![\"My](\"https:\/\/theimmers.com\/smalltowns\/files\/2020\/11\/1st-family-car-1950.jpg\")
Willys Jeep 3 years after the Minnesota trip<\/p><\/div>\n
The first out of state fishing trip I remember was to Minnesota when I was 5. In Minnesota we were staying on a lake. Our Willys Jeep car was a modification of the jeep that was used in WWII. It was 4-wheel drive and kind of an early version of an SUV but quite small. Because the mosquitoes were numerous and ferocious, we slept in the back of the Jeep. My mom and dad took turns staying awake to keep the mosquitoes off of us so we could sleep. The Minnesota trip underlines the fishing element of family culture. Many of our family vacations were fishing trips.<\/p>\n
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![\"A](\"https:\/\/theimmers.com\/smalltowns\/files\/2020\/11\/Illinois-River-fishing-cabin-1949.jpg\")
Uncle Louis Warford cleaning fish at the Illinois River Cabin 1949<\/p><\/div>\n
My earliest childhood memories are fishing on the Illinois river. My mother\u2019s brother-in-law, Louis Warford, was a dedicated fisherman. He fished on the Illinois River after he moved from Higbee, Missouri to Alton, Illinois<\/a> in 1925. The 1949 family reunion, at a cabin he rented on the Illinois river, was particularly memorable. My mothers’ sister Myrtle and brother David\u2019s families attended. Alice Jean, David\u2019s oldest daughter, involved me in a scheme to make a present that I could give to my mother. We collected shells from the sandy banks washed up against the levee of the Illinois River.<\/p>\n She planned to make the shells into a necklace.\u00a0 I received one letter from Alice Jean about the progress of the necklace. She never finished the necklace. The children swam on a section of Macoupin creek<\/a> near the cabin. The experience created an extended family relationship superglue.<\/p>\n Dawt Mill on White River photo by rodger 2007<\/p><\/div>\n My father and his brother Fred’s families traveled to Missouri and Arkansas rivers in the 1940s and 1950s. My father’ niece, Esther Kelley, lived on Bryant Creek in the Missouri Ozarks. The Ozark National Scenic Riverways<\/a> park was created much later in 1964. As a result, there were no facilities and no park rangers for our trips. We drove unpaved back roads to a section of a river we wanted to explore and put our sleeping bags down on the beach. We purchased camping equipment at the Army Surplus <\/a>store which stocked the gear left over from WWII.<\/p>\n Bryant Creek was a short walk from the front porch of Esther’s house. Clifford and Esther had two boys my age. I got a tour of the farm from Glen, my older cousin. I remember being more impressed with their dog than I was by how clean the barn was. The dog was trained to go out to the pasture and fetch the herd of a dozen or so dairy cows and bring them back for milking. The dog knew what time to do this and did not have to be prompted. This relieved other people of the chore of going out to the pasture to round up the cows.<\/p>\n Great Grandfather Fred Immer dairy farmer and fisherman<\/p><\/div>\n Silver Creek<\/a>, on my grandparent’s farm 25 miles from my home in Roxana, Illinois, was not big enough to provide good fishing. Because the creek was a short walk from his back yard, my great grandfather, Fred Immer, did fish there regularly from 1885 until he died in 1935. For the mile or so that it bordered the farm the creek was usually less than 30 feet wide and not more than 6 feet deep. It was very slow moving except during spring rains. He occasionally hitched up his buggy and drove to Shoal Creek<\/a> near the town of Pocohontas to catch larger fish.<\/p>\n Hardwood trees canopied Silver Creek<\/a> to shade the stream bed and the banks. The creek was an ideal natural environment for an 8-year-old to explore. Very large grape vines wrapped many of the trees. The thought of cutting one of the vines and swinging across the creek to the other bank occurred to me but I never tried it. Although I walked this creek through the oak forest at least once or twice per month from 1949 to 1955, I did not fish there. On warm summer days I sometimes swam there. The creek was the same temperature as the water table, 62 degrees. It was an ideal place for a walk on a hot summer day.<\/p>\n Clifford Monroe Immer Best generation 1935 high school graduate fisherman and loving father photo by rodger<\/p><\/div>\n My mother and father had both travelled to Lake of the Ozarks<\/a> during the 30s, soon after the lake was filled. There was no commercial development on the lake at that time but country back roads, connecting family farms and villages, would take you to places to camp, swim, or fish. The lake had more than 1000 miles of shoreline, the largest man-made lake in the US at that time. It was hundreds of beaches, coves, and tributary rivers that were paradise not yet found. The celebration for my father’s graduation from High School in 1935 was a weekend trip with friends to the lake from Independence, Missouri.