September 11, 2025

Visiting family history

A Back in Time special

By Marie White, Clarke County, Iowa history
Pictured from left to right are Kay Chaney, Marie White, Connie Curnes, Suzanne Williams, Jan Opferman and Bob Reynoldson stand outside 200 W. Jefferson St.. Opferman’s third great-grandfather built the building that Reynoldson owns and practices law out of today.

Pictured from left to right are Kay Chaney, Marie White, Connie Curnes, Suzanne Williams, Jan Opferman and Bob Reynoldson stand outside 200 W. Jefferson St.. Opferman’s third great-grandfather built the building that Reynoldson owns and practices law out of today. (Photo Leslie Torres)

Jan Opferman of Buffalo, Oklahoma, contacted me on my Facebook history page some time ago about a building in Osceola that her third great-grandfather, Bird Pritchett, had built in 1880. The red brick building became known as the Pritchett Opera House, with the opera house on the top floor and businesses on the ground floor. One such business was the Osceola Post Office, which moved to that location and opened Sept. 5, 1925.

Today, the building is the location of Reynoldson, Van Werden & McCoy, LLP, 200 W. Jefferson St..

I met with Jan and Suzanne Williams of California last Wednesday at the law firm. The two taught together for several years in California. We met with attorney Bob Reynoldson, who took us on a tour of the building. Also along for the visit was former long-time secretary of Reynoldson’s Kay Chaney, and Connie Curnes.

Connie’s husband David and his brother Doyle have family connections with Bird. One of Bird’s daughters married a Curnes, whose family owned and operated Curnes Grain Elevator at the corner of North Park and East Clay streets in Osceola.

The Curnes home was the large house across the street from the library where a parking lot is now. The Pritchett home was on the corner lot north of the library. After Bird’s death his widow sold it to the Presbyterian’s to build a church there. The Pritchett home was moved a few feet north where it stands today, between the church and the old Harken Hospital. To some it is known as “The Manse.”