revised biography

8/14/2019 Revised Biography

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George Martin Rex

Born June 12, 1931 Kirkwood Missouri

Parents Father, Clarence Bartlett Rex Mother, Clara Katherine Martin

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KIRKWOOD MISSOURI

My earliest memories have few that include my father. The ones I havemay depend more on being told of him. One story is of mother and father takingme to the Ringling Brothers circus. They were very disappointed in my reaction.It seems that I sat very still and quiet and did not laugh or show any enjoymentof the performances. Once the show was finished and we went home and forsome time afterward they were deluged with vivid descriptions of every detail of the three rings of activity. There had been no reaction because I wasconcentrating on seeing it all.

Things mother told me about my father- he was a golfer and his clubs(1930s type) were in the attic in Ft. Smith, perhaps mother played also but I don’tknow. He smoked a pipe and some were also in a steamer chest in the attic. Heliked un-frosted angel food cake which is probably why I prefer mine only lemonglazed. His red leather easy chair went with Mother in all her moves and she satin it in the apartment in Little Rock. Father bought mother a small wooden rocker

after I was burn which I still have. At some point one of the thin shaped spokes of the back was broken. I would like to find a wood shop that could repair it. Thechair is in our front living room along with a wood stool that from Uncle had infront of his chair in hie living room. A very nice oil painting that I got from motherhangs by the stair to the attic and I would love to know who the artist was.

Because Father had a ‘strawberry’ birthmark on his forehead he did notlike to have his picture taken. Evidently I was born with one on my back and onebehind my left ear which were burned off with radium which resulted in smallscars. I doubt that that would not be done today. Some children’s shoe storessuch as Buster Brown used to x-ray feet to see the fit of shoes a practice longsince stopped, no doubt when the realities of radiation exposure were

understood.

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Evidently my Father was interested in the Hot’ cars of his day Mother saidhe owned a Rio and a Cord. I wish I knew what the car he is pictured with herewas. I think my mother was also employed by the Frisco railroad and may havebeen my father’s secretary. Or worked in office. Mother was able to secure tickets

for John and I to have Pullman car sleeping rooms with bunk beds for our trips toCarrolton by way of St. Louis. An overnight trip under the care of a negro portermother knew. We had the run of the train and went to the rear smoking car tolook out of the platform at the end and those where the cars were connected. Weate supper and breakfast in the dining car, I think the conductor provided for usas I don’t remember paying for those meals myself. A friend of Mother’s met usat the station in St. Louis and took us to the bus station to go on to Carrolton..

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I was born June 12, 1931 at St Louis Maternity Hospital in Kirkwood Mo. Myfirst home was Apt D, Russell Arms, and 3302 Russell Rd. St Louis Mo ON June25... The picture of me in a crib which was a family heirloom was taken in Aunt

Louise’s bedroom on December 12, 1931. I was six months old.

I was baptized on October 11 at Tyler Place Presbyterian in St. Louis andnamed George for grandfather Rex and Martin from mother’s family name.George Rex was also my father’s older brother’s name.

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According to the Rex Genealogy book published in 1931 the first GeorgeRex in America was the UN acknowledged son of King George III and HannahLightfoot known as the “Fair Quakeress”. They had several children the first twowere female. The third was a son (George Rex II) and following on in Line Threeto my father’s older brother. There are several published books about Hannahand her relationship to George III.

This photo and the one of John in mother’s lap are from a very extensiverecord in the baby book mother kept of my early life. Many other facts will beadded to what may be viewed by the reader as an exhausting ego trip. I do knowthat mother also had a baby book following Johns early years and I hope hisfamily has it but as I remember it was not as extensive. Probably due in part tothe death of our father and her move to Rogers,

Aunt Lucy was one of four sisters, grandmother, Aunt Lena and Aunt Nina

who probably was the youngest; she was the last to die at about 92. I visited herin a nursing home in Hot Springs Arkansas. She was bed ridden for at least twoyears and very impatient to die. “Why won’t He” let me go? Was her question atthe time? She still had the active mind of a former school teacher.

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John came into the world December 11, 1933 while we lived here. Thepicture below of mother with baby John seems to have been on the front porch of the Walker home on W. Walnut Ave in Rogers Ark I remember the fluted columns.

Our next stop was 217 East Adams in Kirkwood. This was the house Iremembered and made the background for my short story “George and theSquirrel.” This was our home until Fathers death

This photo of Mother holding John was taken on Aunt Lena’s andUncle Wyeth’s front porch.

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Mother then moved to 615 W, Walnut in Rogers Arkansas where we liveduntil the start of World War II in Dec 1941. Mother lived on what Father left heruntil she needed to go to work. She moved to an apartment in Ft. Smith and Johnand I were placed in St Anne’s convent which was two blocks away. I was half finished with grade five. John and I lived with the sisters of Mercy until Mothersent me to Gulfport Miss to attend Gulf Coast Military Academy. The sisters livedin a four story stone building with dormitories’ for grade school boys on the thirdfloor and a fourth floor dorm for high school girls. The elementary school wasacross Grand avenue from the larger campus that contained the Catholic churchwhich faced down Garrison Avenue, the main drag and former parade ground of old Fort Smith. Also on this campus was the Catholic high school, the MercyHospital and a stone grotto with statues of Jesus, Mary and Joseph. The grotto

was built around the stone chimney of Andrew Jackson’s home from when he wasthe commanding officer of the fort. Garrison Avenue was six lanes of traffic andtwo lanes of diagonal parking that continued across the Arkansas River into stockyards in Oklahoma. I got a ticket there in one of my illicit uses of Mother’s car,doing dido’s in an open area

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The last two years of H.S. I returned to Ft. Smith and lived with Mother and John at 2703 Kincade. The house was the second from the corner of Kincade andGreenwood. Next door was the home of Lola Allen, a second grade teacher andher mother.

This house had a living room behind which was the dining room and onback was the kitchen. A wide archway the front living room to the dining room adoor on the left to mother’s bedroom and a door further on to the kitchen.Continuing back from mother’s room was a door to John and my bedroom thenthe small bathroom. The stairs to the second floor went up from a small utilityroom in very short hall connecting the dining room and our bedroom.. The secondfloor had a large attic area with a door to a room which was our playroom in goodweather and a door to a screened sleeping porch looking out on back yard. Agarage sat on the back right corner with a sliding door out to the alley. Theaccess door from the yard went into a sort of workshop storage area. It had workcounter on which I had cages for guinea pigs and a chemistry set. There wereoften roaches in it but I never saw them in the house

Mother was a great supporter of the University of Arkansas football teamperhaps because John went there and was on the tennis team for two years. Shewas such a fan that when a stadium for the team was built in Little Rock shebought stadium bonds which provided her with two 50 yard line box seats. Twicewhen she went out of town to foot ball games I was able to sneak the car out of the garage and use it.

The house was the second house on Kinkade with a brick building usedthen as an ice cream plant behind it. The ivy covered back wall of which edgedone side of our back yard. Across the alley was a small mom and pop grocery.Lola Allen a second grade teacher was our neighbor on the other side of our

house. Her elderly mother lived with her. As mentioned elsewhere she tried toteach me hand writing, not very successful it seems. One of the unintendedresults of this was that I use two different lower case r’s in my writing. Dependingwhich lettrt the r proceeds or follows. Evidently I was taught the r that looks likestump in elementary school, Lola had me use the somewhat “v” like one. I wastotally unaware of this until the mrn’s dean at Hendrix pointed it out to me whenI was called to his office foe something relating to my working as a laundrypickup and delivery agent for a laundry in the dorm. Several times a week I wentabout the dorm to collect laundry an place it in a large cabinet outside my room. Iwas the only such agent to provide washed and ironed dress shirts. Two otherboys dealt with suit and slack cleaning.

This laundry deal provided a regular substantial income to supplement theallowance Mother gave me. At one point I also worked in the dining hall dishwashing room for about three months.

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.

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I have some memories of our home in Kirkwood Mo., a part of St. Louis.We lived in a two-story stucco house with two stairways, one in a wide entry hallwith carpeted steps and the other of narrow plain wood steps that led down to adoor at the bottom into the kitchen. I remember sitting at bottom of the kitchenstair and teasing our black cook who may also have been the house keeper. MyMother said that I called her Aunt Jemima as she reminded me of the picture on

the pancake box.

I remember the front hall staircase as a place where I played and where Ifell with a wooden balloon stick in my mouth. The stick jammed into and tore mytongue and I seem to remember mother walking me to a doctor’s office nearbywith the stick still embedded. The damage was so bad that three stitches wereneeded and they left a long jagged scar on my tongue that remained for years. Iliked to stick my tongue out to show the scar well into my teens.

In the front yard had a least one large pecan or walnut tree that attractedsquirrels. I have written a short story based on this, “George and the squirrel” in

which the maid helped me trap a squirrel.

I have little memory of the rest of the house except for being sick in abedroom and having people around me as I struggled to breathe. I had bronchialphenomena perhaps at that time or close to it and as a result have had breathingproblems ever since. St. Louis at that time had soft coal heating and the coaldust was in the air and probably contributed to my poor breathing. Even after wemoved to Arkansas I continued to have asthma and allergies and I still have aconstant post nasal drip. I have been diagnosed as being allergic to MT. Cedar,eggs, grass seed and similar windblown stuff.

Mother was my father’s second wife. His first was still living and they had

one son, my older half brother Clarence. My Father was Clarence Bartlett Rex andhis first son was also named Clarence. Father was general auditor for the Friscorailroad and mother I believe had been his secretary. I remember seeing Clarence(2) only one time as a child and I have a photograph of me, my younger brother

John with Clarence’s (2) son David riding in a wagon. I think I do havesomewhere a brief info note about fathers family, I do know Bartlett was part of his mother’s maiden name.

That must have been on a trip we took through St. Louis and on which wevisited father’s grave and I believe visited some of mothers old friends. We musthave been on our way to visit my grandparents. Grandmother Zelda and her

second husband, Clark Thomas were farmers in Carrollton Illinois. And I havemany happy memories of their farm. At harvest and haying time I helped get thebailed hay loaded and into the barn loft. One chore was grinding dried field cornto be mixed with house slops for fog feed which was poured through the fenceinto a trough in the hog lot just inside and a few feet from the front yard. This lothad several tent shaped huts for the mother sows.

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My Early Childhood in Rogers Arkansas

Following my father’s death in 1933 my Mother moved us to Rogers andrented a small house on W. Walnut less than a block from her aunt(grandmother’s sister). The house had a small front porch with a swing, The frontroom had a fake fire place with a mantle over which was a reproduction of the

“Cowper Madonna” The couch and a red leather easy chair, a gate leg table, tallclock all of which must have been in our home in Kirkwood and followed us to FtSmith and some on to mother’s apartments in Ft. smith and then Little Rock.Next on back to the right a dining room again with dining table, chairs and buffetwhich John took to his home when he married and I believe along with the porchswing followed him with his various moves. There were two gate-leg tables and Ihave one and John took the other and had it refinished.

I believe the photos below were taken on visit to family (?) where I don’t,but I think my Father’s sister in San Antonio perhaps. I do not know any of hisfamily that are still living. I seem to remember the sister may have been FunkyFox and was with the S.A. schools but I don’t know really. It is a real shame tolose track of family.

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I don’t really know. They are dated spring of 1936 so John would be about twoand me 5 but I think the date is wrong. Both sets of pictures probably were of our Easter outfits.

Behind the living room next to the dining room was mother’s room with

other furniture that traveled along with her and John and me. Next back on theleft was the bath then John and my bed room with twin beds a chest of drawerswhich Mother kept with every move and was in her apartment in Little Rock whenshe died. Past the dining room on the right was a nice sized kitchen then on backto a small room out of which was a door on he left opening to a stair up to the

attic room which was our play room. A small single car garage was toward theback of the lot with a small garden area with asparagus that grew very tall as itwent to seed. To harvest it must be cut early before it got more than 6 to 10inches tall. A swing set and boxed sand pile was in the back yard.

