May 31

Barbara Jean Smith (Hicks) was born 31 May 1930

Barbara was the wife of Olan Hicks (brother of my grandmother Cleffie Hicks Burford)

Barbara and Olan had three children - Jeanne, Clint, and Chuck

Sylvia Kathern Arnold (Dye) was born 31 May 1917

Sylvia was the daughter of Marlie and Birdie Arnold

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

Sylvia married Delbert Dye

Sylvia and Delbert had two children - daughter Noma, and son Garland

May 30

Rosa 'Rosie' Lee Hicks was born 30 May 1902

Rosie was the daughter of Felix Hicks and Ida Lenora Sandefur

Felix Hicks was a brother of my great-grandfather Ulysses Hicks

PHOTO: Back - Felix, Ida holding Rosie, Ulysses. Front: John Henry and Malisa Hicks (my great-great-grandparents) and son David. (They had nine children, three of whom died in early childhood. Of the surviving six, David was the oldest, Felix and Ulysses were the two youngest.)

PHOTO: Felix and Ida with Rosie (center) and son Odice.

Felix and Ida had three children, Rosie, Odice, and Odelcie.

PHOTO: Rosie, Odice, Odelcie

Rosie Hicks never married.

PHOTO: Front - Rosie Hicks, Cleffie and Lester Burford (my grandparents). Back - Joann Wheetley, Odelcie Hicks Williams, at the Hicks reunion and also a birthday party for Rosie. 1976.

May 29

 George Ned Arnold was born 29 May 1889

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

PHOTO: Back - George, Annie. Front - Aunt Peggy, Adaline holding Etta, John, Henry holding Marlie.

PHOTO L-R: George, Annie, John, Marlie, Etta

George Ned Arnold married Jessie Tamsett

PHOTO: Ulys and Annie, George and Jessie

This picture was taken in 1910, the year that both couples were married.

George and Jessie had 8 children, Amos, Arbie, Wilma, Obie, Opie, Mildred, Verlie and Joan. Jessie died in 1923 when Joan was only 3 months old. 

PHOTO L-R: Amos, George holding Opie, Jessie holding Obie, Wilma, Arbie.

PHOTO: Back - Arbie and Wilma. Front - Mildred, Verlie, Opie, Joan, Obie.

Amos died of typhoid fever at age 7, before Verlie and Joan were born.

In 1928 George married Eula Burnett and they had 5 children, Clora Mae, Raymond ('Bud'), Ruby, Delena and Bertha Lee.

PHOTO: George and Eula Mae with children Bud, Clora Mae, Ruby, Delena, and Bertha Lee

Here is what Cleffie wrote about her uncle George --

My Uncle George Arnold -- he was a good man, and a likeable person.  But you know, he had a lot of bad luck in his life.  He married Jessie Tamsett and that was good.  They raised a family.  They had, I believe it was eight kids.  The last one though, left Aunt Jessie with, I don’t know if it was childbed fever or something else -- I just don’t know what it was, kind of an infection or poison of some kind in her body, and caused her to be sick and just, well she was in bad shape and lingered along for a few weeks -- maybe a month or more -- and then died, and that was awful.  And then he made out though for -- well, Ma went to live with him and help him raise them kids, so he made out just fine that way, but he didn’t have any wife.  I know that was bad for him.  But anyway, finally, after about five years why, he married another woman.  He married Eula Burnett, and then they set in and raised another family.  Just about the same size family as his first one was.  So he had pretty good luck with that.  Everything went alright.  But then in a few years, he got something wrong with him.  He didn’t know what it was. So he worried with that for a long time, just having trouble like if he had kidney trouble or something, and he didn’t know what to do about it.  Course, there wasn’t no doctors hardly up here in these hills then, and if there was they didn’t know much.  So he decided, well I think my dad talked to him some about it, and told him if he’d come down to Judsonia, he’d go with him over to Searcy and help him get a doctor.  I guess he made an appointment first, I don’t know.  Anyway, he did that.  He came down there and Papa took him over to a doctor in Searcy and after he examined him good why, he told him he had Bright’s disease and couldn’t do anything about it. I don’t know if there’s anything to do for it, might be now, I don’t know, but at that time they didn’t seem to think there was.  So he just came home and just suffered with that for I don’t know how long -- long time.  Finally, it got him -- it just killed him -- he died with it.  He’d lay in that room by himself, just he’d be the only one in there, in that back bedroom and on Sundays a lot of different people would come and see him and just come talk to him a little bit, sit there with him and then go.  That’s the way the last part of his life was for quite a while.  And he finally died.  That was the hardest part -- was just being in that shape, he was bedfast and just wasn’t nothing to be done.

*   *   *

George Ned Arnold died 11 August 1939, at age 50.

May 28

Otho Horace Ford married Ann Olsen 28 May 1960 (I don't have a picture of her.)

PHOTO: Charles and Effie Ford with (L-R) Cleo, Otho Simeon, Otho Horace.

Charles Ford was a brother of my great-grandmother Nancy Ford Thomas.

