MRS. OLIVER LOOK-ALIKE CONTEST SUNDAY; EVENT AT JACKSON TO HONOR DESIGNER OF MISSOURI FLAG

JACKSON -- Marie Watkins Oliver had herself quite a life, one that started before the Civil War and ended about the same time as World War II. In between, she married a lawyer with a future in politics, reared a family of six children, and left a legacy that flies over the state Capitol every day.

When William Jennings Bryan came to Cape Girardeau in 1909 to deliver his "Prince of Peace" lecture, she was his hostess. Both the homes she kept in Jackson and Cape Girardeau are on the National Register of Historic Places.

Sunday, the Jackson Heritage Association will sponsor a Mrs. Oliver Look-Alike Contest at the historic Oliver House, 224 E. Adams St. in Jackson. The 1:30 p.m. event is a salute to Flag Day on Monday and to Mrs. Oliver's role in designing the state flag of Missouri.

Contestants will dress like Mrs. Oliver at three different stages of her life as the 16-year-old ingenue, the young mother raising children, and the grandmother who designed the Missouri state flag.

The contestants will appear on the house's balcony to be judged by Cape Girardeau attorney John Oliver Jr., Mrs. Oliver's great-grandson. Lawn chairs are suggested.

Prizes, to be awarded in all three categories, will include a savings bond, antique glassware, vintage accessories, pictures and frames, hats and hat boxes, and other finery of the era.

Bills called Mrs. Oliver's Dollars will be hidden about the grounds and can be redeemed for antique prizes.

Tours of the house will be available. Admission is $2 for adults and $1 for children. Sasparilla and cookies will be served.

Born in 1854, Marie Watkins grew up the middle child in a family of 11 children in Missouri's Ray County. Their father, Charles, owned some 5,000 acres of land and several businesses. He died in 1864 after contracting pneumonia while on a mission for the Confederacy. Marie was 10.

She graduated from Richmond College in 1872, and for seven years afterward cared for her family and her mother Henrietta, who was not in good health.

At the University of Missouri-Columbia, Marie's brother, Charles Jr., was a roommate and fraternity brother of Robert Burett Oliver. Charles, the president of his class, wrote home before Christmas 1873 and described his roommate as "sweet, good and noble as ever."

Charles contracted typhoid fever shortly after Christmas. Marie came to Columbia to nurse him, but her brother died a few weeks later.

When Oliver came to visit at the grieving Watkins home, he was greeted affectionately. He and Marie eventually fell in love.

She and Oliver married in 1879. By then he had graduated in law and was prosecuting attorney of Cape Girardeau County.

They lived in Jackson and later Cape Girardeau. The Oliver House in Jackson and the Oliver-Leming House at 740 North St. in Cape Girardeau are on the National Register of Historic Places.

Oliver was elected state senator, and served on the Board of Curators of the University of Missouri.

It was he who drafted the framework for the Little River Drainage District, a project which would transform the swamps of Southeast Missouri into rich farmland.

Both the Olivers were fascinated with history. He was the founder of the Cape Girardeau County Historical Society. She was a member of the United Daughters of the Confederacy, among other organizations, and was state regent of the Daughters of the American Revolution from 1908-09.

A DAR determination that Missouri needed a state flag prompted Mrs. Oliver to begin studying other state flags. She enlisted Mary Kochtitzky, a Cape Girardeau woman who was a skilled artist, to help with painting the design.

The state flag bearing the twin grizzlies and the state seal was created at the Oliver-Leming House during the waning months of 1908 and the beginning of 1909. The "Oliver Flag Bill" was adopted by the state in 1913 after twice passing in the Senate only to lose once in the House, and once in a more material way when the flag itself was destroyed in a fire in the state Capitol.

She died in 1944 at the age of 90, three months after fracturing her hip in a fall.

A memorial to Mrs. Oliver, published in 1945, called her "a truly notable example of the Christian Gentlewoman; guiding genius of a large and interesting family, charming hostess, able public servant, a writer gifted with wisdom and humor, she belonged to the vanishing era of spacious living. With it goes something rare and precious."

Much of the information for this story was taken from "Tearin' Through the Wilderness," a Watkins family history.