The house was between two other houses in the last block on the road thatwent on west and then north to Bentonville the county seat where we had to go

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to get our school books. About a quarter mile out on south side of the highway afamily who brought the second movie theater to town built a home out on theBentonville road. The house on our right was a single story brick the one to theleft was a large two story wood structure.

The large house sat on a very large lot and it was torn down when I was inthe first grade and a six or eight cabin tourist court each cabin with an attachedopen garages was built toward the back right hand corner. An old man who livedin the house often sat on bench under a tree in the front yard and smoked hispipe. He filled it with Prince Albert tobacco from a tin which the crow owned by aboy who lived across Walnut from us. He said “If you cut a dandelion off atground level and tapped repeatedly on the root , worms would think it wasraining an come to the surface, tried that with no success but who knows. “ Doyou have Prince Albert in a can? Better let him out.” Was a prank we loved toinflict on the drug store.

The crow was a regular thief of bright objects. The boy was an EagleScout. He had cages in his garage of several kinds of small animals and snakes,copper heads, rattlers and water moccasins I think. Next door to the scout livedan elderly lady with a large flower garden with a tall castle like raised bed. Hercollection of U.S. postage stamps got me started on my collecting. I believe shewanted an early stamp my grandmother gave me which she did not have. Hercollection was faked up with blocks of four that were really four singles mountedtogether to look like blocks. She traded me out of the stamp she wanted I guessconvincing ne that the stamp she swapped with me was a better one. I laterrealized that the swap was not good and managed to swap back.

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Across the dirt road side street was a house on a raised ground with asmall candy and soda shack on the front corner. Dirt streets went along bothsides of our block and one ran on back to lighted ball park. A concrete retainingwall about 24 inches tall and 12 deep ran from the corner across the front andsloped away to curb height.

The road south toward Fayetteville ended in the large wide intersection. This wall was often run into by cars that had gone south to get alcohol as BentonCounty was dry. To make the wall more visible and less of a target it was paintedwhite with diagonal black stripes but to no avail as the cars continued to hit itand sometimes almost continuing on into the house. A blinking light hangingover the intersection did not stop all this mayhem and a concrete pylon four feetsquare at the base and four tall with a blinking light on it was hit several time,once killing 3 or 4 people. The most interesting vehicle to hit the wall that did goon into the front of the house was a truck load of cantaloupes which providedbreakfast fare for neighbors in all directions.

Four houses on into town was Aunt Lena and Uncle Wyeth’s large house.

Two floors of living space, attic and basement laundry room with a large pantrystocked with produce from their farm including quart jars of tomato juice and abox of saltines. I could get a quart of tomato juice to take out on the second floorporch with a stack of early 1930s National Geographic’s from the bookcases onthe landing just inside. Read the mags and look at the naked native girls.Naughty naughty

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Uncle Wythe and perhaps two other Rogers Arkansas businessmenfounded the Progressive life Insurance Company with a building downtown.Across in front of the building was Lane Hotel, owned by a cousin of Tom lane’sfather. Today it is the Peachtree at The Lane. The picture below shows additionsto front which were not there when I lived in Rogers. The bus station was acrossthe street in front of the Hotel and on the fourth corner was a Magnolia gas

station with the old pumps that had a glass jar type top that filled with gas to bepumped.

The other view shows a restaurant Uncle Wythe added on. He insisted that atoaster be available for each table at breakfast.

Just past the edge of town was a creek that ran under the highway and John and I and a neighbor boy played under the bridge in the creek to catch frogsand throw rocks to splash. Once I was up in a tree at the back corner and thatboy threw a rock at me. Either I caught it or I had one in my pocket and I threwback at him. I hit him on top of his head and the rock sunk in enough that he ranhome with it there. Must not have been a big deal as I don’t remember that I gotin trouble.

We were members of the Presbyterian Church. John and I went to SundaySchool and sometimes mother took us to services. Pictured below are the frontsteps and the Sunday School class. I remember a man there who when asked hisname would reply “Edy McQueedy Grandover lockensloy Jones” which I havequoted many times when asked my name.

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Summer occupations included making kites and paper planes; At leastonce I made some stilts. A barrel hoop could be guided along the walk with Tsick, we got metal oil cans from the filling station on the corner and stompedthem to catch around our shoes and made a great clatter running on them.School recess games were softball work-up, red rover hide and seek and others of that sort. After the showing of the first Jesse James movie cowboys and Indians

became the James gang. Two other movies of that era were Treasure Island andthe Buck Roger Serial and then wolf man, zombie, Dracula, Frankenstein etc

Clarence Bartlett Rex

b.6/2/18841st wife Dixie Bell McCleary 2nd Clara Katherine Martinb. 12/7/1900 -1983

Clarence (Jr.) George Martin David Austin10/10/1939 6/12/1931

Janet Brown John Williams 11/11/1933

Berta FayeJohn -David Rebecca NMI – George Martin –Madeline Charles Morgan - Jan Bartlett

James Russell - Rochelle NMIDates and Children e

Janet and my children

Rebecca b. 4/24/57 – 1 daughter Rachel Rex Turner 1/7/75 -3 children -Jamie

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Oliver Rex

George Martin II aka Geoffrey Marshal Reagent – no issue

Charles Morgan 9/8/? – m. Marilyn – no issue

Jan Bartlett -? /?/? 1st wife, Elaine –2 children –Isaac, Ryan

2nd. Wife Beth 2 step children, Kris, Rachel

James Russell “Russ”– Janis (JJ) 2girls

Rochelle n.mi

Need to add birthdays, anniversaries and other bio stuff here

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Clarence Bartlett Rex II.

The following can be a bit confusing, two Clarence’s my father and his firstson, two Johns my younger brother and his oldest son, and two David’s Clarence Jr’s son and younger brother’s John’s youngest.

My nephew John Rex, brother John’s oldest son now a research physicianworking on viral infections, was contacted via the internet at his home in Houstonby the son of my father’s oldest son Clarence’s son David from his home in Katy

Texas. David Rex, again Clarence’s son is/was the Houston area Boy Scoutdirector. He was starting on doing research on our family history and was tryingto locate his father’s younger sons, George and John. He asked in an e-mail if this John Rex had a brother George. John (called Johnny by his parents) replied toDavid Rex that he had no brother George but he did have younger brother named

David also. With a few more back and forth messages they came to realize thatthey had a generation problem. The John Rex with a brother George was thisDavid’s father.

Clarence, whose mother was still living when Mother took us to see himwhen I was ten, Clarence at that time did not want to really know his half brothers and any letters we wrote over the years were never answered, motherfelt that his wife may have diverted the letters as she may not have wanted us tobe close. But now if David wanted to contact us and bring us together he wasnow ready to do so. A visit was scheduled for the following Thanksgiving atDavid’s home in Katy and John and I made plans to go to Houston so we couldget together.

Shortly thereafter Johnny was informed that Clarence’s wife of some sixtyyears had died. She was a very active 80+ year old who regularly swam across alake near their home. She collapsed while shopping at a mall and was taken tohospital. Exploratory surgery revealed that organs had failed and becomegangrenous and nothing could be done. When Johnny was informed of her deathwe thought that the meeting was off but David said no, his father still wanted tosee us and he would bring him to Katy.

I drove to Houston to stay at a motel. John and Berta Faye werestaying with John and Sara. I had Thanksgiving dinner with them and the

following day John and I drove to Katy. Many of David’s family were there as awedding of his daughter was in the works. John and I together with David and hiswife and others had a nice about three hour visit and took some pictures.

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Clarence was very surprised to hear our side of our father’s death. He wastotally unaware of the cancer and knew only of the Father’s gunshot death. Atthe police station when he went to retrieve some father’s effects he was offeredthe pistol which he rejected. I think that for all these years he had believed thesuicide was caused by remorse relating to his leaving Clarence Junior’s motherand marriage to my mother.

Shortly after we returned to Johnny’s home I received a call from Jane withthe news that Janet had died. The next day I drove to Fredericksburg to be withall of our children as they gathered for Janet’s funeral. I did not stay for theservice as I needed to get back to teach...

Some weeks later I went alone to Houston to go to Katy and see Clarenceagain. We had a good meeting, just the two of us. John with his business travelwas able to visit him twice once he moved back home. He was 84 at the time of our meeting and aware that he had prostate cancer for which, at his age, noradical treatment was recommended and he died about two years later.

Carrollton Illinois

Zelda William’s first husband and Mother’s father died due to a long illnesswith tuberculosis. She was a very strong minded woman and when mother’sfather moved to Arizona to a dryer climate for his health she made him moveback to Arkansas where he died.

Grand mother Zelda, as I knew her, had a ‘dowager hump’ but I think itwas more due to having her back broken several times, twice in car wrecks. Shealso had a 3" thick sole on one shoe again due to her injuries. Neither of theseprevented her from being an active farm wife, tending to the cooking,housekeeping, gardening and taking care of the chicken yard or wringing thenecks of the Sunday chickens and pumping water. She had a two story house tokeep with bedrooms on two floors and a cellar food pantry. She cooked for herfamily and field hands, canned, made soap and butter. But heaven forbid any of that to prevent her from listening to her ‘soaps’- Stella Dallas, Just Plain Bill, TheLady in White et al.

She had three sisters, Lena, Lucy, and Nina. Ask Tom if he knows whichone was eldest. She and Lena were courted by Wyeth Walker but she thoughthim too dull and “gave” him to Lena. This may have been a dumb move on herpart. He formed a partnership with two other men in Rogers Arkansas which had

among their interests a local life insurance company. He became president of Progressive Life which developed a branch in Little Rock which became Union Lifewhich in turn was a major financial factor in Little Rock.

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Zelda wanted Clark Thomas to marry her. He took off for Washington Stateto homestead some land. Not to be denied she followed him by wagon train.She persuaded him to marry her and they returned home. They moved toCarrollton Illinois to farm the 140 acres he inherited from his father. They tookmother with them and left Thelma, the younger daughter, with family inSpringdale Arkansas. This was the fact that soured the relationship between

mother, Thelma and their new half sister Lena Louise, born at the farm.

*Clark (?) had two brothers who farmed on adjacent farms and they ownedsome equipment together. Wheat and corn harvesters as well as a hay bailer andplanters were some of the machines moved from farm to farm. The three menalso had hired men living on each of the farms to help with the plowing, plantingand harvesting.

Aunt Louise married one of them, Haunts Lynn but I am not sure how longthis marriage lasted. She next joined the Army Air Force and worked fuelingmilitary aircraft.. She had a narrow escape as she was driving a fuel tanker. The

fuel stopcock was open and the gas spilling behind the truck as she drovebecame ignited. Another corps man saw the fire and ran to pull her from thetruck. They were badly burned when the truck exploded. She was packed in iceand sulfa and had no visible scars.

Louise had two other narrow escapes. She was driving and going up a hill(known as dead man’s hill) she met a lumber truck. The load shifted and some of the boards punched through the wind shield. Louise was barely missed and thecar was lifted off the pavement. Another time she was home sick, the only timeshe missed school, and the one room country school house was destroyed by atornado. Everyone including the teacher was killed. Louise was the only child of her generation in that area for some time.

Later she married another man (name (?) who worked for Ely BridgeCompany. I visited them and was shown through the factory which at the timewas said to be the only Ferris wheel manufacturer in the U.S... They also madeother carnival rides. During World War II she was in the army air corps. Thesequence of her life escapes me. At one time all three sisters were together atthe farm and the long time jealousy and animosity led to a big fight. Thelma’sson Tom and John and I had the idea to go to the tool shed and arm ourselveswith axes so we could defend our mothers, not a very smart idea and we gave itup before we got to the house.

