In the late 1960s and early 1970s, an exodus from the cities brought hundreds of new settlers to the Arkansas Ozarks. Their personal stories are testaments to an awakening shared by many of the Baby Boom generation, personal and communal. This interview is one of 32 personal stories gathered in 1999-2000, and published in Aquarian Revolution: Back to the Land.
I didn’t like the way I was treated as a kid. I was beaten regularly. I don’t think I’ve cried since I was seven years old, because if I cried, they would beat me with a leather strap until I stopped crying. I had a bleeding ulcer from age twelve until it healed up after I left home right before my eighteenth birthday. I had a shrink and a probation officer trying to get me out of my house legally.
I ran away at thirteen and was involved with a stolen car. I remember when we ditched the car, this other kid I was with, he was fifteen, big kid. We were on our way to pick up some fake plates and police chased us because they recognized him so we dumped the car. We jumped out of the car doing about 45 mph, leaving my guitar case and suitcase with birth certificate, everything telling them who I was, and we ran, picked up a third guy, jumped on a bus to Baltimore, blew all the money we had, started hitchhiking. We were on our way to California. The police picked us up at two a.m. on the highway. I never gave them my name. I was planning on breaking out of jail. I can remember when I was riding that bus, I was thinking about my parents and how much I loved them, but I just couldn’t stand to live with them.
That was about the time I started getting high. A lot of things were about to break then, one way or another. It was either going to come out of me in violence, or… I think I found a channel to do it naturally and just chill out. Just reach in.
They made me see a shrink when I was thirteen because of the stolen car. He said I was afraid to express myself with my dad and that’s why, if anybody crossed me, I’d be right on them. After thirteen, I was getting into a lot of trouble. I was a practical joker who did things I probably shouldn’t have been doing, but I did it with a smile. I had my destructive period. One night three of us smashed a car that was parked alongside the road. We used sticks and rocks and beat it in. Totaled it. Those were heavy years.
I think it was being able to smoke that pulled me out of it. My friends were mostly tough guys, had attitudes. By the time I was seventeen, I had started to drift off with the ones who didn’t. I remember violence on TV, violence was everywhere. It was either protests or Vietnam. At sixteen, if anyone defied me, I would be down their throat in a second. One time a teacher put me in the front seat of the class, wouldn’t let me sleep. I was, man, you won’t let me sleep, what kind of a deal is this? I might have been getting a D at that point, but I didn’t care about that class. He put me in the front seat, banged my shoulder or something, made me wake up and started talking to me, I told him to leave me alone and he did something else to irritate me, and I jumped out of my seat, grabbed him by the lapels, dragged him across his desk, and smashed him into the blackboard in front of the whole class, and said “Leave me the fuck alone.” So of course they threw me out of school instantly.
That was my attitude with anybody. People would come to me from the grade ahead, bigger kids than me, and say hey, this guy’s doing this and that, and I’d go confront him. And I wouldn’t just confront him and intimidate him with anger, I’d put it into words. I’d say something to them that they couldn’t argue with. I didn’t want to argue with anybody, but if you’re going to argue with me, stand back or get out of the way, save yourself. My dad didn’t think I was a man because I wouldn’t be angry with him and fight back. Yet I’d go out and fight and do all this.
Coming out of that, I started being friends with all the teachers I had given trouble. My shrink might have been talking with my parents then. I had two shrinks, one my mother took me to and one that came to my school once a month. I had a probation officer, too. First time I went to the shrink, I sat to talk to him, and he said, ok. Then I went out and he talked to my mom. I come back in and sit down and he looked at me and said, K–, I cannot talk to your mom.
She was so headstrong. You did as she said or whack, or twist your ear. Most of my physical abuse was from my mom. It reached a point with my mom that I was more verbal. By the time I was ten or so, my mom didn’t scare me.
I ended up getting married my senior year. I was moving out. I’d run away another time, it was the third time. It wasn’t like running away. I was walking back and forth with my clothes, patting my mom on the back, saying it’s ok Mrs. C–, it’s ok. I was outta there. My wife’s parents took me in. The probation people were trying to get me out of my house before I was eighteen, if I could find somebody. They knew that anything was better than where I was. As hard as I might have been trying, chilling out, it was hard pretty much to the end.
