101 YEARS AGO: A SAD SHOOTING AFFAIR - Little Earnest Mcgee Shot to Death by Playmate While Playing With Revolver

June 6, 1924, Ozark County Times - Earnest Mcgee, 12-year-old son of county superintendent Sam McGee, was fatally shot with a .38-caliber revolver by Vance Blizzard, 12-year-old son of Lonnie Blizzard, a few minutes after 3 o’clock Sunday afternoon at the Blizzard home of this place. The bullet hit and entered the skull just above the right eye. ... Drs. White, Pace and Bushong were in attendance a short time after the shooting and pronounced chances for his recovery hopeless, but to make sure that everything possible was done, the boy was taken to the hospital at West Plains in charge of Drs. White and Pace and accompanied by the father and a number of friends. 

At the hospital... the physicians pronounced his wound fatal and beyond the skill of man. The party returned to Gainesville with the boy. He died at 12 o’clock on the ferry boat as the party was crossing the North Fork. 

On Sunday after dinner, Mr. McGee and wife and small children and Mr. Blizzard, wife and small children, drove to the North Fork Bridge, leaving Vance and Earnest and a brother, Leo McGee, a few years younger. The boys... found the revolver, and Vance, in play, snapped the trigger a number of times at the boys. He left the room and was gone a short time. When he returned to the boys, he pointed the revolver at Earnest and said, “It’s loaded now.” He pulled the trigger...and Earnest pitched to the ground...

The parents say they know the revolver was not loaded, that they had removed the cartridges and hidden them. 

Burial was made in the Gainesville Cemetery Monday afternoon.