\u00a0 My mother, who had been orphaned at age 10, traveled there with her brother-in-law to fish in 1934.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n <\/p>\n <\/p>\n Clifford and Mary Helen Immer marriage 1940<\/p><\/div>\n My mother and father were married in Wood River, Illinois in 1940. They purchased 5 acres with 800 feet of waterfront on Lake of the Ozarks<\/a> for $1000 in 1951. There was only one resident on the peninsula. It was our private domain. Commercial and residential development was underway by the late 60s. The 4 Seasons Resort<\/a> opened in 1969. Waterfront property was $1000 per foot in the 1980s.<\/p>\n 50s family fishing customs involved 180-mile trips from our home at Roxana, Illinois to our property on Duck Head cove<\/a>. I never thought of the trip as long or boring. I read the Burma Shave<\/a> advertising signs that took several miles to finish a sequence or observed the many family farms on the route.\u00a0 We always arrived after dark on Friday evening. My mother did not enjoy setting up camp after dark. \u00a0<\/strong><\/p>\n We camped on the beach for the 4 years that we used this property from 1951 to 1954. My father constructed a raised wooden floor for the tent. I slept on the back seat of the car. If a friend accompanied me on the trip they slept on the front seat. There was no water supply or toilet facilities, no boats or water skis, just swimming, fishing, and sitting on the beach. We brought all of our food and water for the weekend.\u00a0 Town was 3 miles on a dirt road<\/a>. We never went to town for supplies. We moved to Washington state in 1955 and never returned to this place.<\/p>\n The fishing was not very exciting. We never caught anything more than about \u00bd lb. Blue Gill were plentiful so we could always catch them. There were larger fish in the main channel of the lake, but we rarely left Duck Head cove. My father constructed a small dock to fish and swim from.<\/p>\n The lake got quite warm during summer months, so the swimming conditions were perfect. Snorkeling and diving gear were not available at that time. Parts of the lake had very good visibility. Country roads and farmhouses<\/a> were visible in 40 feet of water. We did long distance swims across the cove which was about 1\/2 mile.\u00a0 I was 10 years old. My friends did not believe I could swim that far. We usually had guests when the lake property became our destination for July 4th celebrations. Most of our trips were during summer months. This area of Missouri is known for the second-best fall colors<\/a> in the US.<\/p>\n 50s family fishing customs involved trips to nearby rivers and lakes. The geography, in Illinois where we lived, did not have mountains or fast-moving water. Illinois is the flattest state in the country. Fishing on the Ozark rivers in Missouri and Arkansas was a 200-mile trip and did not occur often.<\/p>\n Live worms are good bait, and they were plentiful in the flood plain of the Illinois River. On the short walk from the cabin my uncle rented on the Illinois River we often stopped next to the riverbank to dig worms. One shovel full of soil would have enough worms to provide bait for the morning fishing. Worms were live bait and part of the natural habitat.<\/p>\n My father took me on a fishing trip to Bull Shoals Lake in Arkansas in 1948 when I was 5. The dam construction on the White River had been recently completed. The lake was not yet filled.\u00a0 The bait we were using was a combination of bologna and cheese. We rolled this combination into a ball that would cover the fishing hook. The idea was that the fish would smell the bait dissolved in the water and follow it to the hook. We stored the bait balls on a nearby log. We noticed that the lake level was rising rapidly. The gates on the dam had been closed to reduce the river flow and fill the lake. We had to move and forgot the bait was on that log. I always remember being disappointed that we lost the bait.<\/p>\n Rodger age 5 at Minnesota lake 1948 Photo by Rodger<\/p><\/div>\n The first fish I remember catching was on a Minnesota lake at age 5.\u00a0 I could see the fish take the hook in the clear water. The fish were too small to keep so we released all of them back. Some fish had been caught several times and had learned to recognize the bait and hook. I had learned about catch and release.<\/p>\n Bryant creek at my cousin’s Esthers’ house in the Missouri Ozarks, was a good source of bait. We used a very fine mesh net, called a seine, to catch the minnows we would use for bait. Live bait was considered the best, especially for large fish like largemouth bass.<\/p>\n My father’s niece, Esther Dye, and her family, lived on a dairy farm in the Missouri Ozarks.