MANY people look at the grave of Anna L. Davis. Her final resting place is among the most viewed in the state of Missouri, USA.

As far as I am aware, she did not make much of an impact during her life. As they say in those parts, her life did not add up to a whole hill of beans. She was born in 1871 and passed away in 1934, a spinster. The only thing I know about her is that she was the daughter of Luanna Davis and grand-daughter of Euphrates Davis.

I looked at her grave the other week, more out of curiosity than anything else. As I stood there in central Kearney, Missouri, I fulfilled a promise I had made to myself back when I was 16.

The origins of that promise could be traced to when on holiday from school, perhaps as a 14 year old, I found myself at something of a loose end. My mother suggested I read one of her library books. It dealt with a Confederate soldier on a mission behind Union lines during the American Civil War.

He was escorted by various sympathizers during his hazardous journey and then was ferried across the Missouri by a young, country-smart, as opposed to street-smart, teenager. There were a few pages of dialogue, all fiction. The lad was sassy and knowledgeable and went by the name of Jesse James.

He did not feature again in the book but, a month or so later, my parents and I were watching a televised western. Suddenly the inhabitants of the town were warned by a breathless outrider that Jesse James was coming. The men duly climbed on their horses, put their wives and families in the buckboards and high-tailed it out of town.

A group of horsemen appeared, rode through the town, stopped briefly in the centre, discharged their revolvers in the air and rode off, never to appear again in the film. That puzzled me. How could a person become famous doing that? Could I achieve a modicum of the same cycling to Chandlers Cross and firing my airgun in the air?

One could not source the internet in those black and white days but, with help of Watford Reference Library and a few pointers, I started to spend my pocket money importing books, via Foyles, from the USA. Soon I became an expert of Jamesiana – the study of the James-Younger gang, their part as guerilla fighters during the war, the bank and train robberies, the arrest of the Youngers and the assassination of Jesse as he adjusted a picture at his family home in the White House on the Hill, as it became known.

I vowed to go there one day, and see that house in St Joseph and also visit his grave and perhaps see his old homestead where he was brought up. However, the prospect as revealed by the atlas looked unlikely. Western Missouri is a long way from the tourist paths.

A couple of years back, when the Americans engaged in one of their favourite other pastimes, apart from eating, there was an organized spate of navel-gazing as to who is the most famous American the world?

Some came up with Charlie Chaplin but the organizers appeared to be settling on Elvis Presley, with Marilyn Monroe sashaying into second place. Michael Jackson and Chaplin vied for third. Then a hitherto unconsidered name was put forward, blowing the concept apart.

Ultimately the most famous American name the world over, was decided upon: Jesse James. Almost everyone has heard the name, even if vague about his fame.

My 250-mile detour to take in the White House on the Hill in St Joseph proved a far greater success with my better half than I expected. Ellie delighted in seeing “history”, the bullet-hole and the actual picture Mr Thomas Howard, as he was calling himself, was straightening when “the dirty little coward, who shot Mr Howard and laid Jesse James in his grave” with a shot to the back of the head.

Later we travelled to Kearney and saw the James Farm, toured the museum and the homestead and marveled at the beauty, tranquility and the total absence of commercialism. It might just as well have been in the middle of Whippendell Woods.

We saw where Jesse was ploughing as Union soldiers came and beat up the youth and his mother and strung up his step-father. We saw where his step-brother was killed and his mother lost her arm as the result of a ‘bomb’ thrown by law-enforcers. And we noted his mother’s bed, angled to enable her to see her son’s grave and make sure it was not vandalized.

Finally, we went to the cemetery in Kearney to see where Jesse was reburied and I mused It had been over 60 years ago since I had made that promise to myself.

With that, I turned, as must many, and looked at the gravestone next to his. It belonged to someone I had never heard of: Anna L. Davis, spinster.