Finally, I argued back with my dad and that was it. I made a quick exit because he just wanted to knock my block off. I think that changed him. He kind of stopped by the time I was seventeen, eighteen, when I was working for his business doing electrical. …
~~~
Now retired from a successful self-employed career, the subject of this interview moved to Hawaii where he has opened a meditation retreat. Read the rest of his compelling story, available for only $4.99 (ebook) or $11.32 (paperback), at Amazon
Abortion has been, and continues to be, a vital weapon in the Republican toolbox, a means to gain control over a multitude of less savory objectives. With this hot button, they have been able to whip up energy within their ranks. Over the last fifty years, a growing mob of zealots have taken to the streets and the halls of government with placards showing the pitiful fetus so wronged by evil women and their fiendish abortion doctors.
The truth is that the flap over abortion was never as much about the ‘unborn baby’ as it was about political capital. Powerbrokers saw right away that this issue aroused emotion like nothing else. Yet what the Republican Party stood for, then as now, also enshrined racial prejudice, but it had become impossible to openly advocate for white supremacy.
The mass migration of voters from Democratic ranks to the shelter of the Republican Party began not with Roe v Wade, but with the 1952 Brown vs Board of Education decision and followed more decisively with the Kennedy-Johnson push for civil rights. The Civil Rights Act of 1964 forbade discrimination on the basis of sex as well as race in hiring, promoting, and firing. The Act prohibited discrimination in public accommodations and federally funded programs. It also strengthened the enforcement of voting rights and the desegregation of schools.
Police dogs, held by officers, jump at a man with torn trousers during a non-violent demonstration, Birmingham, Alabama, May 3, 1963. Police officers used both dogs and firehoses to break up the rally.
After the 1964 Civil Rights Act, many white, conservative Southern Democrats became Republicans. The South had been mostly Democratic before 1964; it was mostly Republican after (although on the local level continued to be heavily Democratic for decades). Many “values voters” became Republicans.[1]
The 1973 Roe v Wade decision legalizing abortion did not have nearly the same impact as the Civil Rights Act as far as political response. For a time, other issues sidetracked voter attention, such as the winding down of the Vietnam War and the Watergate scandal that shoved Nixon out of office. The Arab oil embargo also diverted public interest with skyrocketing gasoline prices. In reality, the behind-the-scene Republican strategists were slow in coming around to a full understanding of how to use the abortion issue to represent the real interests of conservatives.
Early in Reagan’s presidency, developing tactics on the abortion issue spread through the nation in the hands of then-fledgling evangelical groups wielding signage of dismembered fetuses (remarkably mature for the gestation dates named) and demonstrations by women crying for the lost babies or, more heart-rendering, testimonials by women who had obtained abortions and later regretted it. (This vanishingly small group remains an active feature of anti-choice campaigns. One could sum up their position as yet another demonstration of ignorance.)
At first, Democrats yielded ground on the matter, not firmly convinced enough about women’s right to bodily autonomy to take a firm stand. Lamentably lacking in early opposition to the anti-abortion crowd were strategies to fight back with their own weaponry, for example, citing Biblical scriptures showing that personhood began at birth.
After God formed man in Genesis 2:7, He “breathed into his nostrils the breath of life and it was then that the man became a living being”. Although the man was fully formed by God in all respects, he was not a living being until after taking his first breath.[2]
Democrats have finally taken a stronger stance on the topic, linking the party to “their support of ‘human rights’ and of groups whose rights have been long suppressed – African Americans and other minority groups, women seeking to vote and enjoy full property rights, LGBTQ people and immigrants.”[3]
To Republicans, the abortion issue is a coded message about the party’s stance on longstanding prejudices, not only uppity women but also African Americans and other minorities, LBGTQ people, and non-white immigrants. Without having to advertise racism or other prejudices, Republican strategists can push voters to champion the rights of the fetus while avoiding the party’s full agenda.
It is not the facts of an issue which drive evangelical voters. As a general rule, evangelicals don’t embrace facts. Their hands are full of Bibles, which they don’t precisely understand, but they do hear what preachers tell them. What the preachers tell them is intended not to elucidate the facts but rather to stoke FEAR of God’s wrath. And, in these narrow hallways of evangelical mentality, God will punish them if they don’t stop women from killing fetuses.