\u00a0 We visited Esther and her husband Clifford Dye, and her father’s farm nearby for weekends. Their farm was on Bryant Creek<\/a>. Hiking and cave exploring were not common activities for the agricultural community. On our weekend trips we did both. People did not kayak or canoe on the rivers at that time. Float trips were not a common activity. Canvas air mattresses were use for the float trips I saw. There were other rivers in the area that were better for fishing than Bryant Creek. There are thousands of springs<\/a> that feed Ozark rivers. Follow the links for more information on springs<\/a> and the history of watermills.<\/p>\n 50s family fishing customs involved locations where I experienced biological phenomena. I did not have any awareness of biological science at age 6. Biological phenomena<\/a> made a profound impression. The Mayfly bloom<\/a> I saw on the Illinois River at age 3 became a forever memory. Fireflies were abundant<\/a> on my relatives’ farms in the Ozarks. I was enthralled by the fireflies that came up at dusk over the fields at my uncle Harry’s farm near Ava, Missouri. The fireflies<\/a> at his daughter’s farm came up over the fields with Bryant Creek in the background. A common practice was for children to capture them in a canning jar to create a biology powered night light. The firefly experience creates a powerful sense of place. As an adult I travelled to more than 100 national and state parks with my park ranger wife. The most profoundly beautiful scene I have ever witnessed was the Mayfly bloom at age 3.<\/p>\n Cousin Tyke Kelso at the Illinois River 1950<\/p><\/div>\n 50s family fishing customs included the cabin, that my uncle, Louis Warford, rented for fishing on the Illinois River near Hardin, Illinois, about 30 miles from my home in Roxana, Illinois. I lived in his house in Wood River, Illinois during WWII.\u00a0 My father was in the South Pacific from September 1943 to December 1945. The Illinois River was the destination of my first fishing trip in 1945. The most vivid childhood memories are about the cabin, the river and Macoupin Creek, and learning how to fish.<\/p>\n The cabin by the by the levee was my favorite place to fish. The floods and droughts effect on the river, the Mosquitoes, how to set a trout line, and the life cycle of a Mayfly<\/a>, added dimensions to my developing senses.<\/p>\n There were two habitats at the Illinois River where my uncle Louis fished, the river and Macoupin Creek<\/a>.\u00a0 The creek was a tributary that ended at the Illinois River near Hardin, Illinois. My uncle fished in both habitats, sometimes in the same day. The biology of the habitats required different methods to catch different kinds of fish.<\/p>\n Chain of Rocks Bridge crossing of Mississippi River<\/p><\/div>\n The Illinois river had carp and catfish. The channel catfish<\/a>, or sometimes called blue cat, were the best to eat. The small carp were very bony. We kept the larger carp, sometimes more than 10 pounds, and prepared them for cooking. We fished for carp with a method called a trout line<\/a>. A long line with hooks attached 10 to 15 feet apart was strung along the shoreline. The line was set up and checked the next morning. Channel catfish were caught in the deeper water in the middle of the river. The creek had varieties of bluegill, caught from an anchored boat with a fishing pole. The creek was very slow moving compared to the river, more like a lake. Some of the bluegills<\/a> were blue and some were red.<\/p>\n 50s family fishing customs taught patience and silence for fishing on the creek. Talking or movement in the boat would create noise that would spook the fish. The physics of sound transmission in water were not explained to an 8-year-old. The rules to not talk and not move were simply stated. The sessions on the creek would take several hours before we would catch enough fish for diner. Bluegill were small, only a few ounces each.<\/p>\n my best friend and Pearl Harbor survivor teaches me and my children how to catch salmon from the 1950s to 1987<\/p><\/div>\n My father was transferred to the Shell Oil Refinery at Anacortes, Washington in 1955. The geography and biology of fishing changed radically. Our 50s family fishing customs adapted to the local ecology. We had 177 islands and 100s of square miles of ocean for varieties of salmon, cod, rockfish, and many others. We fished in the ocean and on the Skagit River. My father and our fishing family friends next door quickly ordered the construction of the standard deep hull 16-foot boat. Robert and my father had both served in WWII. Robert was stationed on the USS Maryland on December 7th, 1941. My father was at the Philippine Liberation.