VIENNA — When Jim Parker was a child, his family lived in three rooms on the second floor of the courthouse. That’s because his father, William Charles “WC” “Bill” Parker, was the Maries County Sheriff, and to this day is the longest serving sheriff in the county at four terms and 16 years. He served the citizens of Maries County as the top law enforcement officer from 1945-1959.

Parker, 78, of Vienna, was one of seven children born to Bill and Myrtle (Basford) Parker. He remembers playing in the courthouse as their residential rooms were located where the stairway is now that goes to the upstairs women’s jail. He said there were a few times when he put his younger brother, Terry, in the jail stairway. Their dog, Old Pal, would lay on the front steps of the courthouse like a guard dog. Parker said where the current sheriff’s office is now located in the basement of the courthouse, it was all open when he was a kid and they even hung up washed clothes to dry down there. His dad was not only the sheriff, but was the person who swept the courthouse, fired the coal burning stove, and unlocked and locked the building each business day.

An interesting thing about Bill Parker being sheriff, is that he followed a family tradition. A great-uncle, WC “Snitch” Parker was the county sheriff for one term from 1940 to 1944. And, Parker’s great-grandfather, William Columbus Parker was the sheriff from 1932 to 1936.

Parker was not interested in following in those law enforcement footsteps as he became a teacher and later a principal. But, his younger brother, Terry, was a state trooper and a Sergeant for the Missouri State Highway Patrol, Troop I, Rolla for 30 years. Terry Parker died young of cancer at age 66.

Parker’s other siblings are Joy (Butch) Chambers, 91, who lives at Victorian Place of Vienna, Louise (Wayne) Roberson, deceased, Billie (Paul) Havens, deceased, Nellie (Louis) Sandbothe, 84, Lake Ozark, Ruth (Sonny) Poor, 81, Lawson, MO, then Andrew James (Micki) Parker, 78, Vienna, and Terry (Barb) Parker, deceased.

Their parents met in St. Louis. Bill Parker did not go to high school. He attended public school in Vienna to the eighth grade then went to work. If first job was driving a team of horses pulling a wagon to Belle and back delivering supplies. When he was a little older he was as a bus driver for the St. Louis Transit System. Myrtle Basford worked at a hat factory and she rode his bus. They took notice of each other and got married when she was 17 and he was 21. They continued to live in St. Louis for several years until the transit system made all the drivers get a physical exam. Bill Parker was found to have a heart murmur and lost his job. They moved to Vienna, buying a small farm and building a house on the old Coates place, located between Vienna and the Gasconade River. It was sold to Berthal James later. Parker was born on that farm with Dr. Howard attending.

Parker said he parents must have had to sacrifice to pay for him to go to college at CMSU in Warrensburg. He was fortunate to be in college in those years as Vietnam was calling young men to take up arms in southeast Asia. Parker said, “It was a bad time” and there were men he knew who went to Vietnam and did not come back. He knew Ralph Branson, Jr., a Vienna youth who died from wounds received in the war. Highway 42 through Vienna is named in honor of Branson and his great sacrifice.

Parker said his father was a successful sheriff. He had an old pistol, a 38 Colt, but he rarely carried it. “When he spoke, people listened. Everybody listened,” Parker said of his father’s leadership skills. As a sheriff he had to deal with crimes such as stealing chickens and not people addicted to methamphetamine that Maries County Sheriff Chris Heitman and other law enforcement officers deal with so much today. Parker said Sheriff Heitman is the only Maries County Sheriff from the east side of the county ever to be elected to the position. Parker said he himself has seen many changes from his father’s days as sheriff to the current state of affairs. “Vienna’s changed a lot since I’ve been here.” He thinks today is a “rougher time” than when his dad was sheriff because people had more and better values in those days of the past.

He tells the story of a guy who came to town and was going crazy and was thought to be dangerous. Sheriff Parker and his Vienna Deputy, Les Armer, went to talk to the man who aggressively came out on his porch carrying a knife. Bill was a quick thinker and asked the man if he could use his knife to cut a toothpick to pick his teeth with. The man handed over the knife and they arrested him.

