Thank you for your detailed account.
Attending the 100 year event as a young boy, is what raised my curiosity regarding genealogy for the future.
I will give you my mother's account as written some time back.

Hallie Brown Radley born 1924 Arcadia, Mo.

I went to early school at Arcadia, Mo. through the 3rd grade in a 1 room school. We had a wood burning stove in it. There was no Kindergarten then and a new school was built at Ironton, a larger town 1 mile from Arcadia.
We had happy times then but were very poor.
I was named for Hallie Brown Clarkson, her father owned a summer home in Arcadia. They also lived in St. Louis and were pretty well off. He was either a broker or something else. She was older than me. Her dad gave me small change when I was a kid. We always thought I would inherit from them but didn't. My mom cleaned their house which was very large, when they entertained.
I remember my grandma telling us that she was a baby in arms during the Civil War and they hid in a cave across the highway from the Ironton train station.
I remember a little about playing at Fort Hill. This is where the Civil War was. We had cannon balls from there.
We went swimming in the small creeks in town. The school bus picked us up on Highway 21 near our home.
My uncle Louie (Louie Robinson) was gassed during the 1st World War. He survived that and was killed when a tree fell on him while hunting at Arcadia.
My dad was born in Blue Ridge, Oregon and came to Arcadia about 1911. He there met mom and they married 1913.
We moved to St. Louis in Sept. 1936. Dad couldn't find work as the depression was still on.