It’s not that evangelist preachers are pursuing a goal they understand in terms of social policy. Their vehement sermons about abortion and their endorsement of specific political candidates derive from their urgent personal desire to make money off of Jesus. Evangelicals are an easy mark. See, for example, the fundraising headline at Focus on the Family’s website: “SAVE 2X THE BABIES FROM ABORTION! Double Your Gift to Save Lives!”
The more insidious objective of the Republican agenda is to continue shifting power to corporations and the super wealthy while the frontmen lure evangelical voters with the promise of a Christian nation. Sadly, evangelicals lack any understanding of the threat posed in religion as government, a condition that increases exponentially as more private religious schools and homeschooling take the place of public education.
Remedies for the current crisis would include regulations that deny diplomas to any student, homeschooled or otherwise, who cannot pass examinations proving understanding of American history and government, among other subjects required of public school students. If U. S. citizens cannot begin adulthood on the same page, we have no hope of continuing as a nation.
One thing such an education would ensure is the awareness that the Republican/evangelical drive toward a Christian nation is a form of sedition, “an overt conduct, such as speech and organization, that tends toward rebellion against the established order. Sedition often includes subversion of a constitution and incitement of discontent toward, or insurrection against, established authority.”
Equally tragic is while Republican power brokers chortle over wins for the One Percent, they have failed to recognize the puppet master profiting from their maneuvers: Putin.
Trump’s victory lap over the demise of Roe v Wade unveils one of the subtle purposes of Vladimir Putin’s support. The Russian ploy to undermine U.S. society gained a witless ally in Trump, who pulled his best con job in his election to the presidency, aided and abetted by the machinations of Russian interference.
What has now been made clear is that Russian trolls and automated bots not only promoted explicitly pro-Donald Trump messaging, but also used social media to sow social divisions in America by stoking disagreement and division around a plethora of controversial topics such as immigration and Islamophobia.
The overarching goal for Russia, during the election and now, analysts say, is to expand and exploit divisions, attacking the American social fabric where it is most vulnerable, along lines of race, gender, class and creed.
“The broader Russian strategy is pretty clearly about destabilizing the country by focusing on and amplifying existing divisions, rather than supporting any one political party,” said Jonathon Morgan, a former state department adviser on digital responses to terrorism whose company, New Knowledge, analyzes the manipulation of public discourse.[4]
Russia’s desired outcome in the months before Donald Trump’s election in 2016 was not simply to see him elected. It aimed, instead, to more broadly “undermine the US-led liberal democratic order” (in the words of a January 2017 intelligence assessment), an effort that Russia believed would be aided far more by Trump’s election than Hillary Clinton’s. This overlapped with its desire to “provoke and amplify political and social discord in the United States” (in the words of special counsel Robert S. Mueller III), leading it to weigh in not only on electoral politics but cultural fights — investing in amplifying and exacerbating contentious social debates.[5]
[2] Also Job 33:4: “The spirit of God has made me, and the breath of the Almighty gives me life.”
Ezekiel 37:5, 6: “Thus says the Lord God to these bones: Behold, I will cause breath to enter you, and you shall live. And I will lay sinews upon you, and will cause flesh to come upon you, and cover you with skin, and put breath in you, and you shall live; and you shall know that I am the Lord.”
Exodus 21:22: If a man causes a woman to have a miscarriage, he shall be fined; however, if the woman dies then he will be put to death. It should be apparent from this that the aborted fetus is not considered a living human being since the resulting punishment for the abortion is nothing more than a fine; it is not classified by the bible as a capital offense.
John Randolph Campbell, holding a Bible, believed in his late 20s circa 1875-1880
Records of John Randolph’s birth name a birth year of 1853, although various other records show conflicting dates. A church record states that he was born December 24, 1853, in Independence County, Arkansas. In 1873 at age 19, he married Sarah “Sally” Elizabeth Prince at Sulphur Rock, Independence County, Arkansas. She was his second cousin once removed.
Miss Prince was born September 1849 in Tennessee, daughter of William Prince and Martha Lamberson. This Lamberson is related to John’s mother’s family: Melinda was her first cousin once removed. William J. Prince was born 1813 in Georgia, and died during the Civil War in Independence County, Arkansas, as did his wife Martha Lamberson Prince, born 1825 in North Carolina. Sarah Sally’s siblings were William H., b 1842 TN (CSA AR 8th Inf. Co. E, enrolled August 6, 1862 at Sulphur Rock, AR, between Newark and Batesville); Mary A., born 1847 TN (married James Scott); Virginia b 1850 MS; James Ferdinand b 1852 AR; Martha Jane b 1857 AR (married George Hill 1872; David Bruton 1879); John T. b 1858 AR; Tennessee “Babe” b 1860 (raised by Mary, married Riley Whaley).
