Family History Miscellaneous album, page 48

Sylvia Arnold Dye with her two children Garland and Noma

What's written on the back of the photo: "The old man is Clyde Froud, preacher at the little church Marlie built. Marlie is the man in the hat."

Marlie was a brother of my great-grandmother Annie Arnold Hicks

Abner Rhoades 

This is a postcard. The postmark is Caldren, Arkansas, 14 January 1910. Abner would have been 24 years old in this picture. Abner was the son of Margaret Carter Rhoades - a sister of my great-great-grandmother Adaline Carter Arnold.

Elmer Lee Owen

Elmer was the son of Melinda Paralee Carter - another sister of my great-great-grandmother Adaline Carter Arnold.

Here is a picture of Adaline and Paralee, with their sister Ellen

Sisters Adaline Carter Arnold, Ellen Carter Cartee, Paralee Carter Owen, at the Arnold homeplace in Banner, Arkansas

 Paralee Carter Owen with her husband David Owen and their children - Back: Clyde and Elmer. Front: John Thomas, Ola Mae. Taken about 1900.

Here is a picture of David and Paralee that is on their gravestone:

They are buried in Athens Cemetery, Howard County, Arkansas

From Paralee's memorial on the FindAGrave website:

Melinda Paralee Carter married David Jackson Owen Nov. 4, 1890 in Couch, Oregon

County, Missouri. Their first 3 children, Elmer Lee, Harbert Perry and Clyde Almus were born in Missouri. They went by wagon to Indian Territory, Oklahoma and their son John Thomas Owen was born there in 1896. They moved to Texas and their last two children, Ola Mae and William Jackson where born in Texas. David and Melinda eventually settled in Howard County Arkansas.

Family History Miscellaneous album, page 47

 

Drilling a well...

Here's a cleaned up and captioned version of this photo:

Sylvia Dye and Cleffie Burford (enhanced and cropped version of the original photo)

Sylvia and Cleffie were cousins - daughters of Marlie Arnold and his sister Annie Arnold Hicks

Lillie Dunn

Daughter of Mary Elizabeth Carter Dunn

Mary Elizabeth Carter was a half-sister of my great-great-grandmother Adaline Carter Arnold, so Lillie would have been a cousin to my great-grandmother Annie Arnold Hicks

Cleffie Lorene Hicks, my grandmother

This is one of my favorite pictures of her. I don't know how old she was in this photo, but I would guess maybe about 14 or 15.

Family History Miscellaneous album, page 46

First five children of my great-grandparents Ulysses and Annie Arnold Hicks

(The firstborn child was a boy who was stillborn.)

George Arnold's first family. (With his 1st wife Jessie.)

Amos, the first child and only boy, died at age 7 before this photo was taken.

*     *     *

Here is a collage of all these people at the age they were when I knew them in my childhood -- or when I first met them at the family reunion in the 1980s. I never met Amos or Wilma or Mildred.

Family History Miscellaneous album, page 45

This album page is from a sheet of paper that Wathada sent to one of the relatives to help her identify the folks in the pictures, while she was working on the family history.

Here are the pictures, tagged with names:

In this picture, I'm not sure all the names are correct. I made my best guess, by comparing this (blurry) picture to some others from the family reunions. Anyway, these are some of Uncle George Arnold's kids. I don't know where or when this picture was taken.

Family History Miscellaneous album, page 44

George Thomas Carter family

Wife Laura (aka Larah) Wilkerson Carter, children Lena, Frank, Etta (baby)

Laura was killed in a tornado in 1938; she was 58 years old.

George was a son of Ned Jonas Carter. His sister was my great-great-grandmother Adaline Carter Arnold.

Lena Carter

Daughter of George and Laura Carter. Her full name was Alice Eleanor.

Frank's full name was James Franklin. He married Vesta Mae Springfield. Here is a note from Glynda Carter Tucker's family history: Vesta Mae was granddaughter of Margaret Carter Rhoades, so she and Frank were cousins. They were divorced.

