REMEMBERING MOST OF THE CENTURY WITH JEAN BELL MOSLEY

Jean Bell Mosley posed for this photo in the early 1950s.

Jean Bell Mosley in the late 1940s.

Mosley played basketball for Doe Run High School in the early 1930s.

Mosley after graduating from her high school class in 1931.

Mosley's grandparents, Stephen and Josephine Bell, as they appeared in the 1904 World's Fair in St. Louis.

Mosley among hollyhocks in her garde in 1958.

From her favorite perch on the back porch swing, Jean Bell Mosley watches the world. In her eyes, wrens building a nest in the backyard birdhouse or a butterfly emerging from its chrysalis take on importance parallel to world wars and changing politics.

"So much of my life has been observation," Mosley said. "Growing up on a remote farm, I had lots of time to sit and think."

Over the years, Mosley has developed the art of translating her observations to paper to tell a story. The Cape Girardeau writer has finished a monumental task -- telling the story of the century.

"It occurred to me that many writers would be summing up the 20th century as they have lived it," Mosley said. "I wanted to do that too -- I, an ordinary person, raised on a Missouri farm, who scrambled up through the Depression, experienced the wars, loss of loved ones, rejoiced at new births, survived the explosive '60s and somewhere along the way learned to write."

The book is titled "For Most of the Century." Mosley, 83, has lived most of the century. The years and events before her birth like the 1904 World's Fair in St. Louis and the coming of the automobile were just a prelude to her arrival.

Over the next year, Southeast Missourian readers can relive the century along with Mosley as the newspaper publishes her book in serial form, one installment a week. The first installment appears today.

Mosley keeps a daily journal, writing about events in her life and the world since she was young. Since mid-century, she has been writing a newspaper column in the Southeast Missourian and before that, the Bulletin Journal. She has published several hundred short stories and articles in magazines including Reader's Digest, Saturday Evening Post, Guideposts and Ladies Home Journal. She is also author of five other books.

"This manuscript is a bit historical since I touch on the big events of the century and how they affected me," Mosley said.

The book is divided by decades. Each decade has a number of titled selections. She writes of her life on the St. Francois county farm where she was raised -- the log cabins and old barns, the livestock and how her family made a living. She also writes of her spiritual journey, a constant theme throughout her writing career. In fact, this book had two other possible titles -- "And God Talked Back" and "No Mantra Needed." The titles choices reflect Mosley's spiritual experiences.

When she was 9 years old and walking home from school, Mosley thanked God for the beauty of the brisk October afternoon. But then she thought in all her conversations with God, she did all the talking. On this day, she asked for a reply. At that moment a ray of sunshine reflected off a brass carbide light abandoned along the path. "That reflection of light seemed like God was speaking to me," she said. Over the years, she hasn't doubted his presence in their conversations.

Since Mosley has a relationship with God, she explained, she doesn't need a mantra -- a chanted phrase to be repeated over and over during meditation. "I don't need one," she said. "I have direct communication with God."

But she decided her first choice best reflected the book.

The installments, banged out on her electric typewriter, tell of early Christmases, gas lights, eighth-grade graduation, the last visit to the old farmhouse and new beginnings.

She preaches writing down a family's history, and three years ago she decided it was time to write hers.

"I hope to live to see the new century," Mosley said. "But I decided I better do this now for my children and grandchildren."

At first, Mosley wondered if anyone would be interested in reading about her life. "It's really just things that touched my life -- wars and the Depression and all that stuff," she said. "Still I was involved in all that happened from the first decade until the last decade. I have lived for most of the century."