Birth records for the couple’s sixth child, Benjamin, dated 1888, states that John age 38 was a farmer and preacher, born at Newark Arkansas, and that Sarah age 40 was born in Mississippi.
John Randolph Campbell and his new wife Sally produced the following children:
i. Emma Campbell b. 1874, Newton Co., AR, d. 1888 of rheumatic fever at age fourteen
ii. Mary Molly Campbell b 1876, m. Frank Pratt(s). Children were Mabel m. Fred Albert; Lizzie m. John Hilburn; Beulah; Pierce; Lennox; Urcil “Huck”; Margie; Nettie (died).
iii. John William Campbell, b 1878, m. Mary Jane Ellis. John William is the great-great grandfather of my three Campbell children.
iv. Jack O’Neil, b. Dec 25, 1882 at Newark, Indep. Co, AR, d. Apr 14, 1960, Newport, married July 19, 1903 to Emma Bell Hicks and produced Lennie Mae, Bertha, Commie O’Neal, Rutha Lee, and Opal Christine. Jack then married Donnie Inness and produced another eight children: Edna Irene, Burl Nathaniel, Aubrey Evereett, Almeta Beatrice, Leeaun Utah, J. C., Alvin Newton, and Thelma Joyce.
v. James Campbell b 1880, m. Mary Willis. Children were Dallas, Nanny, and another daughter.
vi. Clu Campbell, died at age 9 – not found in family birth records
vii. Benjamin Harvey Campbell, b June 14, 1888, Pleasant Plains, Indep. Co AR, d. Nov 19, 1966, Newport, Jackson Co, AR. married Willie Hicks, married Ocra Ellen Tibbs, and their children were Eva Jewell and Clemins Alvin. He then married Helen Carmen “Nell” Yancy, and produced Vesta Lola, Virginia Vivian, Mather Carnell, Veda Lee, Milous Harvey, and Benjamin Morris.
The 1880 Newton County Arkansas census for Jackson Township lists John Campbell age 26 with wife Sarah age 25, with children Emma age 6, Mary age 4, John age 2, and James six months. John’s occupation was farming.
John Randolph and Sarah Prince Campbell, circa 1900
The 1900 census for Fairview Township, Newton County (?) lists John R. Campbell age 46 as a mail carrier, land owner with a mortgage, married 27 years to Sarah, age 50, with seven children of which five were living. Jackson, age 17, was a hack driver, and Harvey age 13 was a farm laborer. They housed a lodger named William Hicks. The 1920 census for Jackson County Arkansas, Richwoods Township, finds John R. Campbell age 67 and Sarah A. age 72 living in a rented home, with his occupation described as clergyman and evangelist. The 1930 census for Amagon (Richwoods Twp) lists John R. age 80 and Sarah age 84 living in a rented home without occupation.
John Randolph was about five-nine at 185 pounds, although in older age he became “heavy set.” He worked as an itinerant preacher, following the Church of Christ denomination. “On September 29, 1895, John R. Campbell was authorized to work as an evangelist by the “Disciples of Christ, worshiping at Surrounded Hill Arkansas.” In 1889, he was ordained as a preacher by E. M Kilpatrick, and J. L. Kitridge, Clerk for Tex-Ark & Indian Territory: Credentials, page 32.
This poor quality image shows John Randolph in the process of baptizing a convert, date unknown.
According to one descendant, “John Randolph used to preach near Bradford [Arkansas] at least once a month; Aunt Nell [wife of Benjamin Harvey] remembers hearing him preach in 1914 near Swifton … said his name was Campbell and he was a Campbellite preacher. In 1917 he lived in the Pennington community and preached at different places. He received very little money as payment, mostly fresh vegetables, canned food, and some meats. Aunt Nell said she overheard some older women talking about the time he received a large handkerchief and two week’s board for holding a meeting. He preached some at Amagon and went to church barefoot … services were held in the schoolhouse.”