Otho was the son of Effie Harvey and her 1st husband Milton Conklin

When Effie married Charles Ford, he adopted Otho. (Otho was 6 years old when they married.)

Otho Horace Ford was married four times:

He married Edith Abbie Stuller 01 January 1908

He married Laura Johnsen 08 December 1915

He married Maude Reiter 22 January 1924

He married Ann Olsen 28 May 1960

(Otho met Ann Olsen in the nursing home where they were both residing at the time. Otho died just less than a year after they were married.)

Otho had a son, Otho Simeon Ford, with his first wife Edith Stuller.

PHOTOS: Otho Horace Ford and Edith Abbie Stuller

PHOTO: Otho Simeon Ford

(Edith's father's name was Simeon)

As far as I know, Otho Horace Ford didn't have any other children.

Charles and Effie Ford adopted Otho Simeon when he was a baby. Here's how the story is recorded in our family history --

Otho Simeon was abandoned in a hotel room in Chicago when he was a baby. The story goes that Otho Horace and his wife Edith Stuller both just walked out of the hotel and left this baby in the room. A neighbor heard him crying and crying and finally went to the main desk to report it. Hotel management went into the room and found him abandoned. When they checked the records Effie and Charlie Ford, his grandparents, were listed as people to notify in case of emergency. They called them and they immediately went to pick him up. 

Grandpa Charles adopted him legally so that Otho Horace couldn't claim him again. The baby (Otho Simeon) had been underfed and lacked milk to build calcium, so his legs were weak and bowed. Charlie bought a tricycle, which we understood they really couldn't afford, to help strengthen his legs. Otho Simeon continued to live with Charles and Effie until he was grown.

When Charles and Effie got elderly and unable to cope for themselves Otho Simeon went back to Michigan and brought them to his home in Montana and cared for them until their death. They are buried in the family plot in Red Lodge, Montana.

--Source: Della Ford Emmett, daughter of Otho Simeon and Fiina Herranen Ford

May 27 - Memorial Day

Family who served

May 26

Cora Pearl Thomas Carter died 26 May 1978, age 69

Cora was the wife of Othinal Carter

Othinal was a son of John and Amy Carter

John Carter was a brother of my great-great-grandmother Adaline Carter Arnold

*

Maxine Clova Arnold Cobb died 26 May 2011, age 86

Maxine was a daughter of John and Gracie Arnold

I don't have a picture of John Arnold when he was older, and I don't have a picture of Gracie when she was younger.

John Arnold was a brother of my great-grandmother Annie Arnold Hicks.

May 25

Etta Eunice Thomas married Myrick 'Mike' Hurlbut 25 May 1881

PHOTO: Etta and Mike Hurlbut with their children Ethelyn and Cecil

Etta was a sister of my great-grandfather Charles Thomas

Margaret Emaline Carter Rhoades was born 25 May 1862

I posted yesterday about Margaret's death. She died one day before her 80th birthday.

Ida Mae Sandefur married Ceilco Weatherford 25 May 1925

PHOTO: Mae and her sister Viola (back), Malisa Hicks (my great-great-grandmother) and her daughter Nancy Hicks Sandefur (front). Mae and Viola are Nancy's daughters. Nancy Hicks was a sister of my great-grandfather Ulysses Hicks.

I don't have a picture of Ceilco Weatherford. Mae and Ceilco were divorced, I assume. In the 1940 census Mae is recorded as being a widow, with a 4 year old son named Carter. (Carter was Ceilco Weatherford's first name.) It's not surprising that she would have told the census taker that she was a widow, instead of saying she was divorced, because divorce was not very socially acceptable in those days. However, in 1940 Ceilco was still living, as evidenced by his death certificate in 1946. He died of a gunshot wound, and his death certificate labels it a homicide. On that document his wife's name is listed as Gracie.  

May 24

Margaret Emaline Carter Rhoades died 24 May 1942, age 79

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

PHOTO: Adaline Carter Arnold, Margaret Carter Rhoades

Margaret married John Norris Rhoades

Margaret and John Rhoades had 12 children: Mary Parlie, Abner, Rosa, William Albert, Early Ernest (died age 1), Lillie Susan (died age 15 days), Millie Mae (died age 3 months), Ned Herbert, twin girls (stillborn), Martha, and infant boy (stillborn).

PHOTO: Abner Rhoades

PHOTO: Margaret and Martha Rhoades

PHOTO: "Abner Rhoades' boys"

Abner had six sons - Noah, Silas, Naaman, Paul, Hosea, and John David. I don't know which two are in this picture.

PHOTO: "Aunt Margaret Rhoades and some of hers"

I assume these are grandsons, but I don't know which ones. (She had 16 grandsons.)

PHOTO: Hardy Echels Ford, grandson of Margaret Rhoades (son of Rosa)

PHOTO: John Julius Rhoades, grandson of Margaret Rhoades (son of Ned Herbert)

PHOTO: Margaret and her half-sister Ellen Carter

PHOTO: Martha Rhoades with her husband Albert Sandridge