My real Grandpa and real Grandma, I remember going to Christmas party at my grandpa's mansion, I was 4 years old and got to set on his lap and he said who's boy is this? They said Robert's boy. The house had a big basement where the party was and walk in coolers. I was following around my cousins Ike and Jimmy Ray, they are older than me and didn't like me following them around, we were upstairs and out on the balkline, and Ike was big and strong and picked me up and held me over the garage by my feet. I never forgot that.

Charles Isaac “Ike” Stafford

Birth

6 May 1887

Buffalo, Dallas County, Missouri, USA

Death

1 Nov 1960 (aged 73)

Springfield, Greene County, Missouri, USA

Burial

White Chapel Memorial Gardens

Springfield, Greene County, Missouri, USA

Memorial ID

15798217 ·

Married:

Emma Mae Strudevant 05 August 1906, in

Buffalo, Dallas Co., Missouri

Flossie May Owens 22 March 1914 in Dallas Co., Missouri

Ercell Owens 28 June 1918

Ruth Newton 09 August 1938 in Pine Bluff, Jefferson Co., Arkansas

Children: Floyd E., Lloyd B., Alta Jean Stafford Triplett, Alva, Charles Raymond, James Leland and Robert Eugene.

Ercell Carmen Owens Hendon

Birth

10 Dec 1901

Dallas County, Missouri, USA

Death

10 Jul 1983 (aged 81)

Springfield, Greene County, Missouri, USA

Burial

Macedonia Cemetery

Buffalo, Dallas County, Missouri, USA

Memorial ID

15798069 ·

I remember story about my grandpa and Pretty Boy Floyd - Charles Arthur Floyd,

who saved my grandpa's life. My grandpa was driving a livestock truck and run off the road down embankment and Pretty Boy stopped and pulled C.I. out and took him to the hospital because grandpa C.I. hit his head badly. Pretty Boy asked C.I. if he could make it inside on his own because he said the laws was after him.

I'm here to tell you Bonnie and Clyde didn't die like they said in the movie; Bonnie had pet hogs and would bring them to the Joplin, Missouri stock yards and tell me she didn't want it killed. This was the late 1960's and early 1970's and she talked to me every week. She did have round scares from bullet holes on her arms and at the end of sale Clyde would pick her up in his old pickup truck.

Bonnie called me Markey and Clyde were a tall man who had a limp and roll his hand around telling Bonnie to rap it up. Bonnie would jar up black berries and sale them too. I don't know who was put in the graves with their name on them, but it wasn't them.

My mom's side of the family called me Steve and my dad's side of the family all called me Mark Stafford, I stayed with my real grandma most of the time growing up on the farm in the Ozarks in Missouri.

IKE STAFFORD

Charles Ike Stafford passed away peacefully in Ozark, Missouri on February 20, 2024 at the age of 74 after a long illness. He was born to Raymond Stafford and Lorraine Stafford on August 3, 1949.

Ike graduated from Glendale High School in Springfield, Missouri in 1967. He found his passion in life at an early age, through martial arts. He began taking Taekwondo lessons in the early 1970s. He became a black belt and founded his own gym, Martial Arts Center, which was located on Republic Road in Springfield for many years.

Ike turned his focus to kickboxing and was ranked in the top 10 in the world. While ranked #6 in the world, he fought for the world kickboxing title against world champion Yasuo Tabata in Tokyo, Japan on July 19, 1985. He earned respect in Japan, and as a trainer and manager he brought many fighters to Japan to compete. He trained hundreds of people in both Taekwondo and kickboxing. He created Fight Game Productions and promoted many kickboxing shows in the Springfield area. He was a Budo man and his love for the fight game was unparalleled.

He is survived by his sons, Brandon Stafford, Shane Stafford and Seth Stafford; his grandsons, Garrett Stafford and Logan Sisco; and his sisters, Jane Humphrey and Beth Garrison, with his sister Sharon McCullough having recently passed before him.

I took a few lessons from Ike and because a orange belt, I had taken Kung Fu from another teacher before that and went to St. Louis, MO to fight and met Burce Lee who put on a sord demo and seen Ike there too. I lost my fight because I broke nose of another fighter. I've always been more of a street fighter and Ike got really mad at me because I got in a fight with one of his black belts in a bar, Ike wanted to put on the gloves with me and I told him I knew nothing about boxing, so we fight with fist, and he gave me black eye and cracked a rib.

I know the whole run down about Ike but, we don't talk that way of the dead. And Ike turned his life around for the good.