John Randolph and Sally, date and location unknown
He also rented farms to grow cotton and he traded horses and any other item of value. When his third child John William and family settled in Fayetteville after 1918, John Randolph and Sarah joined them, living first at John William’s store at the corner of Rock and Mill, then on Frisco Street and finally on the south side of Spring Street in the four hundred block before moving back to east Arkansas. His grandson John Carl later recollected that he drove an old Overland Blue Bird.
Overland Blue Bird
One descendant stated that “John R. Campbell was a preacher. He was really a corker. Pulled some pretty good stunts. Think he drank a lot.” It was said by his grandson Zack that there were only two places that John Randolph would drink home brew, and that was “on this side of the Bible and on the other side.” His wife Sally dipped snuff, and sometimes smoked a cob pipe. Sally’s daughter-in-law (Mary Jane Ellis) stated that the Prince women were known to have “woods colts,” a euphemism for illegitimate children. In old age, Sally suffered a “dowager’s hump,” now known as osteoporosis. Sally and John Randolph both died in the Newport Arkansas area.
Mary Molly Campbell
Little is known about William and Melinda Campbell’s second child, Mary Molly. She is not listed in the 1860 census of Howell County Missouri. Later records show her spouse as John Willis Payne. Willis was born in 1854 in Kentucky, with both parents also born in Kentucky.
Willis and Mary Payne are found in the 1880 Newton County, Arkansas census, Jackson Township, at ages 25 and 26, respectively, evidence she was born in 1855 two years after John Randolph. Also in the household is her younger brother James, listed a ‘boarder.’
In a letter dated 1971 from Elizabeth Campbell Farmer, daughter of James “Jim” William Campbell, Elizabeth states: “Mary Payne is my papa’s (Jim Campbell) only sister. We called her Aunt Molly and she was married to Willis Payne.”
After 1880, Willis and Mary vanish from public records.
James William Campbell
James William Campbell with his first wife Nancy Jane Bell on his right and her half-sister and his second wife Eliza Lawson on his left, circa 1888. James holds a pistol in his hand.
At age 24, James married Nancy Jane Bell (age 19), daughter of William Levi and Nancy Busby Bell, September 18, 1882, in Newton County, Arkansas. This was two years after he was named as ‘boarder’ in the household of his sister Mary and brother-in-law Willis Payne. James and Nancy moved to Harrison (Boone County) Arkansas but in 1886 they moved back to Newton County where they settled in the Mt. Judea area (pronounced “Judy” by locals). There James dug wells and cisterns and built chimneys, as well as farming his land with cotton, corn, and small grains. He was a “great hand with a scythe and cradle and would get $1.00 per day for cutting wheat, a good wage for that time and more than most men were paid.” His son, Wesley A. Monroe, said they had “biscuits one to three times each day during the wheat harvest then cornbread three times a day for the rest of the year.”
He was elected Justice of the Peace in 1892 and remained in office for years. About the same time the family moved into a “box” house on land they homesteaded, a cause for celebration since most families lived in rough log cabins. In his capacity as JP, he married many couples and was said to shed tears during the ceremonies. He only went to school two days in his life, according to his descendants, but was a self-educated man. He taught school two summers – “Script” or conscript school. Each family paid one dollar for each child attending.
James and Nancy Jane Bell Campbell 1905, with children Dewey Floyd (between them) and Rosa on right
In the fall of the year, James would go away to pick cotton (probably in the river bottoms) and would take his wife’s handicapped half-sister Eliza Lawson as well as his older children. His wife Nancy Jane stayed home to care for the younger children and the homestead. It is said that James and Eliza lived as husband and wife during the cotton-picking trips. Nancy spun thread and wove most the cloth used for their clothes, including coats. The pants and coats were made of half wool and half cotton, called “linsey-woolsey.”
James also served in some capacity with the Spear Mining Company for their lead and zinc mine near Pendle. He was a school trustee for the board of education and helped to hire teachers. He was a “jack of all trades,” doctoring animals and people by setting broken limbs on splits that he whittled. He farmed and grew everything his family ate, including the livestock.
The eleven children of James and Nancy, as well as his child by Eliza Lawson and children by Nancy Walls, his third wife, are not listed for sake of privacy.
Sarah E. Campbell
The 1860 census, taken July 19, gives Sarah’s age as one month. Thereafter, no record of her is found. Assumed she died in infancy.