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That may have been the only time the three of us were together at thefarm. One of the dumber adventures we had was to try to capture one of thelittle shoats. There was a fence about three feet behind the barn and adjacentcorn crib. John climbed up on the crib with a rope with a lasso in the end. Tomand I chased several of the pigs through this space and John was to pull up whenone of the shoats ran through. He caught a pig all right, a full-grown sow and as

he had the other end of the rope wrapped around his wrist he was jerked off theshed and over the fence. Fortunately the rope came loose and he landed onfairly soft ground and was not hurt. (?) You would think we would have knownbetter as Tom’s older brother, Bob, was drug by one of the horses some yearsbefore when he tried to lasso it.

They had a very nice two story house. By the time I was aware of the farmit had several other structures, a large barn, a milking shed, good sized corn crib,and storage buildings. These buildings were in a fenced area across the roadfrom the also fenced house yard. This rather large area also had a small pondand several a-frame hog sheds for the pregnant sows. There was a long hog

trough with one end against the fence so that it could be filled through the fence. The area in front of the barn was primarily used as a hog fattening yard andbirthing yard. Several small “A” frame structures provided shelter for the mothersows.

The barn had stalls for the two mules and two horses and a hay loft. Also,kept in the barn were three milk cows. Clark milked them every morning thenturned them out to pasture. I think they were also milked in the evening. Zeldaobjected from time to time to the amount of milk that Clark fed to the cats andkittens. She would go to the barn when she was aware of new litters of kittens,kill them with her cane and throw them into the hog lot. Quite a few cats werekept in and about the barns and the house to keep check on the rats and mice.

The mules and horses and two tractors were used to cultivate and harvestthe crops grown primarily as feed for the hogs and sheep which were from timeto time taken to market in St Louis. Clark regularly listened to the radio to checkon the farm market reports.

Several separate fields were rotated from wheat, clover, and corn. Clark Thomas was, according to his daughter, mother’s younger half sister, the firstfarmer in Illinois to grow soy beans as cash and feed crop. Soy beans are anitrogen fixer and adding them to the crop rotation reduced some need forfertilizer. His brothers and neighbors were surprised at the improved crop yieldwhen other crops were rotated onto the soy fields. The corn was harvested andstored in a shed near the barn. One of my chores was to shell and grind the cornthat was then mixed with house garbage and milk and fed to the hogs.

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Eggs from about 20 chickens were collected daily and stored in a crate inthe kitchen to be taken to town to trade or sell. The collecting of the eggs wasanother regular chore. Besides the chickens there were a few ducks and a goosethat liked to hide and sneak up behind and peck as well as several guinea fowl tobe fed. Another summer task was to search though the nearby wheat or cornfields to find the guinea nests. The mature guineas provided eggs as well as

being natural alarms with their load cackles. These eggs were placed under ahen so that when they hatched they would grow up and continue to stay near thehouse. Clark enjoyed eating fresh guinea eggs.

A large herd of hogs were kept in a field not far from the house and wewould take a wagon load of corn still on the cob to feed them. Once as Hauntsand I were on a wagon tossing corn to the herd to feed them a piglet got its headcaught in the spokes of the wagon. It began to squeal and a sow got under thewagon and started to hump up bouncing the wagon and us. Haunts put his legover and kicked it free and the trouble ended.

The hogs were regularly rotated from field to field to feed on the stubbleand other leftovers from the harvest. Hay was bailed from the wheat stalks; cornstalks were collected for silage and stored in a silo. Sheep were shorn and thewool and sheep were sold at market in St. Louis. I think he had a panel truck tohaul them in

Three milk cows provided several gallons of milk a day. The milk wasdrunk; some eventually provided heavy cream to be churned into butter. Leftover milk and sour milk and other kitchen scraps mixed with some grain were fedto the hogs. Not much goes to waste on a farm.

Grandmother also tended a “truck” garden across the road next to the hog

lot. There was also a garden patch near the back door. She grew manyvegetables including carrots, sweet corn, radishes, tomatoes, onions, okra,potatoes, several kinds of beans and strawberries. There were peach, apple andcherry trees in and around the house yard and a large mulberry tree. Over thewalkway from the road was a grape arbor with benches on each side.

Much of this produce which did not go directly to the table was canned andstored in a large cellar the stair of which led down from the dining room.

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Approaching the house from the road the front entry was into a hall. Acrossfrom the hall was a downstairs bed room which also was a library. Going to theright from the entry and turning right again was the stair to the second floor andseveral bedrooms. Going to the left from the entry was a small living room musicroom containing a piano and wind-up Victrola. Going on into the dining room andthen through the kitchen we came to a back store room. A large wash tub was

kept in this back room for bathing. Hot water was heated in a part of the coalfired kitchen stove. On past the back room was a covered storage area for tools,some food stuffs and coal. This room was a passage from a walkway to the henyard. It went out to the right to a three “holer” chic sale better known as theouthouse and on past it to the smoke house.

The sheep had to be run through a dip to control the fleas. On oneoccasion while helping with this I got lots of flea bites and many of them becameinfected resulting in over thirty boils. As I was very sick and feverish I was put tobed in the downstairs bedroom/library. The books in the library had belonged tomother’s father and included a family bible. In reading through the bible I found a

clipping relating the suicide death of my father. He ran a hose from the exhaustof his car into the car and then shot himself according to the clipping.

I never told anyone of my discovery except perhaps John and mother’sstory of his death was quite different, attributing it to a hunting accident.

The coal fired kitchen strove had four burners and a large oven as well asthe water heating chamber. All of which required several daily chores tomaintain. Coal and water had to be brought in and ashes had to be removed.Water came from a well in the front road which also supplied water to a troughoutside the fence to water the horses and mules when they returned from workon the farm. Another pump house was near the back door and from a rain water

cistern just outside the kitchen door towards the outhouse supplied water for thekitchen and the back room bath house... Coal and firewood were in the backshed/passage area. One of the food stuffs kept here was pop corn grown in thetruck garden. The ashes were sometimes used to make soap. Zelda’s threedaughters gave her a butane gas range which she never cooked on and it sat inthe kitchen used mostly for storage unless one of the daughters was visiting andcooked on it. After they sold the farm and purchased or rented a small truckgarden farm on the highway she may have used it there.

About the time I was in high school they sold the farm and bought asmaller place on a highway into Carrollton. It had an apple orchard a good sizedvegetable garden and also a small hen house. Clark had a collie that neverlearned to leave the badgers in the area alone and frequently came home withhis battle scared face.

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Crows are very smart birds. They are said to be able to count to two butnot more. If two hunters go into the woods and one comes out the crows knowthat one is still in the woods, but if three go in and two come out they do notknow that one is still in the woods. Across the road a fence line ran straight backdividing a wooded area on the left from open pasture land to the right. A baretree stood about five yards in from the fence near the road and another about

thirty further in and well back from the road. A flock of crows used the two treesas a path across this wide open space. One would fly to the first tree and sit for abit and then on to the other while a second would land in the near one. Afterthree or four had hop scotched across the field the rest of the flock fly across.

Sometimes Clark would sit on the front porch of the house with a shotgunand try to shoot one of the crows.

Not far on out the road was a country store with a bar to which Clark went

to play Euchre and drink beer. The bar had a free lunch counter with sandwichmakings and pickled hard boiled eggs. It was great fun to go with him and to beable to make a ham sandwich and have one of the eggs.

With hogs being a major product of the farm, bacon, sausage and hamwere always on hand in the smoke house. Although sheep were also raised I donot remember that they were used as food nor were beef a major food source. Ithink Clark did buy a calf to raise and butcher every year so beef was also alongwith turkey and game from his hunting was also on the menu. He had traps in alocal stream for river catfish and took me squirrel hunting once. I am sure hehunted for other wildlife.

Various pieces of farm equipment and tools were kept in a shed whichhoused the two tractors. Some plows and harvesters were in the area betweenthe house and poultry yard. The house, barns and other structures weresurrounded by the crop and pasture fields and the road from town passedthrough the farm and on to other farms. The mail box was on this road about300 yards from the house. One of the few fun chores was to run down to themail box when the red flag was up and collect the mail.

Saturday night we all bathed and went to town. The crate of eggs wastaken to sell or trade at a grocery store for sugar, flour and other staples. Wemight go to a movie see the latest and “swap fleas” with the other patrons.

Sometimes went to the bowling alley and always made a visit to the ice creamparlor. Sometimes I got a haircut. All of these places were in buildings that facedthe courthouse on the streets surrounding it. Many sat on the benches’ in thepark surrounding the court house and talked and watched haircuts and the‘passing parade’.

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Sunday we went back to town to go to the Presbyterian Church. I had a bitof a crush on Caroline Ledbetter who was in the Sunday school class and I alwayslooked forward to seeing her each summer.

Rogers Arkansas

After my father’s death we moved to Rogers. Mother rented a house from alady Gladys (?) who was one of the women mother played bridge with. The rentwas $11 a month. It was about a block from the mother’s aunt and uncle, Lenaand Wythe Walker. There were three other houses on the block facing WestWalnut. A large two story house on a large lot was across an unpaved street andthen our house.

Past our house were a brick house and then another dirt street. Continuingout Walnut the paved highway crossed a bridge over a small stream on its waytoward Bentonville. A sort of alley ran behind the houses back toward AuntLena’s and there were vegetable gardens and garages along the way. These

gardens were good places to sneak a raw turnip.

Pauline Price was my first art teacher, she taught in a room in the highschool. Perhaps she was allowed this room in exchange for teaching some art toregular HS students. Her method of teaching would not be well thought of bymost art teachers as she had us copy works of other artists, yet many artprograms do use some forms of copying. I remember copying pictures of GeorgeWashington. It was in her class that I did a Poppy Day poster that won first prizefrom a veterans group. I think one of her students became a commercial artistand designed the Butter Crust Bread wrapper.

I am sure that my interest in art started here as did my love of owls, whichis why I use an owl as a logo on my art. They were frequent guests in our homeand Price would help mother in putting us to bed by telling us bedtime storiesabout owls and their hooting. He was the station manager of the Frisco railroadstation in Rogers.

Pauline and Grace together with another lady whose name escapes mewere members of mother’s bridge club. The other lady became the owner of thearea Coca Cola franchise and mother did not. She was offered it, as owner orpartner, but Uncle Wyeth discouraged taking on this “just soda” venture. Thecorner drug store had a soda fountain and the daughter of the owner was anunusually small child and Aunt Lena expressed the idea that her drinking of Coke

was the reason. The other lady became the owner of the northwestern ArkansasCoca Cola Company.

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Wyeth Walker became quite successful and he and Aunt Lena had a largehouse in town and a beautiful farm some ways out of town. The town house wason corner lot and had nice size second house between it and the corner that wasthe in town home of the major hired man and foreman. Andy and his wife Muraland daughter Betty lived in town during the winter when the Walkers lived intown and in a house across the lake from the summer house when the folks were

on the farm.

The town house had four levels, two living floors, and a basement laundryand food storage and a fourth floor attic. An elevator connected all four floors;the stop at the attic had a locked door. A dumb waiter served the living areas andthe laundry. The kitchen was at the right rear of the house and had a smallscreened porch and steps leading to the back yard. A door to the laundry was

just to the left. A walk way went back to a barn and on back to a chicken house.

There was a sitting room in the front next to the entry hall next on backwas a music room with a small grand piano then thru two pocket doors was the

dining room with a large ten seat dining table. A connecting door went into thekitchen. The front sitting room had a high ceiling with ample room for a tallChristmas tree. A tree placed here served as the backdrop for pictures of the sixcousins such as the one below.

