Valorie Fauquier created this pieced and embroidered quilt for the 2015 Benton County Historical Society quilt raffle. Nine local landmarks are commemorated here. One block shows the Lover’s Leap on the Osage. Nowadays the leap ends with a splash in the upper reaches of Lake of the Ozarks.
According to the explanatory legend posted near the quilt, “Lover’s Leap remains an unusual rock formation along the Osage River. It can be seen across the river while standing near the south end of Drake Harbor,” which is on the lakeshore below downtown Warsaw.
Valorie spent several hundred hours detailing nine of the historical landmarks of Benton County. Members of the Historical Society sold raffle tickets through the summer and the drawing was held October 31. Mr. and Mrs. Troy Kessner of Independence Missouri had the winning ticket. They donated it to the Historical Society so everyone could enjoy it. We found it hanging in the Visitor Center, overlooking Truman Dam.
From our forthcoming book, Lover’s Leap Legends: From Sappho of Lesbos to Wah-Wah-Tee of Waco:
Just below Warsaw is another Lover’s Leap also with a vague legend. This leap was modest even before Lake of the Ozarks flooded its base. The 1950s postcard (above left) shows the plunge would even be even less than when the Osage River ran underneath. Though lacking a retrievable story, this Lover’s Leap is pictured on postcards from 1909 to the 1950s and is even a block on a quilt illustrating famous local landmarks.
See a flipbook of sample pages at our website: Hypercommon.com
Damming the Osage and all our books are available on this website, on amazon.com and at Barnes & Noble. Lover’s Leap Legends will be published Spring 2020.