the distillery and buying whiskey and getting drunk
and she gave him a piece of her mind so freely that Gooley did not appreciate
it and he went on with his remarks about her until she determined to bear
it no longer and raising to her feet in a rage she darted at her man with
the case knife in her hand the blade of which was hot and before Gooley
could jump, out of the way she pushed the blade of the knife flat ways against
his throat which burned his neck so severely that he supposed that his wife
had cut his throat and he leaped out of her way and yelled in agony. When
he found that he was not in a dying condition he quit groaning and his wife
remarked "I guess you will quit coming home drunk again wont you".
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