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The picture was taken Feb.2 1950 includes a portrait of Wythe Walker’sbride no doubt the reason for our picture. Those shown from the left to right aremy then 17 year old brother John Williams Rex, Jacob Wythe Walker 25 AuntLena’s oldest grandson, Robert Martin Lane 26 Aunt Thelma’s oldest, ThomasBradford Lane 18, George Martin Rex 18, and Robert Gillette Walker 16.

The second floor had four bed rooms and a bath. Aunt Lena’s room wasacross from the landing. Proceeding down the hall next to her room was UncleWyeth=s room with a connecting door between them. His room had a largecloset in which was “secret” door into the closet of the next bedroom.

Across the hall from this bedroom was the bathroom and next to it comingon back to the front was one more bedroom which was John Walkers.

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The barn was meant to shelter two horses and a cow but I don’t rememberit was used that way during the time I lived in Rogers. A cow may have beenbrought to town in the winter and chickens were kept there year round. Anunpaved road came off the street between the main house and Andy=s. Agarage for the two family cars was at the end of the road and then it curved onback to a gate for the horse enclosure. There may have been a one car garage

attached to the far side of Andy’s house.

The yard had several large walnut trees and well kept bushes around thehouses. One of the things Andy dealt with every year was the web worminfestations. He burned them out with kerosene soaked rag on a long bamboopole. We collected black walnuts from the trees. Black walnuts have a thick hardshell that is very tough to crack.

Another bridge club lady we knew, Mrs. Duty, had two children our age andI learned to ride a bicycle on the girl’s bike. Not sure of her name, Carolyn Ithink. Her brother was John White Duty who was blinded at about age eight by

having measles and scarlet fever at the same time. John White went on throughschool and college with a Seeing Eye dog and I believe became a lawyerpracticing law (?) with his father.

Down town Rogers had a corner drug store with a soda fountain, ahardware store whose window had mechanical village with several movingobjects such as a windmill and a water wheel mill. Nearby stood the mercantilestore which sold fabrics and household goods such as bedding, towels andnotions and cooking pots and pans as well as table ware. The most fascinatingthing to me was the money handling trolley system of little cars in which theclerks placed the sales slips and cash to be carried up to the second floorbusiness office for the sale to be completed and the receipt and change returned

to the clerk.

The IGA grocery store was in the same block as the drug store and the firstmovie theater. Mother was very lucky, winning five pound bags of sugar and flourin promotions there. She had a good stock of them when they became rationedduring the war. We were listening to Frank Sinatra on the radio December seven1941 when news of Pearl Harbor was broadcast. December seven was alsomother’s birthday. She was born in 1900.

Lowell Arkansas

As I remember, one or two family members lived and may have been bornin Lowell Arkansas. I remember bring in a home there whose owner had a petparrot and a very large cat. She showed us an air plant pined to a window drapeand pointed out the new starters along its edge. I believe Lowell was arecreation destination. There was a large public swimming pool with dressingrooms and a diving board.

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Small towns such as Rogers took care of the less fortunate of society.Hound Dog and Butter were the names of two men that the business owners inRogers kept busy as window washers and sidewalk sweepers, make work toprovide some money and care for, what today would be homeless pan handlers.On any trip to the business center we would see these somewhat retarded menbusy in front of a store. More than once I remember hobos coming to our back

door asking to do some small job to earn a handout of food. Our house, being onthe edge of town, was a natural target for the wandering unemployed and theywere not seen as a threat as a they as they might be today. I think once Motherhad one dig a vegetable garden at our back fence.

A block over from Walnut on the major cross street was an intersectionwith four different businesses on each corner. The Progressive Life building wason one corner, the Rogers/Lane Hotel on the corner across the street. Proceedingclockwise, the bus station and café faced the hotel. The bus station had a lunchcounter and newspaper and magazine sales shelves, were catty corner from theinsurance building.

A gas station garage was on the remaining corner. Next to the gas stationwas the fire station. The library was on the second floor of the station house. Atreat was to have a hamburger and coke at the bus station and buy a comic book

The Magnolia gas station was owned or operated by a Mr. Joby. He was aman mother dated, with the disapproval of Aunt Lena as he was just a gas stationowner. The gas pumps were the kind that had a glass chamber at the top thatfilled and emptied as the gas was pumped

The Rogers Hotel (research current name) was a resort destination and atone point was owned by a relative of Lander Lane, Tom’s father, and was knownas the Lane Hotel. Uncle Wyeth owned it for awhile, perhaps through Progressive

Life, and was instrumental in the (?) construction and operation of a restaurantaddition to the hotel. He directed that a toaster be available to the tables duringbreakfast so that patrons could have hot toast. I believe this was the onlyrestaurant in Rogers at the time other than the lunch counter in the bus station..One of the employees of progressive Life was Mr. John T. Wespy. He traveled forthe company and took along a small loom and wove scarves as a recreationhobby. On past the town business center and across the railroad tracks weresome warehouses and related businesses. One of these was two story feed andseed and farm equipment operation. It had an elevator that was operated bypulling on a rope to start it in motion.

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The Frisco station was just a block over from the hotel. Several timesmother put John and I on the train to St. Louis here in the care of a train portershe knew from her visits there and one of her friends would meet us and put uson the bus to Carrolton to spend some time with her mother and Clark Thomasher step father.

Dream Valley

The Walkers also had country place called Dream Valley which was theirsummer home. (According to Tom Lane Dream Valley is now a country home).

The road out to it passed several other dwellings as it wound its way into a longvalley area. A breeding kennel for some type of dog, perhaps black Chows, wasat one turning point. Further along the road turned and crossed a creek at whichwe sometimes stopped to pick watercress. A turkey farm was the next place wepassed. Just beyond it was the first of the “double gates” and the start of Dream

Valley. From here the road wound on in following the bottom of a hill on the right. The property consisted of long valley between two ridges with pasture and farmland between them. Several other valleys led off on both sides.

(?) Three houses about a half mile apart nestled next to the hill and werehome to families belonging to ranch workers. One of these had a couple of barnsbehind and in front of them that were associated the raising of a small herd of registered White Faced Herford cows. Two bulls were kept in separate pensacross the road from this house.

Each of these families had gardens of their own. At one of the otherhouses was a good sized truck garden in which vegetables and flowers to supplythe Walkers were grown. Aunt Lena and her maid canned this produce andstored it in a pantry next to the laundry room. One of my great pleasures was totake a quart of this tomato juice and a box of saltines up to the porch on secondfloor to eat while I read the National Geographic magazines stored in a book caseon the landing on the bed room floor.

NOTE: The chronological succession of events and order of the story needs muchrevision.

The valley had many springs scattered about the various farms. Severalwere developed with small retaining walls so they could be used to water the

cattle. They were identified with the year of development as their name. Onewas up on the hillside of the road and had been piped down to a fountain. A wideplace in the road and concrete steps allowed us to stop and get a very cold drink.

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When we were almost to the summer house another double gateseparated the field on the left from a wide meadow along the far side of whichwas a long row of poplars curving to meet the road just before we crossed acreek. A road or cattle path was behind these trees and it was along it that themilk cows went to pasture and returned to the milk barn. Andy had a semi-petbob cat that would wait at a point along this path where it could jump down on

the back of one of the cows as they returned to milk barn at night. Andy had putthe cat on the cows back when it was a kitten so that both the cat and the cowwere trained to this behavior. No one else could get close to the bob cat.

The ground rose up here and was held by a field stone wall. A chickenyard and house was next on the left below the hill and then a wide grassy arealeading to Andy’s house on the farm. Starting again at the creek on the rightwhich was the runoff from the lake was the damn spillway. The road rose until aview of the main house appeared across the small manmade lake. Right in frontof Andy’s the road turned right and followed the lake around to the yardsurrounding the house. A bed of flowers was between the road and the lake. One

more poplar was at the point where the road left the lake. In front of the housewere a walnut tree and two weeping willows. The ground around the walnut treewas so soft that the nuts sank half way into it. Several flower beds of pansies andlarge red cannas were in the front yard. Behind the house was a grove of treeshome to large grape vines and under which were several barrel stave hammocks.

The road divided to go to a sheltered carport entrance to house and thekitchen porch as well as on to the garage, horse barn and the dance pavilion.Going into the house from the carport was into the screened porch whichcontinued around the three long sides of the house and around a portion of thekitchen. The first part was the women’s porch with six (?) iron beds. Stepsleading in from the lawn through a screen door and on in divided the beds into

threes. The next section was the men’s porch and six more beds again dividedby an entrance to the house proper.

The third section was used as a sitting area with several chairs androckers. A couple of tables and shelving filled the last part of this porch as it wenton around to a small part at the kitchen. This third section was again divided bya screen door and steps down to a path to a spring fed stream that went througha spring house.

This stream had three improved and rock surrounded basins and was hometo many ‘crawdads’. The first two were met by a spring outlet from a cave at thebase of the hill. This basin was about eight feet in diameter was deep enough tofloat water melons in season. The combined flow went beside and through thespring house. Inside the water flowed around the inside edge in a concretetrough in which bowls of milk and other food was kept chilled. The stream thenempted into the lake and was the major source of water for it.

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The porches surrounded the house proper; a large family room was at thecorner where the sleeping porches met. Next to it on the women’s side was adressing room with a bath room between it and the kitchen. A large dining roomwas beside the family room next to the sitting porch. There were three doors tothe dining room, one from the family room, one from the sitting porch and onefrom the kitchen. The family room had a large fireplace and many chairs and

sofas and several carpets.

Just outside of the corner of men’s porch and sitting porch was a very largewalnut tree. Hanging on long chains hung a giant swing. A large black swing thebed being about five feet deep and seven or eight feet wide with a two foot highback. It hung at an angle to the trunk between it and the porch. Two or three of us could hold on to the back and walk towards one end and the reaction of theswing was to go the other direction. Reaching the end we would turn and walkthe other way. Going back and forth we got the swing moving sideways in anever increasing pendulum arc. Sometimes we would jump off toward the lakeinto the soft grass. The ground was soft near the lake and we would sink an inch

or so into it hopefully not landing on a walnut and stone bruising our feet.

The twin of this swing was hanging from another large tree near the dancepavilion at an angle that would not allow the pendulum action so we just sat onthe edge and pumped our feet to swing back and forth. The dance pavilion had astage at the back. It was located somewhat on a hill and had a large sloping openarea under it which was used to store potatoes and onions. Behind it was theremains of a fox run from the time fox hunting was practiced by the family andfriends. The dance pavilion was screened on three sides and of a foxtrotenclosure. The horses were trained jumpers used for fox hunting by the family inearlier times. Going on back from the spring at the start of the creek that fed thelake there was a horse shoe pitching set up and on back a grape vineyard. Once

John and I rode the horses the one John rode was called named Firecracker.When we turned back it may have been feeding tome and Firecracker took off onthe way he jumped one fence and then tried to clear a creek and up on a raisedarea below the lake\and dumped John.

One year a big hornet’s nest was built on the outside of the screen and of course we just had to try to knock it off. We (me, John, Tom) hit the screen on theinside and were fortunate that we did not get stung as some of them managed toget through holes in the screen.

A path up the hill opposite the house went up to a pump house for waterfor the house. The path continued to the top of the ridge and an apple orchard.

There were persimmon and chinquapin trees on this hill. We collected chinquapinnuts as we walked barefoot along the road to the swimming area of the lakewhich was in front of Andy’s house.

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The swimming area had a stucco surfaced paved area and the stumps of two trees cut off just at water level. These water covered stumps probablysurvived because of the water being so cold. We could climb on them and jumpoff to splash someone. Further out was the diving board. Floating in water was agiant ‘ladder’ with four 4"x4" rungs about 3 feet apart and 4x4 sides producingthree openings. We sat on it or leaned on the rungs kicked to propel it all over

the pond.