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n <\/p>\n There were no concrete boat ramps on Fildalgo Island where we lived and stored our boats. Robert and my father built one on Sunset Beach. When I took my children to Washington state in 1987, Robert took them out to Strawberry Island to catch their first salmon. Sport fishermen were using sonar to find fish.<\/p>\n Clifford Immer and Harry Truman alma mater William Chrisman High School Independence Missouri<\/p><\/div>\n My father had been discharged from the Navy at the end of WWII less than 2 years earlier. Neither of my parents had travelled for recreation as children. They graduated from High School at the depths of the Great Depression in 1935. By 1947 the mood of the country had turned to optimism, finding housing that had been sacrificed during the war and opportunities for recreation. My father’s job at Shell Oil Co. provided an element of security.<\/p>\n Weekend trips and short vacations discovered idyllic campsites on Ozark creeks and rivers. The 1947 campsite is my most enduring childhood memory. After I moved to the west coast in 1955, I never returned to that river. I never forgot the experience but did not know the name of the river. When I travelled from California to introduce my wife to Missouri relatives in 1970, I searched that area of the Ozarks on a day trip with my grandmother and great aunt. I did not find the river.<\/p>\n North Fork of White River photo by rodger 2007<\/p><\/div>\n My wife’s master’s thesis was a history and biography book. History and geography were the trip themes when I toured the Missouri Ozark Watermills<\/a> with my wife in 2007. I had purchased my first digital camera that year and took a large number of photographs of the rivers and watermills.\u00a0 While visiting my Aunt Pearl in Highland Illinois a few days later, I asked about the 1947 trip. She remembered the trip but was not sure which river. She named some of the rivers we had travelled to as possibilities.<\/p>\n When I returned home, I reviewed the photos I had taken. There it was, I recognized the scene. The photograph included the sign on the riverbank, North Fork White River. After 60 years I had returned.\u00a0 At age 4 I had experienced a forever sense of place. There are a large number of small rivers in this part of Missouri. Idyllic campsites on the creeks and rivers number in the thousands.<\/p>\n Harry Kelley and family at Ava farm<\/p><\/div>\n At my uncle Harry and cousin Esthers farms near Ava, Missouri, the afternoon break from farm chores was fishing for bass in the river. The children and guests went swimming at a nearby lake or fishing in one of the larger rivers. The swimming lake was spring fed. The visibility was at least 50 feet. The bottom was a combination of bright colored rock and sand. A small population of area residents used the lake. There was a wooden platform in the middle of the lake for swimming and diving.<\/p>\n The National Park named \u201cOzark Scenic National Riverways\u201d includes hundreds of miles of the Jacks Fork and Current rivers.\u00a0 As a result, the camping and fishing trips on the Ozark Rivers were more than pleasant family time, although they were definitely that. The threads of family history, in destination paradise, began with my great grandmother Julia Kelley’s birth at Forsyth, Missouri near the town of Branson in 1884.<\/p>\n In 1910 Julia Kelley was living in Hartville, Missouri with her husband and 6 children. She had 2 children from her first marriage, her first husband died of a heart attack in his 20s. She had 2 children from her 2nd husband’s first marriage, and 2 children by her second husband, Edward Kelley. Hartville is a few miles from Mansfield, Missouri on highway 5.<\/p>\n Alley Mill near Mansfield Missouri photo 2007 by rodger<\/p><\/div>\n Watermills served the small towns in this part of the Ozarks in the early 20th century. Watermills were food and agricultural products processing, general stores, post offices, and social network hubs. The interaction at watermills connected friends, relatives, and buyers and sellers of corn and corn flour across the Ozark counties. Laura Ingalls Wilder<\/a> moved to Mansfield, Missouri in 1894. Although Julia Kelley may have met the Wilder family at one of the watermills, it seems unlikely. The author of Little House on the Prairie did not start writing books until much later in 1932.<\/p>\n Follow the links (highlighted in blue) to the history and geography of watermills. Many of the mills<\/a> have been restored to museum status. Childhood memories of cornbread with molasses were passed down to my generation. Julia’s daughter, Cuma, cooked cornbread for my breakfast at the Highland, Illinois farm in 1950. \u00a0<\/strong><\/p>\n The availability of motels and the economic perspective of emergence from the depression influenced our travel style. The highway system was incomplete. Route 66, the first road that connected all the way across the country, was not completed until 1935. Motel chains<\/a> started to develop in the 50s but were not yet common.