Euphan STEPHENS was the daughter of Mr. and Mrs. Connor STEPHENS. The family came to the Maloy area in 1903 and settled three miles west of the town in an area known as Blockton corner now. A lovely home was built. Euphan writes that she was six-years-old at the time.

Maloy was also about six years old and a good, thriving town. There were three churches: Catholic, Baptist and Christian.

These things she remembers about the town:

The Catholics always served Thanksgiving dinners. The women raised their own turkeys. The price then was 50-cents each person. The STEPHENS attended the Baptist Church. A short distance west of the church lived two elderly ladies, Grandma BEAN and Grandma WINEGER. Grandma BEAN was very tiny and Grandma WINEGER a big lady. They always came to church together wearing white aprons over their dresses. By the time the STEPHENS got the horses untied and in the buggy to go home, the grandmas were home sitting on one porch or the other, smoking their pipes.

Harris SMITH has a store which sold everything. John HARTLEY had a big lumberyard and also the horse-drawn hearse. Dr. WARING's daughter married Les HARTLEY. Myrtle SAMS was Euphan's Sunday School teacher for years. She also remembers the sign above the door of the blacksmith shop which said P.V.N. Pool which stood for Petroleum V. Nasby POOL. She considered the POOLS a wonderful family. A son, Eldon POOL, is in the Care Center at Lenox.

Euphan was unable to remember the names of the aged couple who ran the phone office but can see them plainly in her mind.

Euphan STEPHENS grew to young womanhood and was a school teacher for many years in the area schools. She married [April 20, 1919] Robert JUDY and they lived just east of the Blockton corner in sight of her parent's home which in later years was occupied by her brother David and family. Bob and Euphan had one daughter, Joanne, who is now Mrs. Lloyd OSBORN of Bedford. Mrs. JUDY lives at the elderly housing complex and gets out to meals and to meet friends. She is 90 years young.

NOTE: John "Robert" JUDY, son of Myers and Laura JUDY, was born in Ringgold County June 29, 1896, and died July 12, 1969. Alpha "Euphan" (STEPHENS) JUDY, the daughter of Sanford Connor and Estella (BLAKER) STEPHENS, was born October 2, 1896, the sister of Mary, David, Florence, Elma, Paul and Mabel who died in infancy. Euphan died August 17, 1987 and was interred at Rose Hill Cemetery, Blockton.

SOURCE: Maloy, Iowa Centennial History: 1887 - 1987 p. 157.

Courtesy of Mount Ayr Public Library

Transcription and Notes by Sharon R. Becker, August of 2011