Arnold Ancestors - Generation 3 - John Davidson Arnold

 John Davidson Arnold was born 25 February 1895 in Alton, Oregon County, Missouri

(John and his sister Annie had the same birthday, two years apart)

John was the second son of Henry and Adaline Arnold

PHOTO L-R: Marlie, John, Henry, Adaline, Annie, Etta

John Arnold married Gracie Belle Webb 15 September 1917 in McHue, Arkansas, daughter of Reuben Webb and Carnelia Davis. She was born 02 January 1897 in Jamestown, Independence County, Arkansas, and died 26 October 1992.

I don't have any pictures of Aunt Gracie when she was young. The following pictures were taken at the annual Arnold/Carter family reunion

1983

1986

Aunt Gracie Arnold, Ruby Hicks Barnett

1990

John and Gracie Arnold had eight children - Burton, Burnis, Alene, Maxine, Lloyd, John, Christene, and Bertha Lee.

I don't have pictures of all of them.

PHOTO: Irene Hicks holding Burton David Arnold. 

This may be the only picture of Burton in existence. He died at age 20 months of diphtheria.

PHOTOS: Christene and Maxine

I have one more picture of John Davidson Arnold, and a little story to go with it.

PHOTO: John is on the left, playing the fiddle. I don't know who is the man on the right playing the mandolin.

Wathada wrote:

A trip to the hills and bluegrass music

  About once a year, Grandma and Grandpa Hicks would drive up into the hills of Arkansas to Cleburne County, to see relatives up there.  Sometimes Mama took me and we went with them.  That was a big adventure for me and I loved that trip.  I would see aunts, uncles and cousins that I never saw any other time.  And I heard the most beautiful music there that I had ever heard.  I was spellbound by that music the first time I ever remember hearing it.  All the men up there – Grandma’s brothers and whoever else happened to be around, played and sang the best bluegrass music I have ever heard in my life even up to now.

  For years I told myself it was something I had only dreamed. But then I found out just about three or four years ago, that it wasn’t a dream, when Mama just happened to talk about that very thing. That’s when I knew it had really happened. I always felt like it was an actual memory and that it had happened up in the hills of Arkansas, but I couldn’t quite place it or think of any of the folks who played exactly that same kind of music. So I decided long ago, that it must only have been a dream.

  The part that I thought was a dream, was the part where there were some men on the front porch, and they played banjos and fiddles, and I guess anything else that had strings on it, and some of them, maybe all of them, sang some too. That was music like I had never heard before in all my short life, and I thought it was the most beautiful music there ever could be. I was entranced just listening to that music. I got lost in it and didn’t want it to ever stop. Mama says that was her Uncle George Arnold, Uncle John Arnold, and Uncle Marlie Arnold. She said there might have been a neighbor or two in on the music making too, but that just her three uncles all by themselves, could make the best music you will ever hear. Well, I couldn’t have been more than four or five years old, maybe just three -- and it has stayed with me all these years. It has hovered in my memory, haunting me like music does when it gets into your heart and soul. Something inside me knew all the time that it wasn’t a dream. 

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John Davidson Arnold died 29 December 1954 in Wilburn, Cleburne County, Arkansas.