Another story is how Bill would look after paroled men from the prison in Jefferson City. Sheriff Parker’s uncle, former sheriff turned prison warden, Snitch Parker, sent some men to him. He would supervise them getting back into society. Parker recalls one man who got out and was working in St. Louis. He contacted Sheriff Parker asking him to come get him and take him back to prison. Being “outside” was too hard for him. That man had been institutionalized and died in prison, which is where he wanted to be.

William Charles “Bill” Parker (1906-1973), was a big man at 6’2” and 200 lbs. He was left handed. His parents were Bayard and Oma (Hutchison) Parker. He was the oldest of his siblings who were T.C. Parker, Aleen Hopkins, Virginia Buschmann, Marilee Williams Davis, and Bertha, who died very young of double pneumonia.

Parker said he was very easy going and had a mannerism about him that people accepted what he said. When Parker was teaching driver’s education to Vienna High School students, one day they stopped at Brune’s Store. He had a conversation with an “old timer” who told him, “Your dad is a good man,” which made him feel good. “Everybody had respect for him. People always told me things he did for them.”

Bill Parker unsuccessfully ran for county clerk before he was elected county sheriff.  As sheriff he enjoyed working with Deputy Les Armer and Judge Hollenbeck, and they all were friends. He had the opportunity to travel to other states as he transported prisoners. Later he worked as a clerk of the probate and magistrate court.

His last job was as the supervisor of the county’s commodity food program. There had been a debate about whether or not to bring this program to Maries County. Bill Parker said if he could find 10 people who deserved to receive the food they should do it. The result was the commodities program that helped many people for a number of years.

He always farmed, raising cattle and crops to help feed his hungry family of seven children. Parker said his dad used to say, “We never had much, but we always had enough.”

He was a Maries R-1 School Board member, serving with Al Bethel, Jerry Weidinger, Jack Allen, Tim Tackett, Mr. Redel and Travis John.

He was good friends with Carl Birmingham and Howard Jones who all became Honorary Colonels for Missouri Governor James Blair’s inauguration.

He loved his kids. One time he brought home a pony from St. Louis in the back seat of his 1949 Chevy car.

Bill Parker and his sons, Jim and Terry, enjoyed many outdoor sports, taking successful fishing trips to Canada. The boys trapped fur, coming home with raccoons, muskrats, minks, and on occasion a beaver. They enjoyed horses and steer wrestling. Bill and Jim quit smoking together. They always attended the Church of Christ.

Their family has a rich history, an American story, which probably began somewhere in Europe and landed in Cannon County, Tennessee. From there they moved westward in search of their own land and farms. They had mules stolen. They encountered bushwhackers and two of their kin, Cornelius Parker and John Wesley Parker, were killed by them. Cornelius died with a plug of tobacco griped in his fist as if to say, “You’re not getting my chew!” They encountered many hardships and death and still they kept moving westward, with family going to Arkansas and Texas. One of them came to Missouri and reported back to relatives that Missouri was good. Parker’s great-grandfather, William Columbus Parker, was born at Lanes Prairie in 1862, just seven years after Maries County became a county.

All of us have a similar story about where we came from and as we get older we see that each generation moves quickly to the next. The first Parker family members who came to Maries County have many descendants still living in Maries County.

Jim Parker’s story about how he met Micki Witt, his wife and the love of his life for 55 years, is quite romantic. Micki was babysitting the children of the Tuscumbia school superintendent and Jim Parker was interviewing for a coaching job, which was his first one after graduating from college. As the Tuscumbia school superintendent was leaving his home, he told Micki, “I’m going to go get a husband for you.”

Parker was 21 years old when he first saw Micki in a cafe in Tuscumbia. She definitely caught his eye. He was able to meet her when her brother hurt his foot and Parker drove him home.

He asked another, older male school teacher if he thought it would be okay for him to ask her out. She was just 18. The older teacher told him Micki was out of school so she was old enough, and if she accepted his invitation for a date, then he should go for it.

He did and their first date was in the middle of October 1964. He thought about her all the time and he didn’t want her to change her mind about him. He also didn’t want to lose her to some other fellow. He proposed and they were married on Nov. 7, 1964. The couple has been blessed with four daughters, Angie, Allis, April and Amber. These daughters are mothers also and they, along with their other Parker family relatives, continue the family line in Maries County.