But the best feature of the lake was the hand trolley. Walking along thebank we very carefully crossed the top of the spillway. The bottom of the most of the lake was dirt and because a kind of moss grew on it and floated to the topthe lake was treated with Blue Stone to control it. Some moss would still float inthe water and eventually collect at the spillway so we would use a broom to pushit carefully on over the edge. So we would use a broom to push it carefully onover the edge. I think Bob Lane once slipped on it and his back was scraped rawas he slid down it. Across the spillway and on a path along hill we would come toa tree with a board ladder nailed to it. Up the ladder we climbed to a wooden

shelf out over the water. Stretching from this perch back to the bank we hadcrossed was a wire cable and on it was trolley with a rope to haul it up to theplatform. Grabbing on to the hand grip we would sail down across the water anddrop in some feet from the bank.

Back to the house in town, the last house at the other end of the block wason a somewhat raised corner lot with a street that went back to a ball parkbetween these two blocks. A concrete wall protected the yard. A very wideintersection for the road from the south and Walnut Street the Bentonvillehighway separated these houses from a service station to the left and a two storyhouse across the street. Mother rented our house from the lady living there. Thepeople who lived in the corner house had a very small candy store on the corner.

They sold penny candy and cold sodas to the neighborhood.

A concrete wall about 2 feet tall to hold in the yard was some protectionfrom the traffic from the south. People had to go south to Fayetteville getalcoholic beverages as the town was dry. But several times cars hit it as driversunder the influence plowed into it. Several things were tried to prevent theseaccidents, first the wall was painted with wide diagonal stripes. Then a blinkinglight was hung in the center of this wide intersection. When this failed to deter orwarn drivers a concrete pylon with a blinking light on it was constructed andpainted with red and silver stripes. This resulted in a very bad accident as a carfull of drunks struck it not long after it was built.

A most interesting event was the night a truck full of melons plowedthrough the wall and on into the front of the house. Fresh melons were enjoyedby us and many others in the neighborhood. The final solution to thesecontinuing problems was to put three red lights spaced blocks apart between thecity limits and the corner.

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There were two other houses across the street. In one lived an old lady.She had a large yard with a large rock garden flower bed. She had a good stampcollection and may have provided the impetus that started my collecting. Nextdoor lived a family with a teen aged boy. He was a boy scout. He had a smallbuilding in which he had several cages of snakes. I think he had copperheads, arattle snake and a black racer among others. He also had a pet crow that had the

run of the neighborhood. Any small or bright shiny object that was missing wasusually found in the crow’s collection.

Next door to us on the corner across from the candy shack stood a largetwo story house. The big yard had several shade trees. An elderly man livedthere. He often sat on bench and smoked his pipe. His Prince Albert tobacco tinswere some of the targets of the crow’s depredations. He would cut thedandelions weeds off level with the ground and tap on the dirt which causedearthworms to come to the surface thinking it was raining. This house was torndown and a motel was built in its place.

The gas station and garage was a source of materials for some of ourgames. My brother and I collected empty oil cans from it. Placing the cans ontheir sides we would stomp on them which folded them up around the soles of our shoes. They made a wonderful loud noise as we ran about. Scrap innertubes could be cut into loops that became ammunition for a wood gun. A clothspin could be fastened to a wooden gun and the rubber looped around one endand stretched back and held by the pin. Aiming and releasing the pin the rubberband shot out with a good deal of force.

From somewhere we got metal barrel hoops. We made a T-square shapedpusher and used it to roll the hoop. Stilts were another homemade toys madefrom scrap lumber perhaps from the motel construction. Kites were another

scrap material toy. Thin wood strips, old newspaper, string and glue were usedto make the kites and cloth torn into long strips provided the tail. Usually thekites were the simple traditional diamond shape but once I tried to construct abox kite but I don’t remember I had much success fling it.

Of course another use for the tire rubber strips was to make a bean flip byattaching two ends to a y shaped tree fork. Some had a leather pocket to fill withrocks or acorns as ammunition. We shot at tin can targets and boxes with targetcircles as well as birds. We made folded paper planes. Marbles, pocket knives,tops, cap guns, a pogo stick, roller skates and roller skate scooters were some of our other toys.

Among the items in the baby book was this clipping from a news paperNellie Bartlett sent to Mother feeling it looked like me.

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The house in Rogers had a small upstairs room John and I used as a playroom. There was a table and chairs and we played board games and did somedrawing and watercolor painting. The stair up to it was on the back porch behindthe kitchen. The front porch had a swing which John still has, it has followed himfrom house to house as he and family moved. The front room had false fire placewith a space heater. Other furniture included a couch, a red leather chair which

had been fathers, a gate leg table, bookcase clock and a radio. There was a copyof the “Cowper” Madonna and child over the fireplace mantle.

The dining room was furnished with a table that had extension leaves andsix chairs and a matching side board. These must have come from our home inSt. Louis as did the twin beds in mother’s room. That bed room set also includeda dresser and a chest of drawers. The bathroom was between mother’s roomand ours. John and I had twin beds and another chest of drawers. I don’tremember what other items we had. A door from our room opened onto asleeping porch. A wind up victrola was part of the things in the sleeping porchand another screen door in it went out the back. Our tall stick phone was on a

ledge in the dining room. Much of this furniture which must have been owned bymother and father in St. Louis stayed with her from Rogers to her apartment inFt. Smith and then to our home on Kinkade and then with her to her apartment inLittle Rock.

The dining room set went to John at some point and I think he still has itand has refinished it. When mother died in 1983 John and Berta Faye and Icleared out much of her stuff and the furniture was shipped to their place inOklahoma City. I claimed a wooden stool that had been Uncle Wyeth’s and a hallmirror from great grandfather Martin. John and I each have one of the matchinggate leg tables. He has had all of his part refinished. I also have a large oilpainting that was in the Walker living room which I suppose mother got after Aunt

Lena died.

Perhaps this is as good a place as any to insert my memories of another of grandmothers sisters; great Aunt Lucy. John pronounced it Shushe and thatbecame our name for her. I don’t know much about her life. As I remember sheowned or operated a restaurant in a two story house and lived upstairs in it.Inset in the concrete of the front walk was a Purple Parasol which was the onlysign indicating this was a restaurant of that name? The table service was of Wedgewood China with sterling silver implements. Small purple paper parasolswere part of the table décor.

John was her favorite and at one point she gave him a dog I think it was awhite spitz. The only dog either of us ever had as children. When she died theextensive collection of dishes and tableware was divided into and given to someof her nephews. The oldest boy got the china and the silver went to theyoungest. Janet did not want my part of the china and we gave it to John andBerta Faye as a wedding gift.

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At some point about fourth or fifth grade mother put me in the hospital, totake out my tonsils and adenoids, or so I was told. Imagine my surprise onwaking up to find that a ‘Bris’ had occurred. Circumcising a 10 or 11 boy withoutwarning was bad enough, but then subjecting him to having the bandageschanged by his aunt caused me much embarrassment. Aunt Thelma and familywere living in an upstairs apartment in Ft Smith at the time so my recovery was

with them.

One of Tom’s activities was to take shot gun shells or 22's to an abandonedlot next door with a concrete slab over a well. We would wedge the shells intoholes in the slab and explode them with a hammer and nails. One of the gameswe were lucky to survive as I look back on it. I remember Tom had molds to castlead soldiers which we would paint with enamel. At the walker farm Uncle Wyethhad the congressional record which were great for paper to fold into tents. Tomalso had a punch out circus set up.

Another painful memory of visits to the lanes was the time I was chasing

around the upstairs landing and falling down the long flight of steps and slidingdown shirtless on my back. Lander, Tom’s father, laid me out on an ironing boardand rubbed ice on my shredded back.

The three sets of nephews were John and I, Bob and Tom Lane our firstcousins the sons of mother’s sister Thelma. The other two were third cousins andthe grand sons of Aunt Lena so not the same generation. Wyeth and Bob werethe sons of Uncle Elmo who was the oldest of the Walker boys with a youngerbrother John who never married. Bob Lane had a different father than Tom. Hewas a several years older than John, Tom, and I and Little Bob. Bob Walker hatedthe name of Little Bob and looked down on his “poor” relations.

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John Williams Rex (17) Jacob Wythe Walker (25) Robert Martin Lane (26) TomasBradford Lane (18) George Martin Rex (18) Robert Gillette Walker (16) February 3,1950

He and John were tennis players. John played on the University of Arkansas team and Bob no doubt played at the Little Rock country club whichabutted the Walker compound in the high rent area of the Heights. Three housesfronting on a circular drive with a gated entry, first on the right was Gertrude’sWyeth’s mother then his and then on around his daughter’s. The main house wasbuilt into the hill behind it and an underground shelter could be entered from it.

Once John visited the Walkers in Little Rock and Lil Bob was very

contemptuous of the idea that they should play tennis together. Once at a bigChristmas dinner the four of us were seated at a card table in the music roomwhile the adults were eating in the dining room. Little Bob put a pat of butter ona knife and flipped it up on the ceiling. He died in sports car accident in his lateteens.

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I was the oldest to the four younger boys followed by Tom then John andlast Little Bob but all four of us really never were together much except atChristmas when we had the “Big Tree” in the front parlor of the Walker house.

There is a picture of all six of the boys in front of the tree taken one Christmaswhen Bob Lane and Wyeth Walker were teenagers. The older two had rifles intheir hands posed at parade rest. Insert picture

I understand John Walker had been injured in a sleighing accident and hada silver plate in his head. Mother was quite fond of him and they were of aboutthe same age. I think she may have really been in love with him and could notexpress it or do anything as they were first cousins. When he died, perhaps dueto complications of the accident, she was extremely upset. Shushe died not longafter and mother drove as fast as she could from Ft. Smith to Rogers when sheheard she was dying. On the way she flipped a cigarette butt out the windowwhich blew back in a rear window and burned a hole in John’s pants. We had tostop so he could change as it would not do for Aunt Lena to see.

The elementary school was a block from the Walkers down the street thatran between their block and the next toward town. The high school was on thesame land which was also a large city park. I started school in a kindergartenthat was taught in a room of the high school. The first grade classroom was atone end of a long hallway. Second grade was next on the same side then thirdacross from first with fourth next on that side. Fifth and sixth across from eachother at the other end I think.

I can picture the first grade room and the teacher and remember she oftenhad my nose in a circle drawn on the black board. No memories of second gradesurface. But third left several clear pictures. We had geography workbooks withpictures to cut out and paste into each chapter. I remember the round straw

boats of the Egyptians and the map of the Nile. My teacher was Miss Leathersand I was in love with her even after she swatted me on the head for shooting aspit wad that missed her and hit the blackboard while she had her back to theclass while writing on it. I must have been aiming at a student in front of me.She lived in Fayetteville and once when mother took me there for an eyeappointment we stopped at her house for a quick visit. She got married the nextyear.

Was never a very good student as is evidenced by my third grade reportcard?

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I

I wish could remember the fourth or fifth grade teachers name as I doremember her room and some of the things we did. Several reproductions of

paintings were on the wall; Gainsborough’s Blue Boy, Pinky, Gilbert Stuart’sUnfinished Washington and Washington Crossing the Delaware were displayedalong with flags and charts. A map rack was on one wall with several pull downmaps. A wind up Victrola stood in a front corner and she played Blue Danube,America, Carmen and other classical recordings.

I attended a kindergarten, I think housed in the high school, Many of thematerials were the same as I had in 1st grade which I think was not a good ideaas I was very bored to have to repeat stuff and got into some bad study habits.

The years I lived in St. Louis before we went to Rogers soft coal was used forheating and the ever present coal smoke was a contributor to my lung problemsand I was often sick during the first three or four years of school.

