Of all the unique personalities that have lived in Trenton, a most unlikely junk collector and hoarding saver, a man who was once a burly wrestler called “Bones,” tops them all!
This website brought to you in part by the following sponsor:
Orel Emegene Lionberger was born in Dawn in 1905, and picked up that nickname “Bones” as a school boy, when he was getting bullied. He got an ax handle, and whopped one bully on the hand breaking his thumb, and another boy hit him on the head so hard it broke his thumb, too! “A bony head!”
Thus, Bones thrust forth in his younger days as a wrestler in northern Missouri, until he married woman wrestler Mildred Baugh in 1938. They settled in Trenton and teamed up to operate an auto parts store Bones had started in 1935. His first sale was one quart of oil for ten cents. The auto parts store became a virtual museum of an untold number of collectibles that spanned eight buildings down near the railroad depot.
Bones came into my life in the late 1930’s/ 40’s when Dad invariably dropped by the store on Saturdays to tell stories with Bones, as they had some mutual interests like horses and farm tools. Bones at that time was not bony, but a big, robust man on the order of Theodore Roosevelt, clad in blue overalls, and nearly always shifting an unlighted cigar in his mouth, like some mafia big shot. But he didn’t ignore me as he liked kids, and he would dig some toy and maybe a candy stick out of the hopeless jumble of trade goods. Everything was a bargain and you wondered where Bones got all his money, and he wasn’t bashful about flashing a big roll of bills he carried in his spacious overall pockets. There wasn’t much paperwork; just cash on the barrelhead.
While Dad and Bones talked, I would wander around to see the myriad of odd cast-off artifacts. Mildred was more business-like, and the real backbone of keeping the inventory, especially the considerable stock of auto parts, old and new. I remember how fascinated I was with the 15 foot mounted Tarpon hanging on the wall. There was a wooden coffin with a real skeleton inside, and goodness knows where he got that. He never told that story that I heard.
There were things from yesteryear like 2000 pairs of lady’s high-button shoes, Victorian corsets and pantaloons, some that he rented out to girls for special occasions. [The 1957 Centennial Parade!] In his robust days, it was Bones on his silver horse and silver laced shirt that led nearly every parade. His was a never-ending quest for things of humor, and entertain the world he did.
In those dusty, musty, aisles of wonder, I would find bone collections, and in particular, a mummified rat still in the trap. It was actually rather scary.
My Uncle John Tolle and his boys were frequent visitors, as they were always fixing up old cars and about anything could be found at Bones. He just blended in with the farmers and backwoodsmen and maybe that’s why he wore overalls–the kind I grew up with and were the standard apparel for country folks in those days. I was teased in my first years at the country school by the “big” boys, for wearing overalls, while they had belts and pants. My folks seemingly couldn’t think in unpractical ways. Just unhook the bibs and they would fall right off! Maybe good for lovers but not for dignified growing boys!
After the war, Bones took on vast amounts of army surplus. “Buy low; sell high!” But still a bargain for machetes and canvas bags and good equipment for the trapline. You could buy guns in those days, too, without any paperwork or registration. Seldom did people shoot people in those days. Fair game was quail, rabbits, fox, and coon.
In Bone’s store, there was a memorable parrot, too, that said some outlandish words quite clearly.
I lost track of the Bones Lionberger saga when I went west in 1956, but I was taking pictures of the storefronts during the Centennial the following year when I went back to wear my old time clothes and mustache in a sheriff role, complete with a toy pistol stuck in my belt. There were no riot squads to take me down for carrying a gun!
Then in 1995, I went back to Trenton to put Dad in an apartment at Sunnyview and I sat down with him at the community table to eat his first meal there. Of course, he had to have the slice of bread and butter in one hand as he ate the entire meal. And he had to have a saucer with his cup of coffee so he could pour the coffee in the saucer to cool, and then slurp it out! Ha.
More surprising was the presence of the thin man sitting beside Dad. It was Bones! Time and two heart attacks had taken their toll, but he could still talk, and talk he and Dad did! That went great until Dad had to be shifted over to the care unit. Dad died that December 25, 1995.
I found out Bones Lionberger died five years later on March 10, 2000, and was buried near where he was born at Dawn, in Edgewood Cemetery at Livingston County.