Page 112 from the White Family Recorder

LITTLE JOURNEYS TO THE HOMES
OF THE DAUGHTERS OF THE
PRESENT DAY WHITES.
BY VIOLET WHITE SMITH.
AS I have said before, the daughters of the White Family are widely scattered through out the country, so to-day let me take you to Christian County, Mo., where at Nixa, lives Mrs. Emily White Rice.

Nixa is a suburb of Springfield, although Springfield itself is across the line in Greene Co.

Springfield has been called the �Queen City of the Ozarks,� and is well worthy of the name.

In the midst of rich farming land, splendid orchards, dairy and poultry country, it indeed rules over the Ozarks.

In 1833, Springfield began to take on the dignity of a municipality [sic] Greene Co. was organized that year and Springfield was chosen as County seat in 1836.

There is an amusing story told about how in 1836, the town received its name.

There was a white man named Wilson, who was an Indian trader, and was living with the Deleware [sic] Indians when the white people came to that part of the country.

On the day of the election, he put up a tent on the south side of the Public Square. Everybody in the county was invited to vote their choice of a name for the county seat.

Wilson had a jug of whiskey, and as fast as the people came in, he took them over to his tent and said: �I am going to live here and I was born and raised in a beautiful town in Massachusetts named Springfield, and it would gratify me very much if you would go over and vote to name this County seat after my native town.�

Then he produced the jug and told the voter to help himself, which he did, and of course went and voted to name the town Springfield.

Mrs. Emily White Rice was born May 23, 1842, in Solon, McHenry Co., Ill. She is the daughter of John Wesley White and Elizabeth Buckner White, and grand-daughter of Henry White and his wife Margaret Reynolds.

Aug. 29, 1860, she was married in Iroquois Co., Ill. to James Bolton Rice. In Sept. 1861, their first baby, Frank E. Rice was born. He was only nine months old when Mr. Rice hearing his country�s call enlisted in the Federal army.

This left Mrs. Rice without means of support, so she moved to Chicago, and made vests to take care of herself and baby, while her husband was in the Army.