I was half way through the fifth grade when Pearl Harbor was attacked onDecember 7, 1941. We were in the living room listening to mother’s favoritesinger, Frank Sinatra, when the program was interrupted with the news.December 7 was also mother’s birthday. This change in world events causedmother to have to go back to work as the money left her by father would not lastas prices would rise. So we moved to Ft. Smith so mother could go to work at thearmy hospital at Camp Chaffee.

St Anne’s

Mother took an apartment about a block from the grounds of St. Anne’sacademy, the Mercy Hospital, the Catholic Church, and the four story nunneriesand dormitory which were to be John and my home for three and a half years.

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The nunnery also housed the dormitories for the boys and girls who wereboarded here. Boys in the third through eighth grade lived here. The bottomfloor housed the kitchen and dining room for the students. The nuns had aseparate dining room also severed by this kitchen. Down the hall from theserving area were two rooms in which the boys played. There was another roomacross a covered open space we had access to for game materials.

I don’t remember much about most of the second floor. I think there weremeeting rooms for the nuns and offices. The back second floor entrance was upa wide concrete staircase. Inside was a large foyer with two stairs going up eachside to the third floor?

The boy’s dormitory was at one end of the third floor. Across the hall fromthe dorm were a bathroom, Sister Beatrice’s room, and two small rooms for boyswho were ill. We small beds and had a small chest for our clothes. John and Ihad a foot locker for our toys. The girls had two dormitories, one for elementaryschool girls on third floor and one on fourth. For the high school girls our study

hall was also on the fourth floor. The nuns had rooms on the top three floors.

The high school, convent, Mercy Hospital, and Catholic Church were on oneblock of land at the head of Garrison Avenue. A grotto with three religiousstatues had been built around a chimney that once was a part of GeneralZachary Taylor’s home when he was commander of Fort Smith. This grotto satnear the nunnery toward the back of the hospital. We found that some of thestones could be pulled out to be used as hiding places for our secrets. A walkwayran from the back stairway around the grotto and to a back entrance of thehospital which the sisters who worked there used.

A room near this back entrance was used as a theater for us once to see a

movie with religious content about a priest, the name of it may come to me. Itmay have been “The Keys of the Kingdom”. We were not subjected too muchproselytizing but did have to attend services in the Catholic Church on vespersnights and Saturday morning mass. The pews had pamphlets in the back in frontof us and I read these stories of saints and martyrs. If I had believed much of that BS I might have become a catholic.

John and I attended the Presbyterian Church which was in walkingdistance. I took some religious study and was confirmed as a Presbyterian whileat St. Anne’s. I was at some point an officer in the Youth group after I was livingat home in Ft. Smith during the last two years of HS. We attended summer

church camp at Lake Ft. Smith at least two summers.

The elementary and secondary school was across a major street from thenunnery. Sister Mary Beatrice was also my fifth grade teacher and one of thenuns who supervised the study hall on forth floor. When I started grade six I wassurprised to find that Sister Beatrice was now the teacher she was still the dormmother and study hall monitor.

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I passed grade six and moved on to grade seven and guess who theteacher was, yes Sister Mary Beatrice and still dorm and study hall fixture. Fortwo and a half Sister Mary Beatrice was more mother to me than Clara KatherineRex.

Mother was becoming the ‘go to gal’ at the base hospital at Camp Chaffee.She had taken a typing and Gregg Shorthand refresher course. She took the civilservice exam and made the highest scores achieved to that point. She now wentback to work for the first time since father’s death. Her first job included takingnotes on autopsies while standing behind a screen. She dispensed with thescreen and as a result began to acquire an extensive medical vocabulary takingthese notes which served her well when she became secretary to Dr Foltz.

She earned merit award after merit award and was moved fromdepartment to department to straighten out their records. She was the next tolast civilian employee to leave the base after the war and was private secretaryto the Chief of Medical Operations at the time. The PBX operator was last.

Among her close friends and one who continued to be after he retired wasSgt. Crow. From time to time he would “borrow” her car and when he returned ita miracle would occur as it would have one or more new tires and or a full gastank. She had a high gas rationing sticker on her windscreen because of herpriority military occupation. I think she and the good sergeant were a bit morethan friends as he was a frequent guest at our home.

Mr. Crow became quite an entrepreneur, starting and operating onerestaurant after another in Ft. Smith. The first was a classy drive in called Crow’swhich he sold after about two years. He built at least two others. One was aregular family sit down establishment and the other a café dine and dance place.

Neither of these last two was as successful as Crow’s. I have no idea when heleft Ft. Smith.

Mother lived in the apartment near the convent for several years and thenshe rented a house on Kincade Ave. This occurred while I was in Gulf CoastAcademy. The house had two bedrooms, a bathroom, living room, dining roomand kitchen on the first floor. The partially floored attic was divided into threerooms and had a screened sleeping porch. It was floored with unfinished planks.

The stairs to it went from a small hall between the dining room and our bedroom.

This building was the second from the corner of Kincade and Greenwood.

Behind the first house was a small ice cream factory facing Greenwood the backwall of which formed one side of our back yard. This brick wall, covered withEnglish Ivy, was the nesting place for scores of sparrows. The alley at the backwas fenced and our garage sat on the opposite side. The other side was fencedbetween our house and Lola Allen’s next door. Miss Allen was a third gradeteacher in the elementary school further along Kincade toward a city park.Across the alley from the ice cream plant stood a small mom and pop grocery.

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Ft Smith High School was about 8 or 10 blocks toward town and in easywalking distance. I took art in both the 11th and 12th grade. Ora Wilburn was theteacher, I have often said that the first year we drew daisies and again the nextyear only they had wilted. The Scholastic art competition was available andseveral of her students received recognition. My own experience indicates thatart competitions are not a good indicator of good products. I am aware of works

entered one year being rejected and then reentered the next year to receiveawards. It is often a crap shoot.

I had learned how to operate Bell & Howellclassroom projectors and became the head projectionistPart of my job was to train ney students to take the twomobile set ups to classrooms as needed. There was alsoa fixed projections booth in the auditorium accessedthru the girls sewing room on second floor which madefor some interesting days passing thru

My handwriting was not very good (still isn’t) and mother had Lola Allen tryto work with me one summer to improve it. She had me doing the row after rowof lettering exercises. The only thing that really changed was that today I usetwo kinds of lowercase r s. Depending on what letter the r follows it will be stumplike or like a closed v. I was unaware of this until Dr. Buthman, dean of men atHendrix, remarked on it when he called me into his office to remonstrate with mefor ‘calling too much attention’ to the girls on the dance floor, dipping too deepthat is. This disturbed the women faculty I suppose.

Mountinberg, Lake Ft Smith, Van Buren Arkansas

The highway from Ft Smith north to Rogers was through a major part of the Ozarks was quite twisty, with steep ups and downs. Mountinberg was at thebottom of a valley between two of these steep climbs. Long haul trucks would tryto maintain speed as they went through at night to make the climb up easier. Atone time, in the mid 50s the city fathers put in a blinking red light in the center of town to make the drivers stop this practice. The drivers put up with this for ashort time but did not like and as they stopped at roadside cafes passed the wordthat on certain date they would stop at the edge of town and proceed throughtown changing gears. The resulting gear grinding was loud and constant. Two or

three nights of this got the point across and the light went away.

Lake Ft Smith

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Lake Ft Smith, just north of Ft Smith was a center of summer camps.Several cabins on the lake front were used by church and other youth groups forsummer programs. The our Presbyterian church held one and John and I wentthere several summers to swim, canoe, enjoy several crafts and have religiousmeetings including night time picnics and song fests. We swan in a large poolwith diving board and a two level diving tower. I remember that the boards were

removed because of an accident.

Gulf Coast Military Academy - Gulf Port Mississippi

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I was at St. Anne’s for two and a half years, half of fifth grade and sixthand seventh plus the summer months. I was hard for mother to

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puput up with and I guess I was very mean to John. Mother sent me off to Gulf Coast Military Academy in Gulfport Mississippi for the eighth grade. I had a veryunhappy year there.

GCMA

All first year cadets were called freshmen regardless of their class year,they were hazed from day one. I roomed with three other boys; Carl Markhamwas a senior and the “Old Man” in our room. He was very muscular and thoughnot very tall was a first string football player. He was also a boxer and polevaulter. As the only upper classman i.e. former student, he was the boss of allthat transpired in our room. The first day he came into the room and threw twosheets bundled with his clothes on the floor and told the three newboys/freshmen to fold them and put them away. As we did not understand thesituation Clark, Binford and I refused at which point he knocked Clark who was

the largest of us to the floor and repeated his demands and we proceeded tolearn what was to be done.

We soon learned that there was a proper way to fold or hang all clothingand arrange it in our closet and foot lockers. The barracks were inspected everyweek day and any shoes not polished and properly aligned under our bunks ordust found anywhere or bed not made in a military fashion resulted in a “gig” onthat room. There were four regular barracks and the band barracks. The Numberof gigs each barracks received was compared and the barracks ranked. If ourbuilding came in last each freshman was given five licks for each gig he caused.We were collected in the bathroom and licks were given with either a board or a

short handled straw broom with the bristles cut off below the string binding.

Clark was an over age (16) eighth grader and a big dumb bully. Binfordwas in twelfth grade and quite small for his age. Carl Markham was seldom inthe room and Clark soon began to force us to do all the work until one day Carlcaught him hitting Binford. This was only the second time I remember himstriking one of us other than during the licks we got after inspections along withall the other plebes in the bathroom. He grabbed Clark and lifted and threw himinto an upper bunk. That was the end of Lord Clark’s reign.

I was not at GCMA the next year as I was at Subiaco and Clark, as an upperclassman that year, hit a freshman with a 2x4, striking him in the lower spine

breaking a vertebra. What punishment other than expulsion he received I don’tknow but he was not at GCMA when I returned for the tenth grade.

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GCMA had two campuses, a lower school for boys from first grade toeighth. The upper school had students from eighth grade through high school. AsI started in the eighth I was placed in the upper school. Because there wereeighth graders in both campuses the students from both were combined forclasses away from where they were housed. We had class in two rooms onsecond floor of the armory. Captain Mason was the teacher of my group and he

was also the faculty member housed in and in charge of our barracks. He had awooden leg and walked with a limp. Our company flag was a chicken with a pegleg. He was married and his family had a three room suite on our side of thebarracks. His bathroom sink was back to back with a wash basin in our room.

One of the coaches had a single room at the other end of our hall. A loungeseparated the barracks into two L shaped wings with another faculty suite next toit in the other hall. Our company student officers had rooms at the outer ends of each hall.

The first day of class Capt. Mason looked around our classroom and called

on the biggest boy a Cadet Jarrett to come his desk in the front. “Cadet Jarrettbend over this desk”. He directed and then proceeded to take a black electricaltape wrapped paddle out of his desk and gave Jarrett three good swats.Sometime later another cadet did something wrong and Capt. Mason said “Jarrettcome here and bend over this desk” Capt. Mason then applied three more veryhard licks. Later that afternoon Jarrett caught up with the cadet who was thecause of the second set of licks and proceeded to pound him. Capt. Mason’sform of class control was never challenged and I don’t think he needed to paddle

Jarrett but one more time a few days later to ensure no further class disturbance.

The second year at GCMA my interest in art was discovered by the officersin charge of our military training and I was given charge of the chart making

room on the second floor of the armory. The room was rather large and I wassupplied with sheets of tag board and refillable felt tipped pens. These markerswere large and had a variety of tips from round pointed to a flat and 1 a T, andone with a comb like tip that produced parallel lines. There were plenty of pensand black, red, and green ink refills. My work table/easel was 6’ wide and 2’ talland leaned against the wall with a window above it that looked out over theparade field.

