When I came upon a picture of a neatly-dressed nine-year-old boy perched atop his pony on Formoso’s Main Street, I took an instant dislike to him. “Probably an entitled brat who wants to grow up to be a yachtsman,” I decided. I know my opinion was completely unfounded and unfair.
It’s a prejudice of mine developed from having seen The Magnificent Ambersons too many times. The Orson Welles film, adapted from Booth Tarkington’s novel set in an unnamed Midwestern village, follows the struggles of a prominent family forced to adapt to changing times brought on by the advent of the automobile. It’s a common theme in the history of many small towns, including Formoso and Lovewell.
In the film we’re introduced to the thoughtless young Amberson heir when he’s a spoiled hellion of ten with long curls dangling beneath his Buster-Brown hat as he races down the street at the reins of a small buggy. We next see him as a young man home from college at Christmas, offending everyone he meets and announcing his ambition to become a yachtsman. The whole town hopes that young George Minafer will someday get his comeuppance. By the end of the film, even if we’re not sure what a comeuppance is, we’re pretty sure he’s gotten one.
As for the photograph, it’s another one of those amateur postcards of early-day Formoso located on eBay. This one, snapped in 1907 by an anonymous shutterbug, shows “Master Harvey Turnby” astride his new pony. Happily, it also gives us a glimpse into the construction of the McCoy and Fink building, soon to house the Union State Bank of Formoso. At that very moment the bank was conducting business in some unused space one door south of the Formoso New Era newspaper office.
Only eighteen months after completion, the Union State Bank, George W. Trump’s department store, and most of the other businesses on the block would be destroyed or heavily damaged in the town’s most devastating fire ever. Fortunately the fire happened in 1909, the town’s zenith year, when Formoso’s prospects still looked rosy, and new structures would quickly spring up to replace them. Other buildings on the block would be remodeled to match.
Alarmingly, in December of 1912 an item in the Formoso New Era pointed out that eleven motor cars had been counted on Main Street all at one time. This was according to businessman C. W. Beedle, who had a vested interest in the matter. Beedle ran the livery barn, though he had recently opened a garage and was beginning to sell gasoline. There were still a few hundred feet of hitching posts around Main, but times were changing swiftly.
When fire consumed the Union State Bank for a second time in 1934, in the heart of the Great Depression, nothing was rebuilt. The debris from the Bank and from the adjoining Adams Grocery would remain an eyesore on Northwest Main in Formoso for the next thirty years, until the Athena Junior Women’s Club decided that some landscaping was long overdue.
As for young Harvey Turnby, he turned out to be nothing like George Minafer at all, but a polite and energetic young man who was always ready to pitch in to help his neighbors with their farm chores. The Turnby family moved to southern Nebraska a few years after the picture was taken, but Harvey would return to Formoso from time to time to see old friends.
No yachting cap was ever reported in connection with Harvey, nor was there any talk of hope for a comeuppance in his future.