Here is a picture of sisters Lena and Etta Carter at the annual Carter/Arnold family reunion in 1983:

Minerva Adaline Carter Arnold

My great-great-grandmother

She was a sister to George Thomas Carter.

Family history miscellaneous album, page 43

 

Ned Jonas Carter and Nancy Jane Evans Carter

Ned Jonas Carter is as far back as we have been able to trace in the Carter lineage. He was born in Tennessee in 1829 and died in 1900 in Banner, Arkansas. Nancy Jane was his second wife. (See below for notes on Ned Jonas and Nancy Jane Carter.)

Mary Elizabeth Carter Dunn and her youngest daughter Lillie Dunn

Mary Elizabeth was a granddaughter of Ned Jonas Carter and his first wife Melinda Clingan. She was born in 1860. She married Lewis Carter Dunn in 1875, and they had nine children. Lillie was born in 1894.

John Martin Carter and his wife Amy Tamsett Carter

John Martin was the 11th of Ned Jonas Carter's 15 children, born in 1877. Amy was born in 1882. They were married in 1903 and had eight children.

*   *   *

Here are some notes Annie Arnold Hicks wrote about her grandparents Ned Jonas and Nancy Jane Evans Carter:

    My grandmother’s name was Jane Evans before marriage.  She married a man by the name of Evans.  They had two children, Elizabeth and Joe.  (Grandma was born about 1846.)  After a few years her first husband died and she soon married a man by the name of Carter and he soon died.  No children were born to them.  Then she married again, a man by the name of Carter.  This man had three children, Margaret, Mary, and Wesley so that made them five children to start with.  Then they had several children.  I will try to call their names.  Sarah Parlie, Adeline (my mother), John, Beckie, Tilda, George and Ellen.  My grandma lived to be about 50 years old.  She died when I was about 3 years old.  I can barely remember when she died in 1896.  She had T.B., but died from taking an overdose of calomel and getting salivated.  You see, when you take calomel and if you eat anything salty or hot coffee soon after taking it, it salivates you.  It makes your mouth real sore and even makes your teeth fall out when it gets real bad, and if you don’t get it stopped it goes to the stomach and eats your stomach up and kills. People used to take calomel for malaria.  We don’t have malaria in the north, but it used to be real bad in the warm climates before the land was cleared up much. Uncle Wesley died from cancer of the stomach.  So did Grandpa.  Grandpa married again after Grandma died but didn’t live with her long.  He left her and came to our house to live when I was about five or six years old.  He died in 1900 with cancer of the stomach at about the age of 60 years or maybe a little older...  

    Grandpa was of Irish descent.  I don’t know Grandma’s descent.  Grandpa was a heavy-set man with large muscles - a very strong man.  He was a blacksmith by trade.  He used to take bitter apple for medicine.  I don’t see any of it now.  It looked just like dried apples in little slices but it is as bitter as it can be.  He gave me a bite of it one time and it tasted so bad I almost never did get the taste out of my mouth and I never did like him very well.  It is possible that he felt so bad that he didn’t want to make friends with us kids.  I remember when he came to our house to live, his stomach was swelled real big, but he was still walking around and I don’t remember how long he lived after he couldn’t be up.  It seems like quite a while, a year maybe.  I remember that he would throw up curded blood, I suppose.  It looked like coffee grounds.  But they had the best doctor that could be had in those days to doctor him, but he would have done as well without a doctor as with one, more than maybe a few shots to kill the pain of cancer in its last stages.  Ma had to bury everything that he passed.  The doctor said just to make sure. We didn’t have toilets then to flush it through.  Neither did we have hospitals then like we have now, so the only thing to do was just keep him at home and do the best we could.  Then we had no undertakers.  The neighbor men made a casket out of lumber and covered it with black cloth, lined inside with white cloth.  And they always had to be buried the next day after death.  He was buried in the old Pine Grove cemetery near Floral, Arkansas...

