Leo Reaves, son of Effie (Reaves) Yokum, was born on April 23, 1911. His father is unknown. In 1927, Leo was attending the Ash Grove School and living with his grandmother, Cassie Reaves. He was still living with Cassie in Ash Grove in 1930 and working as a general laborer. Clyde Jones remembers that Leo Reaves used to shine shoes on the corner of Calhoun and Main Street in Ash Grove, ca. 1950-60. He believes that Leo, at some point, served time in the Missouri State Penitentiary for robbery. Father Moses Berry thinks that Leo also stayed at the State Mental Hospital in Fulton, Missouri for a time, and remembers that he was a very large man. Wanda Carlock Berry, Father Moses’ mother, told him that Leo had once been kidnapped by some local teenagers, who tied him to a gravestone in the Ash Grove City Cemetery. After spending most of a night of struggling, Leo managed to pull the stone clear out of the ground. Wanda believed that this incident contributed to Leo’s mental illness. Leo Reaves died on August 6, 1978 (Russel 2012).
Grave Marker: Leo Reaves' specific place of burial within the Berry Cemetery is unknown and there is no known individual headstone for him. However, Leo is memorialized by the inscription of his name (shown below) on the monument, installed in 2017, for individuals interred in unmarked graves in the Berry Cemetery.