My ninth grade year was another bummer. Subiaco, meaning below thelake named for a parent monastery in Italy, is a Catholic institution in SubiacoArkansas, about five miles from Paris Ark about midway between Ft. Smith andLittle Rock. The main structure is a four story stone building. It is a monasteryand school. Several groups of ‘inmates’ are housed there. It is a high school forboys, a retreat for priests who have problems with alcohol and had abused theirfemale parishioners or boys. Boys who were novitiates were separated fromthose who were not.

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I have lost track of the exact arrangement of the floors so what followsmay not be correct. A large bathroom with several shower stalls and toilet stallswas on the bottom floor. A recreation room and a store at which we couldpurchase school supplies and snacks from our account were also on this floor.

The front entrance was on the second floor and opened into a three story atriumwith stairs on two sides. Glass cases on the third and fourth floors contained

historical items related to the site. I believe there was a library on the secondfloor. Rooms and dormitories for the boys and monks and classrooms were on thesecond and third floors and perhaps the fourth as well. Steps on the fourth floorled to doors to the roof on which were walkways the monks used to walk, to saytheir rosaries and read their micelles.

All of the buildings were constructed out of stone quarried by the monks onthe site. They included a church still under construction, a print shop, dairy, andgymnasium which also served as the auditorium. The print shop was also beingadded to while I was there. Out buildings for the farms and dairy may have beenof wood. There was a bakery and winery, the bread was made with wine and was

served with honey and butter produced by the monks. I once worked a few daysharvesting onions and was paid eleven cents an hour. In the dining room we wereserved family style at long tables in parallel rows with a head table for the abbotand faculty.

There was a rose and flower garden at the rear of the monastery andbeyond it a slope and a stone wall led to a swimming pool with a dressing room.Window seats looked out the back on the third and fourth floors and were myfavorite retreat to read. Every boy’s school in my experience has a boy who isthe butt of cruel jokes. I have been in that position but here at Subiaco the victimwas Walter Zimmerman by talking to or about him in ways to confuse andembarrass him. He was accused of ‘peering’ out the window, or wearing

garments. The pool was often the site of his torment.

FT SMITH

High School

My junior and senior years were at Fort Smith HS. As I had not gone toschool with most of the students I felt very much an outsider and a loner. Brother

John went to junior high in FS after mother sent me off to GCMA and Subiaco andwas well along with the IN crowd. HS fraternities and sororities were legal inArkansas and there were two of each filled with the IN crowd. John and his future

wife were members of what I think were the most favored ones and led to Johnbecoming a Sigma Qui in college. As an outsider I was not invited to join one of the biggies but another frat with membership of both HS and junior collegestudents did. Jack Rowland, a year ahead of me and a guy I fell in with got meinto Kappa Alpha when I was a junior and I was president in my senior year.

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I took art for two years the teacher was Ora Wilburn. I wasn’t a very goodstudent in art or any other subject and generally made Bs probably was moreinterested in girls and reading. I still have my note/sketch book with tooledleather cover I made in the class. I have always characterized the class asdrawing daisies the first year and we drew daisies the second year but they hadwilted. Not a very creative approach to art We did do some ceramics and I made

some very poor figure sculptures which mother had in her apartment when shedied and I took home a did away with them. Working on the potter’s wheel didnot really start until I started teaching although did take a ceramic class at North

Texas University. The teacher was not very good on the wheel so my first realhelp came from watching and talking to other potters at art shows. One artisttold me about a book by his instructor which had step by step instruction whichreally got me going good until I was able to take work with Greg Reuter at what isnot TAMU-CC and finally get my masters degree.

I dated several girls and found that I was a good dancer. The twofraternities and two sororities including those to which John and Berta Faye

belonged formed a Pan Hellenic Council and each of the four sponsored a formaldance at Christmas with one ticket to attend all four. A very large hall on thesecond floor of a mid down town store area was the site for them. A quite goodlocal orchestra provided the music. I think Dorothy Speer was my date for themmy senior year. I believe she was a member of a girls club associated with theMasonic lodge and we went to dances there. Her twin sister Anne dated afraternity brother of John’s H.L. Hembree and we doubled dated several timesand I have photo of us at night club. Insert picture

Mary Lou Dollar’s father was the distributor of several beers and had alarge entertainment lounge in his home. It was furnished with several verycomfortable couches and easy chairs. Several of his beer brands had keg heads

with taps in the bar at one end of the room. She had several small group partiesthere during the time I dated her and her parents left us pretty much alonethough I am sure they kept an eye on us.

Another somewhat older young lady was a nurse whose name is missingfrom my memory. She was one I took to daces given by my fraternity at a clubsomewhat out of town. There were several other venues and clubs around FtSmith as well a sock hops at the high school and I was a very active attuned tomany of them not always with a date as stags were very welcome at thosefunctions as they stirred the pot as it were.

A very nice roller rink caught my attention and Jack Rowland and I tried tobe there a lot and several of the better girl skaters soon taught me to do thedance figures. I got good enough that I won a pair of very good shoe skates.Need to flesh this out more.

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Because I had some experience with projectors at GCMA I was able to geton as one who did much of the projecting in classrooms with two or threemoveable units... A projection booth was also in the auditorium with twoprojectors and by my senior year I was the head projectionist and as such I couldusually stay in the booth and have others take the two moveable machines toclassrooms. Sometimes I would tell them to have a problem with one of them and

have to come get me out of a class to fix it, sneaky but it worked to get me out of a class. Another perk of the job was that the projection booth could only beentered through a girls sewing class and as they sometimes were trying on/fittingdresses they made I would be ‘caught’ and unable to get out quickly- ho humtrapped with only one thing to do- read a book.

Speaking of books, another way I got out of having to have a study hallperiod was to take care of the junior college library section attached to the largerschool library - a small room about the size a large bedroom with a counter andone door. The J.C. students would have to come into the counter and check outbooks reserved for them. It was during this time I discovered an interest in

biographies as they were shelved just beside the counter and I read severalduring my senior year as that was my time there. As I look back on this time Ireally don’t remember why I had so much time perhaps I had more than oneperiod free of regular classes I know I had a study hall both years and theprojectionist job came out of it.

I took art both years, Ora Wilburn was the art teacher and the art roomwas away from the main building next to the football field and beyond the juniorcollege class rooms which were under the stadium bleachers. The art room had agas fired kiln and my first ceramics work was created there.

Hendrix College

I attended Hendrix in Conway Arkansas after high school largely at thesuggestion of Robert Speer, the father of my then girl friend. Bob Speer was anamateur artist and art teacher and he felt that I ought to go to Hendrix to studyart. Hendrix had a grant to put in a ceramics course and that was an interest of mine. The grant was never taken up during my time there.

Hendrix was a small Methodist college with an enrollment of about 500students in 1949 located in Conway Arkansas. Conway is about 100 miles fromFt. Smith and 50 from Little Rock on the highway from one to the other. I got toknow the highway and the towns along it quite well in my four years hitch hiking

both ways. I had a small paper board suitcase with Ft. Smith painted on one sideand Conway on the other that I placed at my feet to alert drivers as to mydestination and it did help to get drivers to stop and give me lift.

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State highways 64 and 65 went through Conway and divided at Morrelton,64 going more north and on through Van Buren coming into Ft. Smith at thenorthwest side after crossing the Arkansas river. The other route went moredirectly due west through Paris and Subiaco to the southeastern side of FS. Mostof these trips were after class on Friday and were completed in one afternoon butoccasionally I stopped in one of the other college towns along the way as there

was at least one on each road.

Rosemary (?) Whose father was the Fort Smith Junior Hi principal and one of the groups of kids I played with after school and during the summer, she was atOuachita College and when I stopped there on my way home she would arrangea room in the boy’s dorm the couple of times my trip was interrupted in Ouachita.

The student union had lounge with a jukebox and we would go there and danceto Rag Mop or other popular tunes.

As I recall I dated Janet Brown, my future wife, first during my junior yearand her freshman year. We went to dances and played cards and took in a few

movies but nothing serious was going on. I had dates with other girls during thistime and one other seemed to be more serious but even though I went to Sara’shome during one Christmas break that did not last. I was not much of a Romeoand was very shy about kissing most of those girls, a quick hug and kiss as Ireturned them to the dorm door was the usual thing.

The first dance of the year was always the freshman dance and everyfreshman boy was required to have date for this kick off of the dance year,required as part of the freshman initiation and orientation along with the greenbeanie we had to wear. The girl I took, strange to say her name escapes I wasperhaps the most beautiful girl in the freshman class and I talked to her in theschool café and was very surprised when I asked her to be my date that no one

else had and she said yes.

All most all dances at Hendrix were formal ‘program’ dances. Programdances are almost unheard of today and very few people today knew what theywere. The boy was mostly responsible for filling in a dance card for his date withher input. This dance card had spaces for about 15 dances to be arranged.Usually the first and last dance and a middle dance were filled in with your date.

To complete the program I went to other boys and swapped with them filling inthe boys name on one card and his date on another. The gym was the dance hallfor the dances during my freshman year and it was decorated with crepe paperand other materials to carry out the theme of the event. Green for the freshmandance, -then orange and black for Halloween, red and green for Christmas etc.Located around the room were posters with large letters, ABC, DEF and so on. Atthe start of the second dance I would take my date or the girl with whom I haddanced to the letter of her last name and then find the next one on my cardunder her initial and so on throughout the night.

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I loved to dance and had gotten pretty good during high school so after afew dances of the year some of the young ladies would ask their date to get meon her card. Not everyone had a date, many stags though no girl would think of going without a date. The most popular girls were ‘cut in’ on by one of the stagsor by a guy who got bumped and when I was free I quickly cut in to dance withone of the good dancers, particularly the Jitter Buggers or if I knew it was a slow

number one I wanted to have a chance to hold and talk to and perhaps a dip ortwo would ensue. Hendrix frowned on our doing much off campus but Idiscovered that the teacher’s college across town had frequent dances and highschool dances were held in a hall easy walking distance down town and then theparish hall was also open to visitors. Most of that took place during my first twoyears.

Several f us found that a café about a block from school had very goodfood and a back room we could use away from the jaundiced eye of Hendrix.Negros did not openly attend class then but I do understand someaccommodation did provide class credit. The back rom door of that café was also

open the blacks of Conway this was long before segregation began to disappearfrom public places.

Hendrix was a small school so most of the girls lived in either the freshmansophomore dorm or the junior senior girl’s dorm, some town girls lived at homebut most wanted to live on campus. Each of these dorms had a dance space inthem and would have a dance each year to which they would invite 10 stags.Usually if I was available I would be one of those. Unbekownst to the powers thatbe and somewhat against the expectations of the school I also went to dancesacross town at Arkansas State Teachers and to Conway High School dances in ahall over the drugstore down town as well as to Catholic parish events onoccasion. I don’t think I ever saw another Hendrix student at any of these

functions and I would not think of bringing a girl I met at them to a campusevent.

My freshman year I had a corner room with two other boys in the‘Catacombs’ the half basement bottom floor. There were four rooms on each sideof the bottom floor with a good sized recreation room between each half. Our half had a shower/bathroom next to the rec room. A pool table and a ping pong tableas well as some couches and easy chairs were there. Double doors on each sideof this rec room separated the halls from it. Both of my roommates were pre-medstudents and passed the med-school entrance exam that year which was their

junior year.

Hendrix had a very strong pre-med reputation and quite a few studentscame to Hendrix from high school or transferred in after their sophomore collegeyear. The reputation was that Hendrix pre-med students always passed theentrance exam for medical school, often in their junior year.

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My sophomore year Bob Mounts was my roommate and we had the sameroom I had the year before. Bob was a brilliant student with a top IQ. It was saidthat he knew more about every course he took in high school than any of histeachers. He had a double major of English and history. He could read and writeseveral languages, several self taught, play the piano almost like a professionalagain self taught. He developed his own bridge system and taught it to me and

we did well with it in the games in the student union lounge. Culbertson was thebridge system most used at that time.