    Grandpa’s family including all the children half brothers and sisters and own brothers and sisters was thirteen children, making 15 in the family. Grandpa was a blacksmith by trade, that is the way he made a living for the family... 

    We lived in Arkansas away back in the hills at the foot of the Ozarks when Grandpa came to live with us.  He moved from Missouri.  Grandma hadn’t been dead but about four years but he had married again and it didn’t work out, so he left his wife and came down to our house.  I don’t believe he lived over a year after coming there, for he was sick when he came.  He died in 1900 with cancer at the age of about 73 years I think. I was 7 years old then. 

*   *   *

Here is what Glynda Faye Carter Tucker wrote about Ned Jonas Carter, her great-grandfather:

    This begins with my great grandfather, Ned Jonas Carter, born about 1829 in Tennessee and died 17 July 1900 near Banner, Arkansas.  I know nothing about his parents, brothers or sisters.  It is believed he was in Union County, Illinois in 1850 and maybe before then. He married Melinda Emaline Clingins 23 March 1851 in Union County.  Melinda was born in Tennessee also, in about 1835.  They had six children that I know of...

    I will write a little about Ned J. Carter.  Most of this information given to me by John J. Rhoades and calling Ned Grandpap as that is what the Rhoades family called him. Grandpap was of average height or a little less.  He was red-headed, left handed and as independent as a hog on ice.  The color of his eyes was probably grey or green.  The family was Scotch, Irish and Pennsylvania Black Dutch.  Most of Grandpap’s descendants are religious people making it seem that he had strong religious beliefs.  He was a republican in politics and a blacksmith by trade, and a good one too.  People would come from far away to have him do their blacksmithing. He seemed to have itchy feet.  He never stayed in one place very long.  He might not move far, but move he would. Grandpap was about as wide as he was tall and in his older age his hair turned white and he also had a white beard.  One of the Dunn boys remembered this story about him:  He went to a community party and three boys decided to have some fun at Grandpap’s expense.  After the fun was over, Grandpap’s white hair was red with blood but he was still on his feet.  They had to carry the three boys out.  That just shows they didn’t have much sense.  A smart man doesn’t start a fight with a blacksmith. Another story was that one day a man brought Grandpap some work.  He was one that wanted to tell him how to do it.  Apparently, Grandpap had a short fuse, as you would expect in a red-head, because he got tired of that fella real quick.  Since the guy was telling him where to hit the metal with the hammer, he had him show him just exactly where to hit it next.  The man had to practically put his finger on the metal to show him where to hit it and Grandpap took a swing with his hammer.  He was quick to move his hand and himself and left the work to Grandpap...

    Ned Jonas Carter married Nancy Jane Evans Carter in Vienna, Johnson County, Illinois 17 December 1865.  The story is that Jane’s maiden name was Evans, she married an Evans, he is believed to have been killed in the Civil War, then she married a Carter and he soon died, then she married Ned J. Carter.  (I have never seen her name as Nancy but have been told that it was.  On census and marriage record it is just Jane.) Jane had two children by her Evans husband. Josiah Marion and Martha Elizabeth.  Joe, as I have heard him called, was born 8 August 1858.  He married and had children and was living in Oregon County in 1880.  He is believed to be buried near Walnut Ridge, Arkansas.  I have heard that he has no living descendants.  Martha was born 1 August 1860. She married Russel Byrd.  They had at least three children.  They lived in Missouri, Texas and Arkansas. I have not found any living descendants and I have no death dates on them.  They were known as Uncle Russ and Aunt Lizzy Byrd.  The relatives in Cleburne County, Arkansas remember that they lived here at one time. 

*   *   *

Here is a photo of Russ and Lizzy Byrd and their children

Happy birthday, Bob Burford!

Happy birthday, Bob Burford!

 

Family History Miscellaneous album, page 42

Six of Ulys & Annie's children: Irene holding Vernell, Cleffie, Elvin, and Evalee.

And chickens.

Here's a doctored up version of the photograph - not quite so brown and yellow.