<\/p>\n Travel usually involved ad hoc camp sites at unplanned locations. There were relatively few state or national campgrounds, so we camped wherever we found a level space to put a tent or just lay out our sleeping bags. Most of the places we camped were on a lake or stream. I remember staying in motels a few times, but we camped about half of the time. Destinations were neighboring states, Tennesse, Missouri, Arkansas or Kentucky.<\/p>\n We took a supply of food and some utensils to cook with. We had a propane fired camp stove. Although REI, Recreation Equipment, was created in 1934 it was unknown in most of the country. Camping gear was not generally available and had to be improvised. The evolution of camping equipment took place slowly during the next few decades. Although the tent material in the 50s was canvas that was treated with oil, it was very heavy and much more difficult to set up. It was waterproof to some extent.<\/p>\n Since the Army and Navy Surplus<\/a> stores were everywhere after WWII, blankets, cooking utensils and clothing were available and inexpensive. My families travel style persisted after motels and travel facilities became more available. If we were in the middle of nowhere late at night, we found a place to get off of the highway on a side road and slept on the ground.<\/p>\n Roxana, Illinois held an annual town festival, known as the Fish Fry. The location of the festival was a vacant lot next to my house. Most of my friends and relatives were fishermen. The event was well attended. Children’s interest in the event focused on change made for purchases spilled on the ground.<\/p>\n Fishermen identified with their favorite places to fish. They shared stories about their locations to convince you that their place was better than yours. The handmade lures, used for bait, simulated an insect.\u00a0 Fishermen chose the model for the insect to look like the favorite diet of the species they were trying to catch. Fishermen learned the procedure, called tying flies, from a mentor or studied an article in a magazine such as Field and Stream<\/a>. Ad hoc conversations at the Post Office or barber shop identified cliques of fishermen.<\/p>\n Fishing club members often used the community center gymnasium for casting practice.\u00a0 They set up target rings at various distances to simulate casting a fishing lure to a target on a creek. I did not do fly fishing and did not use the practice facilities. Casting practice blocked me from playing basketball.<\/p>\n Great rivers surrounded my house in Roxana. The Lewis and Clark camp and museum on the Mississippi at the Missouri confluence was 3 miles south. The Mississippi was one mile west. The Illinois was 20 miles north. The geography defined a fisherman’s paradise. Our daily commerce for shopping and entertainment often used the Mississippi Great River Road to Alton, Illinois or on the street on the bluff overlooking the river. French explorers used this path in the 17th century and native Americans in the 11th century. I learned to ride a bicycle in a park on the Mississippi River, the site of the 1860 Lincoln Douglas debate.<\/p>\n The prototype fishing destination is solitude, beauty, and relaxation. A common expression was to detach from the routine and reach a peaceful state of mind. The fishermen I have known were not hyper A+ personality types. Fishing trips provided an effective form of group therapy, without being planned for that purpose. The pace at a campsite changed the tone of family communication. For my dairy farming ancestors, the afternoon break, fishing for bass on the river, provided physical and emotional relief from the workday.<\/p>\n Julia Kelley’s grandchildren Colorado Plains 1925<\/p><\/div>\n Neither geography nor experience will erase the fisherman element of your personality. My great uncle Harry, born in the Missouri Ozarks in 1896, moved to the plains of eastern Colorado in 1914. The plains were arid, there was no place to fish. After marrying a local girl and serving in France in WWII he moved back to the Missouri Ozarks. He operated a dairy farm near Ava, Missouri. He retired to a mobile home on Lake Taneycomo, his favorite place to fish, in 1960.<\/p>\n If you can wade a beautiful creek fishing for bass every afternoon what else could you possibly want? My cousin Esther and her family left the farm to work in construction a few years after my visit in 1951. I have often wondered how the Dye family could leave such an idyllic place. Of course, money is the answer. A dairy farm that size might produce an income of $150 or so per month in the 50s. Clifford and the boys could each make that much money in construction. There were no days off working on the dairy farm. There was a huge demand for housing at that time so there was an almost infinite amount of work in construction. The Dye family left the farm and moved to Kansas.