I was two years old when my great uncle Monte Wright passed away.  He had been married to my grandmother’s sister Ruby for almost fifty years, and babysitting me helped Ruby cope with his loss.

Every morning after breakfast Ruby and I would retreat to an upstairs bedroom where Ruby would read me books from her childhood and tell me stories about her life.

Ruby, who was born in 1889, was among the first generation of white children born here and she told lots of stories from both her childhood and her husband Monte’s.

Monte had a lot of brothers and as children they got into a lot of trouble.  Among other things, they liked to sneak into Boone (they lived a mile or so to the south) and steal watermelons.  One night an angry gardener waited for them and fired a gun, at which point Monte cried out in pain and crumpled to the ground.  His terrified brothers carried him home as fast as they could.  Once there, Monte stood up with a devilish smile and said, “Thanks for carrying me home!”

Another time some Gypsy women came to Monte’s house to beg for food, and Monte, who was sitting at the kitchen table, threw himself backwards on the floor and pretended to have an epileptic seizure.  This so scared the Gypsies that they never bothered the family again!

Those same Gypsies – or Roma as they’re correctly called – were well-known to Ruby, too.  They would periodically travel to this area in brightly-painted wagons and greatly disrupt the lives of area residents.  The Roma were ostensibly horse traders but would barter for anything – and always seemed to get the better end of the deal.  They were also said to help themselves to anything they could, and people dreaded their visits.

Called “Gypsies” due to the erroneous belief that they came from Egypt, the Roma actually originated in India and still preserve a number of Indian customs, beliefs and taboos.  Dispersed throughout Europe, some were deported to the Americas early on while many others came to America after being released in 1864 from centuries of slavery in Romania.  Being unwelcome on every continent, the Roma long ago evolved into “Wanderers” who never stayed very long in one place.

Ruby’s father, Frank Mansfield, worked out a deal with them that protected his family and property from the roving Roma – he agreed to allow them to camp in his pasture IF they would leave him completely alone.  They couldn’t try to barter with him, beg for anything and most of all steal anything.  And it worked.  Ruby, who lived on the farm with Monte after they married, didn’t know how many years the Roma camped at the farm but said it was a very long time.

I recently ran across a great story by Beulah Dutrow Johnson about the Roma in rural Nebraska.   When she was a little girl in the 1930s a band was arrested for theft in McPherson County. The men were put in jail while the women and children were locked in the courtroom.  Unfortunately, they were left there overnight with no access to a bathroom.  Afterwards, not only did the courtroom have to be completely cleaned, the floor had to be refinished!

I’m wondering if anyone still has stories about the Roma’s long ago visits to this area.  If so, as a board member of the Boone County Historical Society, I’d love to add information about them to the county museum.  So please, if you remember anything about the Roma, let me know.