Vernell was born in October 1925, so this picture was probably taken in 1926

Family History Miscellaneous album, page 41

 

John Henry Hicks and Malisa Evaline Burns Hicks

parents of my great-grandfather Ulysses Fillmore Hicks

Judsonia 4th grade class, 1928

Cleffie Hicks (my grandmother), second row, second from right.

She was not actually in this picture. She spliced herself in from another photo (see below).

Yes, her father (Ulysses Hicks) was a photographer... so she was not without skills.

This picture, in order of age (and height): Cleffie, Elvin, Evalee, Vernell

Family History Miscellaneous album, page 39

 

Charles and Evalee Hicks Jones

Their 50th wedding anniversary, 1990

Twins Michael and Melanie Radde

Children of Beverly Jones Radde

Grandchildren of Charles and Evalee Hicks Jones

Melanie Radde

Stephen Jay Bridges

Son of Shelby Jay Bridges

Grandson of Jay and Bernice Hicks Bridges

Family History Miscellaneous album, page 38

Here's the photo, enlarged:

Here's the photo enlarged and tagged:

1 Ruby Hicks

2 Annie Hicks

3 Joan Arnold

4 Adaline Arnold

5 George Arnold

6 Birdie Arnold

7 Doyle Arnold

8 Marlie Arnold

9 Etta Arnold

10 Wincel Jackson

11 Ben Jackson

12 Arbie Arnold

13 Wilma Arnold

14 Irene Hicks

15 Sylvia Arnold

16 Cleffie Hicks

17 Alvis Jackson

18 Evalee Hicks

19 Verlie Arnold

20 Opie Arnold

21 Obie Arnold

22 Mildred Arnold

23 Elvin Hicks

24 Eldred Arnold

25 Arbon Arnold

Photo was taken in 1924

Adaline's children are George, Annie, Marlie, and Etta. (John was not present.)

George's children are Joan, Arbie, Wilma, Verlie, Opie, Obie, and Mildred. (His wife Jessie had died in November of 1923, a few months after Joan was born.)

Annie's children are Ruby, Irene, Cleffie, Evalee, and Elvin. (Her husband Ulysses Hicks is not in the photo. He was most likely the photographer.)

Marlie's wife is Birdie, and their children are Doyle, Sylvia, Eldred, and Arbon.

Etta's husband is Ben Jackson, and their children are Wincel and Alvis.

Family History Miscellaneous album, page 37

 

(L-R): Arbie Arnold, Eulene Carter, Lavada Carter, Ruth Carter, Elmer Carter, Agnes Carter, Ollie Carter, Wilma Arnold

These are children of John Martin Carter and children of George Ned Arnold. These Carter children would have been aunts and uncles of the Arnold children. (George was a brother of Annie Arnold Hicks.)

Alvis Jackson

son of Etta Arnold and Ben Jackson (Etta was Annie Hicks' younger sister)

John Henry Arnold

father of my great-grandmother Annie Arnold Hicks

I have several copies of this photo, and they're not all as greenish as this one.

Margaret Bullard ("Aunt Peggy")

Margaret and her brother George raised John Henry Arnold. He was their nephew. Here's what Annie wrote about it:

Grandmother’s name before marriage was Emma Bullard. She married a man by the name of Arnold. They had one child, Henry (my father). They didn’t live together but three or four years. They had trouble because he wanted to move from Missouri to Texas (or at least that’s what set off the separation), with his folks and she wouldn’t move, but he went ahead and moved without her and in a little while he came back and wanted her to take him back but she wouldn’t. Then in a year or two she married a man by the name of Alex McReynolds. They had one boy and twin girls and they had trouble and he took the girls and left, and they never heard from him any more. But about the time she married the second time, her brother and sister (neither one married) took my Dad - just a small boy about maybe 2 years old, and set up housekeeping and raised him. Their names were George Bullard and Margaret Bullard (Peggy). Uncle George and Aunt Peggy was always exactly like my Grandpa and Grandma. After they got my Dad about raised, Uncle George married  Josie Tamsett, an aunt of Amy Tamsett that John Carter married. Then a little later, Aunt Peggy married Alex Williams, a very strange character. Aunt Peggy said she never could get acquainted with him or understand his actions. Lots of nights he would get up in the night and sit in the door with his gun just like he was expecting a murderer, but in just a few years he was walking home across an old field where there was some dead trees and one of them fell on him and killed him. Just the day before that, he had a snuff box packed full of $20 gold pieces and that would be a lot of money for them times. He evidently had hid that money for not a penny could be found (about 1897). In those days gold pieces were in common circulation. They got the idea that he bored a hole in a tree and put the box of money in the hole and put a peg in on it, but they had no idea which tree nor for sure that he did that, so there wasn’t any chance to find the money. This all took place in Missouri around Thayer. 