A story passed down through William’s great grandson John Carl Campbell is that four Campbell brothers stowed away on a ship leaving Liverpool circa 1760 for passage to the American colonies. Upon landing at the Eastern seaboard, the brothers separated and lost contact with each other. One of the brothers, John Campbell, or his son, made his way to Tennessee or eastern Arkansas by the early 1800s.[1]
As stated earlier and by our relative David Dale Combs, another family historian, “After the war in Scotland of the 1700s, Scots came to America by the thousands. Among them were hundreds of Campbell families, and many of them had numerous children. To make matters worse, some of the most common given names in these Campbell families were William, John, and James. …The search for the parents of our William Campbell is equivalent to looking for the proverbial needle in the haystack.”
In researching this history, we have found no proof of the Atlantic crossing story. Known historical facts, however, support Dale’s statement.
William’s First Marriage
William’s name appears in public records in Independence County, Arkansas in 1845 when filed for a divorce from his wife Sarah.
A marriage record of William Campbell to Sarah Graves is found in Campbell County, Tennessee, stating that on April 21, 1842 by J. C. Petree, J.P. joined the couple in matrimony. He would have been 22-24 years old at this time, and Sarah 19.
On Thursday, February 6, 1845: PETITION FOR DIVORCE:[2]
William Campbell, complainant vs Sarah Campbell, defendant
William Campbell vs Sarah Campbell: BILL FOR DIVORCE
As now on this day comes the said complainant by his solicitor, and also comes the said defendant in her own proper person, and waives all process, and the service thereof, and files her answer to the complainant’s bill of complaint whereby she admits the charges in said bill. And it appearing to the satisfaction of the court here that the bond of matrimony here-to-fore entered into and none existing, between the said William Campbell and Sarah Campbell be and the same are hereby dissolved, set aside and held for naught, and the said parties and each of them, are hereby restored to all the rights, privileges and immunities of single and unmarried persons.
And it is further ordered and decreed by the court that the said complainant pay all the costs of this suit. Therefore, it is considered by the court that the said defendant do have and recover of and from said plaintiff all the costs in and about this suit expended.
The record makes clear that William was represented by his solicitor and did not show up in person, while Sarah was present “in her own proper person” and “admits the charges in said bill.” Apparently William and Sarah traveled from TN to AR together and came to Independence Co before February 1845. Divorces were extremely rare in those times, generally filed by only the husband in cases of adultery. The information contained here suggests he originated in Campbell County, TN. No further evidence of his place of origins has been found.
This marriage record linked to a death certificate of a male named Manuel Hickey Campbell born January 31, 1843 at Knox Co., TN, as the son of Sarah Graves and William Campbell.[4]
The 1850 census for Campbell Co., TN finds Sarah Graves age 27 living in the household of Ashley and Elizabeth Miller with their four children not including Sarah’s son Manuel. Elizabeth age 25 was the sister of Sarah.[5] This brings up the possibility that upon the divorce, William took Manuel into his household for some unknown period of time. This would be rare for a single man.
1860 census for Glenwood, Mills, IA finds Sarah Campbell age 31, b TN with personal estate of $200 as head of household with Manuel Campbell age 16 and William Campbell age 8. In this record, Sarah states no livelihood and cannot read or write. This record assigns a birth year for William at 1852.[6]
Military records for Manuel H. Campbell show he filed for a disability in 1906, and that he served in the Louisiana 4th Infantry Regiment, Company A, Confederate States of America.[7] The 4th Louisiana Infantry organized at New Orleans, Louisiana in April, 1861. The 4th was included in the surrender on May 4, 1865.Additional military records show he entered the military on 20 Oct 1861.[8]
1870 census found for Emmanuel Campbell, age 27, born TN, living at Haynie Post office, Lyons, Mills Co., IA where he works at farm labor. He has married to Mary Campbell and cannot read or write.
Manuel H. Campbell
Marriage records for M H Campbell shows marriage to Martha Leeky on Nov 8, 1886, at Roane Co., TN.
