Nation.Īlthough she was born in Garrard County, Ky., Nation's ties to Missouri are strong. So determined was Nation to set America on the proper moral path that she changed her name from Carrie to Carry - to become Carry A. Her first husband's death from alcoholism in 1867, one year after their marriage, helped launch her on her temperance crusade. Nation was a tall, imposing woman who favored an alpaca dress, black cotton stockings, heavy square-toed shoes, black bonnet and navy blue cape. Unfortunately, Nation was born too soon to take heed of Carnegie's best seller, ``How to Win Friends and Influence People.'' Using iron rods, rocks and axes, Nation and her followers ransacked quite a few saloons, most of them in Kansas, where laws prohibiting liquor rarely were enforced.Ĭarry Nation became a household name in 1900 after a rock-throwing assault inside the Carey Hotel bar in Wichita, which she described as ``one of the most lawless places in Kansas.'' Truman farmed in the area before he entered politics and came to Belton to do his business and joined the Masonic Lodge here.''įor a decade preceding the Prohibition years, Nation, the original Mother Against Drunk Driving, railed against the evils of alcohol and tobacco - holding a Bible in one hand and her trademark hatchet in the other. ``It's kind of hard to understand, because Carry wasn't even born here and Dale Carnegie was.
``Strangers ask about Carry Nation 3 to 1 over Dale Carnegie,'' says Jackson, president of the Belton Historical Society.
Visitors to the Belton Museum show more interest in exhibits about the life of Nation, who is buried in the town cemetery, than others featuring native son Dale Carnegie and one-time resident Harry S. For the life of him, Weldon Jackson can't quite figure out why people are so curious about Carry Nation, who wielded a hatchet in her crusade against demon rum at the turn of the century.
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