Even though he died in 1974, if you were to ask an old timer in Newton County if they remember Sam "Fits" Luney, many would say, "Yes!" And many would have a Luney story or two. (Some also claim his name was spelled Fitz Looney.)
There are certain traits that help explain the life of Fits Luney. He liked to travel. No one seems to know why or how, but he claimed to have been in every state. As a young man, David Weems knew Luney and recalls that Luney once told him about a trip to Buffalo, New York.
Luney did not have any means of transportation. He hitchhiked. Many times he would simply make a sign with the name of his destination and hit the road.
Luney knew what was happening in the world, too. During the Roosevelt/Hoover election in 1932, Luney had a hitchhiking sign which read, "Give me a ride, or I'll vote for Hoover."
A tall man with a long stride, Luney sometimes took rides with people and did not approve of how they drove. He turned down a second ride, saying, "You drive too slow."
Many people claim they would see him waiting for a ride to some place like Joplin. Then when they arrived in Joplin, there was Luney, walking by the roadside or looking for a ride someplace else.
His long stride was one of his characteristics. In the 1940s when Weems returned from California by train, the first person he saw at the Joplin depot was Fits Luney.
"I could tell who it was by his walk," Weems said. "I knew I was home."
Luney had a love of the outdoors. Sometimes he had pet crows, but he always had a squirrel he carried in the bib of his overalls. Fits also liked coffee. Lots of coffee. He would often be the first customer at a cafe in the morning. Often he would order coffee with cream. He would drink the coffee and pour some of the cream in a saucer for the squirrel. Others claimed he carried an eye dropper to feed the cream to his pet.
Luney was known as a great woodsman who carried an axe wherever he went. He used the axe to trim trees for people. He did not use a ladder, but climbed the tree and hacked off the limbs with his axe.
More notably, he was a bow and arrow maker. He made some of his bows from cedar, but most were carved from bois d'arc wood. He formed the bows with his axe and finished the job with a draw knife. He also made arrows with cone-shaped steel tips. Since he liked to be around the railroad, people speculated that he picked up pieces of steel from around the tracks for his arrow tips.
On most of his travels he carried his axe, and bows and arrows. He sold the bows and arrows. It is said he could look at a bois d'arc tree and see a branch which would make a good bow, one that would flex evenly on both sides. He would then scale the tree and chop out that branch for his next bow.
For many years, Luney lived in a hotel room in Pierce City. Some say he inherited the room from some lady. However, Judge George Henry, of Neosho, recalls seeing him there. Judge Henry recalled that Luney lived in a tree house near the Henry farm east of Newtonia during some summers.
Once Luney acquired so many pet squirrels that he built a huge pen for them on the Hart farm between Stark City and Fairview. The cage, built around a tree, had bicycle wheels and other things inside for the squirrels to play on. There reportedly was a shed in the cage where Luney sometimes stayed.
Ruth Hart recalls there was also a Victrola in the cage and some records. She never heard it played, but always wondered why he had it there. She said that for several years her husband would let Luney ride from Neosho in their milk truck. Then she and her boys would take him to Pierce City for the night.
Hart said Luney worked hard for her family. He picked wild fruits, gooseberries, blackberries, and huckleberries for them. He also gathered wild nuts and acorns to feed the squirrels in his cage. In return, the Hart family often fed Luney his breakfast. He especially liked gravy, bread slices, and a pot of coffee.
Ann Kruse, of Fairview, recalls seeing Luney at the Hart Farm when she was a little girl. She was afraid of him, but she would peek around the corner of the house and watch him work or make a bow.
Kruse best summed up most people's feelings about Sam "Fits" Luney and the legacy he left behind. "He was unusual, but he was always around. I guess he was just part of the landscape," she said.