The 1900 census for William Campbell is taken at Rock Bluff, Cass Co., NE. He’s marked as single age 44, born Feb 1856. Sarah “Burchard” resides with him, age 75, born Dec 1824, widowed, b. TN, parents b TN.[9]
The 1910 census finds Sarah B. Campbell as head of household, age 86 living with William Campbell age 61, born 1849, at Rock Bluff, Cass Co Nebraska. Sarah is still illiterate.[10]
1920 census at Rock Bluff finds William alone, age 68, same data. Next door to two Campbell families apparently not related. Sarah’s death records have not been found. Clearly William (the son) loses track of his age/birth year. The 1900 census that gives Feb 1856 as his birthdate conflicts with the 1860 census when his mother states he was eight years old, i.e. born in 1852. Either way, either he is not the son of William (the older) or William was slipping out on Melinda (not likely).
Manuel’s Find a Grave records shows a birth day of Jan 31, 1843, at Knoxville, TN. His wife was named Martha Elizabeth and they had 13 children with Campbell sons named Clyde J., William Franklin, Manuel Howard, and James Lafayette. He died Mar 25, 1917 at Johnson City, Wash. Co., TN and is buried at Monte Vista Memorial Park.[11]
Was William actually the child of William? Did Sarah name her second son William out of spite, or because he was actually William’s son? If so, that means he slipped around on his new bride Melinda, an unlikely scenario.
William’s Land
Deed records for Independence County show a December 22, 1848 deed (Book G-625) by John L. Waggoner conveying title to William Campbell, both of the county, for the amount of $100 for land described as SE quarter of SW quarter Section 13, and NE quarter of NW quarter Section 24, both Township 12, Range 6 West. Witnessed by Thomas S. Coiles (?) and E. Morgan.
On November 30, 1849, Independence County Deed Book G-624 shows the transfer of land from John Agnew to William Campbell for $55, described as NW quarter of the NE quarter of Sect 24, Township 24, 12 N of Range 6 W, containing 40 acres. Wit. Wm. S. McGuire, Ringgold.
William’s Second Wife
William’s name appeared in the 1850 Arkansas census for Independence County, where he gave his age as 32, residing in Green Briar Township, working as a stone mason, and having real estate assets of $360. The following spring, on April 10, 1851, William married Melinda “Lennie, Lina” Lamberson at her father’s home in Independence County in services performed by Henry Powell, Minister of the Gospel, Methodist Episcopal Church, South. William was 32 and Lennie was 17.
Miss Lamberson was born February 13, 1832, in Gallatin County, Illinois. Her father, Peter Lamberson, was a farmer born 1799 in Pennsylvania. His wife Elizabeth (Knight), also born in 1799, was from North Carolina. According to the 1850 Arkansas census, their children besides Melinda were Leonard D. b. 1824, William Sira Norris “WSN” b. 1827, Catherine, Elizabeth b. 1831, and Eliza, age fourteen born Illinois. Living at an adjacent property was Peter and Elizabeth’s oldest child, Leonard Lamberson, age 26 and born in Tennessee, his wife Elizabeth age 22 born TN, and three children born in Arkansas: Nancy age four, James K. P. age three, and Thomas J., age one.
His Losses
Unfortunately, in December 1851, William lost a suit filed against him by Thomas E. Hughs [Hughes] for a debt of $19.25. Some time passed, perhaps in negotiation, before the final outcome would be decided. The following is shown in the Independence County Court Record M-170:
On October 29, 1857, Sheriff George W. Daugherty deeded to James B. Kimbro certain lands belonging to William Campbell in satisfaction of a writ Fiera Facias[12] in the name of Thomas E. Hughs presented to the sheriff July 29, 1857,
“that whereas the aforesaid Thomas B. Hughs on the 16th day of December AD 1851 did file in the office of the Clerk of the Circuit Court of the County of Independence a certified copy of a certain judgement rendered by Fleming Pate, Esq, a justice of the peace in and for the township of Round Pond, in the said County of Independence whereby it appears that the said Justice of the Peace did on the 15th day of November 1851 render judgment in his favor against William Campbell for nineteen dollars and forty cents”[13] with court costs of one dollar and eighty-five cents. Further, “an execution was issued thereon and the said execution has been returned that the defendant has no goods or chattels whereof to levy the same. And whereas the clerk of said circuit court did at the same time of filing such transcript as aforesaid enter such judgement in the docks of said circuit court for judgements and decrees in the manner and provided by law to the end that the same might have like effect and be carried into execution in the same manner as the judgements of said circuit court. You are therefore commanded that of the goods and chattels lands and tenements of the said William Campbell you cause to be made the debt damages and costs aforesaid together with the sum of – dollars and fifty cents additional cots for entering transcript and have the said debt damages and costs and additional costs before our said circuit court on the 7th day of September AD 1857 and then and there certify how you have executed this writ. And in obedience to the commands of said writ and in order that the same might be executed and satisfied, I did afterwards to wit: on the 30th day of July AD1857 in said county then and there levy upon and seize the following described property as the property of said William Campbell, to wit: The SE ¼ of the SW ¼ of Section 13 and the NE ¼ of the NW ¼ of Section 24 in Town 12 N, of Range 6 West containing in the aggregate 80 acres more or less.”