My Father was grown and married before Aunt Peggy married. 

Tom Nicholson and his wife Kizzie

They were the parents of Earl Nicholson, who married Dulcie Mae Jackson. Dulcie Mae was the daughter of Etta Arnold (Annie's sister) and Ben Jackson.

Blanche Sample and Mildred Montgomery

I don't think these are relatives. As best I can determine, they were friends of the family. I have several pictures of Blanche and my mother (Wathada) together - they were near the same age.

This is an enhanced version of the photo in the album. The caption reads: "Drilling a well at the Beecher Woodham farm near Banner, Arkansas." The woman in the white cap is Annie Arnold Hicks. Sitting next to her are her daughters Ruby and Irene, and the baby sitting in front of her is Cleffie, my grandmother. I don't know who all the other people are. 

Sarah Tamsett

This is the midwife who delivered my grandmother, Cleffie Hicks Burford, in 1917. 

Both the Tamsetts and the Bullards are inextricably intertwined in the Arnold/Carter family tree. Sarah's daughter Jessie married Annie's brother George. Sarah's daughter Amy married Annie's uncle John Martin Carter. Sarah's husband's sister Josie married George Bullard, who raised Annie's father John Henry Arnold. (Now, is that as clear as mud?)  

See note below about the night Cleffie was born.

Martha Rhoades

daughter of Margaret Carter Rhoades

Margaret was a sister of my great-great-grandmother Adaline Carter Arnold

*   *   *

The Night I Was Born

   I have heard my mother tell about the incidents surrounding my birth on August 8th, 1917.  I was born about two o’clock that morning.    It was during “World War One” and my father had been notified that he must come to Heber Springs and take his examination for the military service, along with a lot of other men, of course.  We lived at Banner, and it was twenty-five miles to Heber Springs.  Papa walked every step of the way there and back.  He was gone three or four days at least. ?He was really dreading the examination and was hoping he wouldn’t pass it.  In fact, he was hoping so much that he wouldn’t pass that he drank several cups of coffee, “strong coffee”, just before time for it.  I guess that did the trick because he didn’t pass the exam.  He said his heart was really pounding and acting up from the coffee.  He had a weak heart anyway and that just made it show up. ?He arrived home around midnight on the aforementioned night, so tired he was almost dead on his feet.  Mama knew I was going to arrive that night, too, but she didn’t have the heart to tell him right at that time.  She wanted him to get a little sleep and rest first.  He did go to sleep for maybe a couple of hours.  But it wasn’t very long till she had to get him up to go tell the mid-wife to come, and then go for the doctor.  He rode a horse this time because he knew he was coming back.  It was fifteen miles to the doctor, who lived at Jamestown.  He was the nearest doctor there was in that part of the country.  Sometimes after a big rain the creek would rise so much it would be impossible to get across but I guess it wasn’t up this time because they made it.  However, it took them a little too long and I beat them there.  The midwife had delivered me and I was there to greet them when they came in. My mother had waited too long to send for the doctor and, really, as it turned out, she didn’t need him.  But I’m sure she felt better that he came anyway. Mrs. Tamsett was the mid-wife.  She was Aunt Jessie Arnold’s mother.  Also Aunt Amy Carter’s mother.