At Hendrix students took a comprehensive exam in their major field toreceive a bachelor’s degree. Bob took the comp in both of his majors andgraduated magna cum laude. He went on to grad school at Harvard and evidentlyfound himself for the first time with other students as smart or smarter and thepressure was too much for him and for a time he was in a psychiatric hospital. Iheard he then was in the army as an interpreter for a time but he was dischargedas a homosexual.

My junior year I had a room, little more than a long closest, on second floorwith no roommate which was just fine with me. A bed, a closet, a desk and awashbasin with medicine chest and a bookcase as well as one window on thebackside of the dorm suited my loner style. I was already a science fiction nutand most of the books in the bookcase were sf paperbacks. As the schoolenrollment must have fallen off by my senior year I moved back to ‘Catacombs’but in a room on the other half hall. A regular sized room which would havehoused three students previously. No roommate. Across the hall my best friendand fellow art student Charlie Rietz also had a room to him-self.

The school annual each year ran a popularity deal the results of whichwere published in the book... Some of the categories were “Most Beautiful”,

Most Likely to Succeed” etc. including Best Dancer which I won junior and senioryear. One was “Campus Radical” which went to me and to Janet several times.Our junior year pictures had a caption reflecting something about us, usuallycomplementary or tongue in cheek. My best friend and fellow art student wasCharlie Rietz, under his was “Very few understand my works”. Under mine whichfollowed his was “And even fewer understand mine....... which is perhaps well” Somuch for fame.

One of the couches Chic Austin and his wife introduced me to squaredancing at Hendrix. A one semester credit course that fulfilled a PE creditrequirement was offered and I took it, anything to get out of real PE. Because somany of us who took it wanted to continue a repeat was allowed. We went thewhole route and had matching square dance outfits. We even went to a statesquare dance in Little Rock and gave a demonstration there. How was I to knowwhat the future had in store for me?

I dated several girls over the years at Hendrix Janet Brown was the last butmore of that later.

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One requirement of our freshman (hazing) orientation was to attend thefreshman dance with a date. I spent a lot of time in the old building which housedthe café student union. There was a very beautiful freshman girl who I talked to alot and I was very surprised when I asked her to be my date for the Frosh Promshe accepted. I thought surely she would have been snapped up by some otherstudent or an upper classman. Strange ti say I cannot recall her name; she was

at Hendrix only one year I believe but will have to check the annuals for her. I didnot continue to date her don’t ask me why. I did usually have a date for the otherdances that year but no ‘steady’ girlfriend. One other (name?) was also from Ft.Smith I think she was my date for a couple of dances.

SQUARE DANCING and the Rat Pack

At lunch with Faye Harvin at Ray H.S. in 1976 she mentioned that she andher husband were going to take square dance lessons. I mentioned it to Jane and

we went with the Harvin’s to the lessons sponsored by Circle Up Squares. I amnot sure it started the first night but it soon became our habit to go to a differentrestaurant each evening. We had no idea at the time how this habit and newfriendship would change our lives.

The shopping for shoes, petticoats, boots, and costumes became a regularoccurrence. We made one trip to San Antonio to shop for boots at a Luchaseoutlet, and of course to eat. I often say that square dancers go hungry a lot; wego somewhere hungry so we have an excuse to eat.

Square dance lessons usually take forty weeks to learn the “Basic” leveland graduate as qualified dancers able to attend dances at other clubs. Our callerwas the first teacher but we learned that another caller was giving lessons at twoother churches. We and another couple, Dorothy and Gordon Zahn, added theseBasic sessions to our schedule and as a result we felt we were ready to hit theroad as it were. Before we graduated as certified dancers, the three couples wentto a “special” dance in La Grange, and our connection to each other grew.

This trip was the first of many to come that became part of our groupadventures. Ed Harvin’s sister Mary and her new husband Dick Brown joined

Jane and I on our first of several summer trips to Concan. We stayed in a cabintogether and cooked some of our meals together and took some at the Concanrestaurant. The Harvin family, Ed and Faye and Ed’s sisters and the children of

all, had been making a trip to Concan to “float the river” every summer for sometime.

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We had heard there was a square dance club in nearby Camp Wood so wecalled and found out the time and place and drove over there to dance. CampWood is described as a “Cedar Choppers” town. The trip was over dirt back roadsto this very small community. The dance was held in the civic center which at onetime was probably a church. The civic center was a wooden un-air conditionedstructure with a wide double front door and about three windows along each side.

We were well received as the club was having its first dance after its firstgraduation. It was the caller’s first club and his wife and daughter and herhusband one other couple were the club. So the Browns, Harvins and Rexes justabout outnumbered the members. And we provided enough dancers to have afull square with a change of dancers each “tip” or dance. We were theexperienced dancers although the Browns were the only graduate dancers.

The caller’s wife was so overweight that when she danced she would getso out of breath that another lady had to be ready to jump in to take her place forthe dance to continue. The daughter’s husband had most of his teeth missing

which did not prevent him from chewing tobacco as he danced. As he passed thewide front door he would spit from time to time. The caller was quite a storyteller. He told of a team of Shetland mules he had once owned which story wasvery amusing to Dick.

At one point in a dance the caller, somewhat confused, said “Squarethrough three hands, two hands, oh whatever” and “oh whatever” became an oftrepeated saying of ours to cover any confusion in the ranks. Dick added anotheroften quoted or modified saying when the caller apologized for his ineptness. “Ohwe’ve danced to callers a lot worse than you” he remarked.

We finally graduated the next August and joined the club on our first bus

trip to an out of town dance to Victoria for an Association dance. (All area clubshad about 6 dances a year, most in CC but one in Victoria and one in Kingsville,the local ones at either Ray or King HS cafetoriums) The club costume at thistime was called the Buttercrust Dress as it was a checkered material thatresembled the Buttercrust Bread wrapper. As has happened to me more timesthan I care to have happen, as an artist I was asked to make a bus banner saying“Circle up Squares on the Road Again” which we taped to the bus.

The old members of the club were often called on to try to quell the anticsof members of our class as we picked up bad habits from the other clubs we weretaking lessons from. The Circle Ups were and still are a more reserved bunch,

and some of the moves we learned elsewhere were frowned on. The Rex, Harvinand Zahn couples happened to be seated at the back of the bus. As oftenhappens on bus trips or other group activities singing of various songs wasstarted. The group started singing the common rounds, “Row Row Your Boat” and“Three Blind Mice” and for some reason the new bad actors at the rear began tointerrupt which ever song was being sung at the front with the other.

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If the front sang “Three Blind Mice” we sang “Row Row Your Boat” if theysang Three Blind Mice we sang Row Row Your Boat. Whatever they did weinterrupted it with something. A few weeks later was to be the annual steakcookout at the Wilder Wildlife Park near Sinton so we decided to do a take-off onthe club dress and activities. I had the choir director at Ray find the printedmusic for “Three Blind Mice” and with it I printed song books with which to teach

the club how to sing it properly.

The three ladies made dresses out of transparent cleaner’s bags andcovered them with Butter Crust bread sacks and the men had white shirts alsodecorated. After the steaks were eaten we collected the club in their lawn chairsin lines to form an audience. We enlisted another couple to pass out the booksand act as master of ceremonies to introduce the “Three Blind Mice MasterSingers” and we proceeded to conduct the club in a sing along. From that pointon we were known as those damn mice or The Mice.

We wrote a Mice pledge and from time to time at a club dance we would

swear in a new member who had demonstrated a proper lack of respect for clubdecorum. I designed a blind mouse to draw on white price labels and we affixedthem to our club badges and awarded them to the new recruits. Before longmany of our club and a few from other groups were proud to wear our logo. Andso was born Three Blind Mice that I often refer to as the Rat Pack

At that time I was driving an Explorer van conversion, a small motor home.It had been painted red, white and blue and had a red stripe with white starsaround it as part of the 1976 Bi-centennial year celebration. Inside it had a couchthat could be opened out into a bed. The dining table could also be converted toa bed. It had a small bath room with a sink and a commode/shower. A stove withoven and range top and a small refrigerator completed the arrangements. On

the back was a mounted tire with a cover.

I painted three blind mice chasing each other on the spare tire cover. Thisvehicle, now christened the Mouse Wagon, became the rat pack travel bus.

The following summer Jane and I and Faye Harvin drove it in a caravan of fourteen cars to a square dance lodge on Lake of the Ozarks called KirkwoodLodge for a week long dance vacation. Ed could not leave with us at the timeand came a day later by plane. We arrived and checked in on a Sunday. Thelodge has several older cabins and newer ones as well as a larger building. Thislarger building housed the office, dance hall and several more rooms. Because

we were the rookies and the returnees had preference they got the onsite roomsand Ed and Faye Harvin and Jane and I and two other couples were placed in anearby motel.

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Sunday night was the first night welcome dance at which we wereintroduced to the staff and other dancers. The schedule for the week and therules were explained and then we danced. The schedule for most days was tohave a mourning two hour teaching session at which we learned some newsquare dance steps. Lunch and a short rest break followed by two more hours of Round Dance lessons and then time off until supper. After supper, dressed full

square dance costume, was two hours of square and round dance which wasalways followed by snacks and drinks and about a half hour of skits. Wednesdaynight we were taken to a country music theater. Friday night was the farewelldance and Saturday morning we checked out paid our bill and made reservationsto return the next summer. Jane and I did return the next two summers.

Another time the mouse wagon carried us to New Orleans so that we couldgo to the King Tut exhibition. This was our second group visit to ‘sin city’ to eatand see the sights. This time we had rooms in a very nice down town hotel. On

the first trip we stayed in a motel over the bridge in Algiers with a Mexicanrestaurant next door.

The six of us got in line about 6 AM and were number 501 to 506. It wasthe day after x-mas, most of those ahead of us had spent the night, in sleepingbags with the weather below freezing. We almost went by the First Call Benetshop on the way but decided not to. If we had we probably would not have gottenin that day as they shut off the line about seven. We have wonderful pictures of

Jane with her feet in one orange and one yellow paper bag as she was in tennisshoes as her feet were freezing. She was also wearing a Big Bird stocking hat.

Helen Lund a member the Unitarian Church of C.C. to whom I had shown

my portfolio. Felt that artists in Corpus needed a sales outlet as the art museumdid not like to display “Local Art”, a basic snob approach. The Art Mart was thecreation of Helen Lund a friend of ours and a member of artists in C.C. needed anoutlet for their work. She contacted the management of Parkdale Plaza, the onlymall in C.C. at the time and secured an empty store space for us. The mall wasglad to have someone in the space even un-paying as it ART MART as it reducedtheir fire insurance cost. We were even able to get a lighted sign like the ones onthe other stores in the center. J.C. Penny’s, Lichtenstein’s, and several majorretailers no longer exist in C.C. including a cafeteria. We moved several times asthe space we were in would be rented.

The initial membership included several major artists of C.C. as well asmany minor lights of the area. Artists, several of whom competed in local andstatewide competitions were initial members. One offshoot of the Art Mart wasthe Art Mart Studio, classroom and exhibit space closer to downtown. Neither stillexists. The only other exhibit space was the Centennial Art Museum which thenwas in South Bluff Park. Many art events were staged in the adjoining large treefilled park.

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At some point the Junior League stuck their horn in which had somepositive long term effects and some not so. One good result was the creation of what is now the Art Museum now a part of the group of Museums next to

the port area.

BIO Info etc To be added to mine

Name – Birth date and place

Spouse or significant others = Include birth info

Children Birth info

Schools info

Travels including residence info

Miscellaneous

revised biography

Documents