Snyder: from Macks Creek to Preston
Some county stories start with a plat map. This one starts with a houseful of children, a wife gone too soon, and neighbors who decided somebody ought to “do something” with a stepdaughter— Ozark problem-solving of a kind that still makes people lower their voices at the table.
E. C. Snyder — Edgar Cross
Family tradition places Edgar Cross (“E. C.”) Snyder at Macks Creek for a spell, with a gaggle of offspring already in the picture. After his wife died young, the wives in the neighborhood pressed him to do something about his “outgoing” stepdaughter. He married Nellie Jane and they had a few more children. One of them was Willard Gilbert—“Gil”—Snyder.
Gil — Willard Gilbert Snyder
Gil Snyder moved north of Preston and farmed there for the long haul— dairy first, then beef—until his death in 2002. He is buried at Fisher Cemetery, almost adjacent to the ground he worked: a man laid to rest within sight of his own fences, which is about as respectable a closing sentence as a life can earn.
Before the settled years, family memory sends him ranging: Montana copper mining and explosives work, then home to Missouri. On the side he made wine and sold it to WPA / CCC road workers— “to maintain their morale,” the story says, with the smile that usually comes with that line. He ran a successful Jersey dairy until the industry's Grade A upgrade demands made the old setup untenable; then he switched to Black Angus and stayed in the cattle business with both feet.
People who knew him remember more than the ledger. He was an excellent clogger in his day; a crack shot who was frustrated if the quail in the bag did not outnumber the spent shotgun shells; an avid turkey and whitetail hunter; a quiet man with dimples and a devilish grin when he was feeling his oats. Like many men of his generation, he could work hard with little thanks coming back— and still set an honest example for his family. He was well respected until his death.
Mackey — Mack Snyder
Gil's son Mackey (“Mack”) Snyder eventually assembled nearly a thousand acres into what became the Quad-E Wildlife Ranch. The same Mackey Snyder appears today as president of the Hickory County Historical Society—stewardship of land and of county memory running in parallel, which is not an accident of paperwork.
Family lore also holds that some of the ranch's present boundaries may touch ground once tied to a Civil War–era land loss (and partial later restoration) involving a county patriarch who “picked the wrong side”— a thread that may connect to the Howard story. The map details are not yet remembered clearly enough to print as fact; see the Howard family page for the open question.
Sources: family oral history (E. C. / Nellie Jane / Gil / Mackey / Quad-E / Fisher Cemetery / dairy-to-Angus / Montana / WPA–CCC wine story / character notes). HCHS officer listing. Not yet fully cross-checked against deeds, vital records, or Index clippings.