Lee Gumfory called to chat about Snipe Thornton, after reading Margaret Robb’s story of his bootlegging in the 1940s, and her role in delivering the hooch before she was told enough to know better.
Snipe was a top-notch glazer, Gumfory said. He finished a number of windows in the Gumforys’ bungalow on North Cottonwood. “He’d put on the putty and run his thumb down alongside the window pane,” Gumfory recalled. “I asked him how he learned. He said, ‘You damn fool, in prison.’”
Gumfory also told about Snipe’s run-in with some punks in east Iola, who stole whiskey he’d hid for customers. “He couldn’t call the law, but he did tell them what would happen if they did it again, and he meant it.”
We’ve had our share of characters over the years, some more unsavory than others.
In the 1920s there was a fellow in Iola called Battlin’ Beaver. Carnivals came to town and offered a bit of money to anyone willing to get in the ring against their fighter. Beaver did, and invariably came in second, but gave it a battle.
Then there was Jack Shoemaker, a man with chiseled features that reminded one of Hollywood bit actors. He came by the Register office every few weeks to “borrow” a couple of dollars from Howard James, one of our typesetters, to buy cheap booze. “I’ll never see that money again,” James would quip. Shoemaker was accused of the murder of Betty Cantrell in 1969, but was never convicted.
Another was Herb Aten, a bon vivant of the junk- yard. He was reputed to have known more about what was along back alleys and desolate country roads than anyone else in eastern Kansas. He was a person of interest in the 1966 disappearance of Kenny Wight. Wight ran the pool hall on East Jackson. He was never found.
Finally, there is my favorite, Sam Wheeler.
Sam lost a leg before I came to know him. He never told me how, but rumor was the injury came from a gunshot at a crap game south of town. Sam and I hunted together for several years. We’d take out from Humboldt, where he and wife Ruby lived in a mobile home, and spend all day weaving through the countryside looking for ducks, but mostly he spinning tales about every pond we passed. For the record: Sam could shoot his 20 gauge pump off crutches better than most hunters could with two good legs.
He died in 1981 when he pulled out in front of a semi on the old highway south of town.
“We’ll never have guys like those again,” said Gumfory, who in many respects fits right in.
