From Plattsburg to NYC, Odd was a friend of the nation

You know you’re growin’ older when... Your favorite machine at the gym is the vending machine.

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There are ample definitions for the word history. One of my favorites I’ve found: history is the story of who we are, where we come from, and can potentially reveal where we are headed.

I’m thinking that pretty much covers the bases of what it means. In my judgment, that is what the Clinton County Historical Society’s mission is when looking at our past. Under the leadership of president Lesli Shaver, this investigation of our past has brought the group to focus on the life of Oscar Odd McIntyre.

That’s quite a mouthful of a name, and not one that most Plattsburgers would recognize today. However, from the 1920s through the 1930s, he was one of the most recognized, and I would dare say famous, columnists in the City of New York and all across America. One name-dropping friend was entertainer/columnist/humorist Will Rogers. Rogers made 71 films (50 silent films and 21 “talkies”), and wrote more than 4,000 nationally-syndicated newspaper columns. Rogers was a fan of O.O. McIntyre. How so, and what is the proof of such a claim?

Those answers and more will be revealed during the society’s featured event on McIntyre this Saturday evening from 6 p.m. to 7:30 p.m. at Tinnen Town Hall and Event

Center (100 E. Maple Street in the heart of downtown Plattsburg).

During the presentation, two videos will be shown, with one produced by the society’s membership. There is no admission charge, just a free will offering to help fund the group’s museum and events.

McIntyre began his career as a newspaper man, and from those humble beginnings, he grew to write a daily column, New York Day by Day, that grew to be published in more than 500 newspapers nationwide.

Here are some of the highlights from information provided by Ms. Shaver.

Oscar Odd McIntyre (OOM), 1884-1938

He was born at 206 W. Maple Street in Plattsburg, Mo., on February 18, 1884, to Henry Bell and Fanny Young McIntyre. When he was very young, his mother and sister, Georgia, contracted tuberculosis and died. After this, his aunt Dora Young and his maternal grandparents agreed to help raise Odd and his sister, Kate. After Dora Young contracted and passed from tuberculosis, Odd and his sister moved to Gallipolis, Ohio, to be raised by their paternal grandmother, Mary Joan McIntyre. They would return to Plattsburg in the summers. His father, Henry, was the owner of the LaClede Hotel back in its heyday.

Odd was a bit of a delinquent during his teenage years. When Henry McIntyre realized he wasn’t going to graduate from high school and his time at a business college in Cincinnati was wasted, he sent for him to come back to Plattsburg and learn the hotel business. Odd had developed a taste for beer during his time in Cincinnati. After a short time, his father gave up on him learning the hotel business, handed him $20 and sent him on his way. Years later Henry wrote, “He needed the shock of being sent adrift” to find his way.

McIntyre’s newspaper career began at the Gallipolis Journal in 1902. He then went to the East Liverpool (Ohio) Tribune as a feature writer in 1906. At the age of 22, he became the political writer and later managing editor of the Dayton Ohio Herald. After marrying his childhood sweetheart in 1907, he went from the Herald to the Cincinnati Post as a telegraph editor, city editor and assistant managing editor. In 1912 he took the big leap and moved to New York. He then started his syndicated column, New York Day by Day. His syndicated column made him one of the highest paid newspaper writers of his day, with an income of more than $200,000 each year (approx. 1.5million in today’s dollars).

He was also the author of several books, including The Big Town, Bright Light Nights, 23 Selected Stories, and Another Odd Book. He was a contributor to many magazines, notably Cosmopolitan, Life, Liberty, and the American Magazine. Offers to appear on radio went unanswered.

At age 53 he died on Valentine’s Day, February 14, 1938, of a heart attack at 2 a.m., at his Park Avenue apartment – four days before his 54th birthday. He was transported back home to Gatewood in Galli- polis for his visitation and funeral. He was buried high on a hill overlooking the Ohio River with a grave that simply said, “OOM”. Maybelle erected a bench later that read, “Beloved of a Nation.” Seven months after his death, his biography, The Life of O.O. McIntyre by Charles Driscoll, made the bestsellers list. He left an indelible record of how New York lived during his lifetime. A part of his lasting accolades include induction into the Ohio Journalistic Hall of Fame in 1951, a journalism fellowship at the University of Missouri in 1986 named the “O.O. McIntyre Postgraduate Writing Fellowship.” Also, his name graces the end of the official poem of the state of Oklahoma that also honors his friend, Will Rogers: “Well, so long folks, it’s time to retire, I got to keep a date with Odd McIntyre.”

OOM once wrote, “I am not writing for posterity, nor do I believe anything I write will live for more than a week or so after publication. I have found satisfaction in entertaining people a little every day.”

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Trivia question: Who is the only coach to win both an NCAA and an NBA title? A. Larry Brown; B. John Wooden; C. John Calipari; D. Dean Smith (find answer close by).

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Some more smiles from Oahu courtesy of Jim Nicholson…

“The only mystery in life is why the kamikaze pilots wore helmets.”

– Al McGuire

“War is God’s way of teaching

Americans geography.” – Ambrose Bierce

“It would be nice to spend billions on schools and roads, but right now that money is desperately needed for political ads.” – Andy Borowitz

“At every party there are two kinds of people – those who want to go home and those who don’t. The trouble is, they are usually married to each other.” – Ann Landers

“My opinions may have changed, but not the fact that I’m right.” –Ashleigh Brilliant

“Have you noticed that all the people in favor of birth control are already born?” – Benny Hill

“As a child my family’s menu consisted of two choices: take it or leave it.” – Buddy Hackett

“Trouble knocked at the door, but, hearing laughter, hurried away.” – Benjamin Franklin (Trivia answer – A. Larry Brown is the only coach in basketball history to win both an NCAA national championship (Kansas Jayhawks, 1988) and an NBA title (Detroit Pistons, 2004).

Food for thought: “The surest sign that intelligent life exists elsewhere in the universe is that it has never tried to contact us.” – William Boyd Watterson II (born July 5, 1958), American cartoonist and the author of the comic strip Calvin and Hobbes..

Talk to you next week!

Steve Tinnen stevetinnen@yahoo.com