Kirksville, Missouri - Home of the Petrees: Missouri State Normal School & Former Petree Houses

Chasing History: Exploring My Ancestral Roots - Post #2 by Tonya Graham McQuade

In April 2020, my parents and I planned to visit Kirksville, Missouri, over my Spring Break in an effort to do some family history research. My great grandmother, Nora Petree, the ninth of ten children, grew up in Kirksville after moving there from Andrew County, where she was born, and there she met William Francis “Frank” Traughber, from Centralia, MO, who was attending school at A.T. Still University, College of Osteopathy.

 

Nora and Frank later married and moved to Southern California, but her parents – Mary Ann Hale Petree and Bailis Petree - continued living there in Kirksville until they died. We hoped to visit the cemetery where they were buried, the house where they lived (if it still existed), and the schools that both Nora and Frank attended, as well as visit the Adair County Historical Society Museum to see what more we could learn about their lives.

 

To help us with our search, we had a picture of my father’s mother, Margaret Ruth Traughber Graham, standing in front of the house where her mother grew up when she visited in 1970 with two of her cousins to attend the funeral of their Aunt Lettie Petree Bragg, Nora’s sister. I had found two different addresses in the census records for Bailis and Mary Ann Petree, as well as the location where they were buried with the help of the online site “Find-a-Grave,” so we were as prepared as could be for our adventure.

 

In photo: My grandmother, Margaret Ruth Traughber Graham,

with cousins Mary Ann Hoefner and Mary Imo Hatcher

 

Well, if you noticed the month and year at the start of this post, you know what happened to that initial plan. Kaboom!

 

Last fall, as Covid numbers finally seemed to be coming down and more people were getting vaccinated and “boosted,” I thought it would be worth trying to plan our trip again – and so, on April 14, 2022, my parents and I found ourselves driving from St. Louis to Kirksville, Missouri to begin our family history exploration.

Our first stop was at Truman State University, formally known at the Missouri State Normal School of the First District. Established in 1867 by innovative educator Joseph Baldwin, Nora graduated from there in 1901 at age 19, before heading off to Stanford University in Palo Alto, CA to study English. The Normal School was known as a teacher preparation school, and others of Nora’s siblings also graduated from there and went on to become teachers, doctors, lawyers, farmers, and businessmen. Only one of her siblings, McDonald Petree, died young – at age 27.

Here I am with my father, Douglas Graham, at Truman State University

 in Kirksville, Missouri – Home of the Bulldogs!

 

What’s a Normal School, you ask? Here’s an explanation we found in the TSU Museum:

Here's a photo that showed the school’s curriculum in 1870:

The school’s approach to education was quite innovative for the time, as seen in the advice school founder Joseph Baldwin gave to elementary teachers:

While checking out the museum timelines, we learned a few things that happened while Nora was a student there: John R. Kirk was named president of the school; Scott Joplin of Sedalia, Missouri, published “Maple Leaf Rag,” the county offices moved into the newly completed Adair County Courthouse; and a giant cyclone cut through Kirksville, passing near Nora’s house, killing thirty-two people.

Photo near Petree Home - Cyclone 1899

We enjoyed looking through the museum, which had timelines of both local and national events, as well as some history of the school, the town, and Adair County.

 

My father and I also walked around the campus, but the original Baldwin Hall that would have been there when Nora attended had long since burned down. We were able to see come pictures of the campus from the early 1900’s:

 

And here is Baldwin Hall today, with my father standing by the sign:

After visiting the school, we drove down East Washington Street and were excited to find both houses still standing that I had seen listed in the Census Records. The first home – at 808 E. Washington – was the one where Nora grew up - where Bailis and Mary Ann were living in the 1900 Census. We knocked on the door and met the current owner, who took a photo of my father and me in front of the house:

The second house, just three doors down at 820 East Washington Street, is where Bailis and Mary Ann Petree moved after the children moved out - they were living there during both the 1910 and 1920 Census. It's also where their oldest son James lived with his family prior to his parents moving in:

 

We were glad to see these houses still standing - to be able to imagine our ancestors walking where we walked all those years ago. It was also interesting to think of my grandmother standing there 52 years before, with the same kind of awe that we felt in 2022. Our first day in Kirksville left us excited to see more …

 

Stay tuned for the next blog post:

A.T. Still University's College of Osteopathy