<\/p>\n My great aunt Erma, born in 1916, married her high school bus driver in Colorado in 1934. Erma’s husband, Virgil, was a transplant from Eagleville in Northern Missouri. Erma had never lived in a house with electricity until she left Colorado home. She moved to San Fransisco early in WWII so her husband could work in the shipyards. They could not find housing in San Fransisco, so they slept on the kitchen floor of a friend’s house. They found housing in Santa Cruz. The commute over the mountains without headlights during the black out was to0 frightening. They moved back to their friend’s apartment.<\/p>\n Virgil enjoyed fishing on Missouri creeks as a child. Northern California rivers were a vast improvement. He retired to a mobile home on the Trinity River, his favorite. The Trinity had salmon and trout. Guides provided floating fishing trips from small boats. He could walk 30 yards from his front door and put a line in the water. His grandchildren loved the house on the river. His character and love of the river imbedded in family relationships.<\/p>\n I had many examples of the fisherman personality to observe during my childhood. The state that I lived in had more than 200,000 dairy farms in 1950. Hundreds of lodges for hunting and fishing on Illinois rivers made Illinois a tourist destination in the 30s and 40s. Field and Stream Magazine, which had a circulation of more than 1 million in 1939, was first published in 1895.\u00a0 I visited my uncle Louis’s house in nearby Wood River, Illinois often. More than 70 years later I still have vivid memories of my uncle sitting in his overstuffed chair reading the magazine.<\/p>\n I was a fisherman from age 5 to age 18. When I moved to Arizona in 1961 my life as a fisherman stopped. Work, family, education, and youth sports consumed the rest of my life.<\/p>\n Uncle Harry was a fisherman who survived the trenches in WWI. Uncle Fred was a fisherman who survived B24 raids over Germany in WWII. Robert, my next-door neighbor, was a fisherman who survived the attack on Pearl Harbor while stationed on the USS Maryland. My father was a fisherman who served in the South Pacific and was at the Philippines Liberation.\u00a0 Louis Warford, my uncle, was a fisherman who took in and raised 2 orphans during the depression. My great grandfather fished in the creek on his farm and founded the Pet Milk Co.<\/p>\n My character is certainly not greater than the sum of the parts of these great fisherman relatives. I do feel a responsibility to respect their example.\u00a0 The best parts of my personality, such as they are, would be missing without their example.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" 50s family fishing customs created relationship superglue. Idyllic campsites on Ozark rivers at age 4 made forever childhood memories. Uncles and mentors teach fishing, biology, and life skills. Family travel customs combine practicality, economy, and adventure. Fisherman personalities connect generations … Continue reading ![\"watermills](\"https:\/\/theimmers.com\/smalltowns\/files\/2020\/11\/Ozarks-Dawt-Mill-family-domain.jpg\")
50s family fishing customs spans geography and time<\/h2>\n
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![\"Early](\"https:\/\/theimmers.com\/smalltowns\/files\/2018\/03\/Clifford-Mary-Helen-wedding-1940.jpg\")
Fishing and family dreams are at the Lake of the Ozarks<\/h2>\n
Children became fisherman on 50s family fishing trips<\/h2>\n
![\"Family](\"https:\/\/theimmers.com\/smalltowns\/files\/2018\/03\/Minnesota-fishing-trip-1948-.jpg\")
50s family fishing trip locations included beauty and solitude<\/h2>\n
![\"The](\"https:\/\/theimmers.com\/smalltowns\/files\/2020\/11\/family-customs-Illinois-River-fishing-.jpg\")
Uncles and mentors teach fishing, biology, and life skills<\/h2>\n
![\"Chain](\"https:\/\/theimmers.com\/smalltowns\/files\/2025\/04\/66-Bridge0114.jpg\")
![\"50s](\"https:\/\/theimmers.com\/smalltowns\/files\/2025\/04\/Robert-Ezell-Rodger-58-406x610.jpg\")
Idyllic campsites on creeks and rivers are family customs<\/h2>\n
![\"Line](\"https:\/\/theimmers.com\/smalltowns\/files\/2018\/03\/best-generation-high-school-1935.jpg\")
![\"Idyllic](\"https:\/\/theimmers.com\/smalltowns\/files\/2020\/11\/Ozarks-White-River-indelible-memories.jpg\")
50s family fishing trips are destination paradise<\/h2>\n
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50s family fishing trip style and economy<\/h2>\n
Geography and small town culture created fishermen comradery<\/h2>\n
The fisherman personality threads family life & relationships<\/h2>\n
![\"Julia](\"https:\/\/theimmers.com\/smalltowns\/files\/2020\/11\/Colorado-Plains-children-1925.jpg\")
Geography and ecology evolve fisherman personality<\/h2>\n
50s family fishing customs connect generations<\/h2>\n