The record goes on to describe the sale of these lands at the courthouse door on Monday the 7th day of September 1857. The highest bidder was James B. Kimbro for $81.25 and the property was conveyed to Kimbro by the sheriff’s deed.[14]
This was not the first loss of land for William in his hopeful new start in Arkansas. The forty acres purchased in 1849 was sold just four years later on October 4, 1853, to J. H. Ringgold, the same man who had served as witness to the original sale and perhaps a neighbor to William.[15]
Ten years later, according to the 1860 Howell Co. Missouri census, William Campbell, his wife, and three children lived in Spring Creek Township, where he was a stone mason with $200 in assets. His wife Lennie was 28 at the time, John R. was three (this age must be an error because later records give an 1853 birthdate for John), James William was two, and Sarah E. was one month. Their second child, Mary Molly, born 1855, was probably next door at the home of her grandparents, Peter and Elizabeth Lamberson, aged sixty.
Efforts to determine when both families moved to Missouri have been fruitless. Howell County deed records went up in flames when the courthouse burned during the war, and nothing in the deed records of Independence County determine clearly when William moved away. It may be presumed that the 1853 sale of the forty acres was the point at which the family moved, and that the judgement rendered in 1851 against him lingered unattended to be finally decided in 1857 with William absent.
His Family
Determination of birthplaces for the three oldest children has been in question with many census records showing Arkansas as the place of birth. However, given that the 1860 census information was given by the parents rather than based on childhood memories, we accept the Howell County place of birth as the correct one. That would mean that William’s young wife was six months pregnant with their first child when they moved from Arkansas unless he had previously taken her to a new home in Missouri before returning to Arkansas to sell the land.
Arrow points to Pottersville, Missouri
Howell County, Missouri, is situated just north of the Arkansas state line above Fulton County, Arkansas, a distance of about one hundred miles from William’s previous home in Arkansas. The place of Campbell’s Missouri residency, Spring Creek Township, is in the central-western part of the county. The community of Pottersville is located in the center of the township, approximately ten miles west of West Plains and the site of an early village and post office some of which may have been the product of Campbell’s masonry work. Seven miles west of the village, an early water grist mill operated on Spring Creek. The mill and village pre-dated the Civil War. Early settlers arriving in this area by 1832 found plentiful game; cured hides were among items traded at the nearest post at Rolla, about 110 miles away.
Howell County was decimated by guerilla warfare before, during and after the Civil War. Factional gangs roamed the countryside taking what they found and killing anyone who got in their way. A small, wooden courthouse built on the square in West Plains in 1859 was burned in 1862. In the fall of 1863, guerrillas burned all of West Plains, devastating the community; historians state not one person remained. The county was reorganized three years later.
William Campbell enlisted September 25, 1862, in Oregon County, Missouri. He served in Company E, 8th Battalion, Missouri Infantry of the Confederate States of America. According to various histories of the Civil War, the 8th was a re-organized unit originally formed in 1861 by Missouri Governor Claiborne Fox Jackson in a last-ditch effort to keep Missouri neutral in the looming conflict. Placed under the command of former Missouri Governor Sterling Price, the unit fought in the “Bull Run of the West,” the Battle of Wilson’s Creek on August 10, 1861. Subsequent battles included Dry Woods Creek. The unit disbanded in the summer of 1862, although several of its members participated in the Battle of Pea Ridge in Northwest Arkansas. The unit reformed as the 8th in late summer 1862, which was the time William joined.
After a four-day march in early fall 1862, the unit arrived at Spring River in Northwest Arkansas. Recruits were pressured to join other units. The commander, Colonel Mitchell, moved his unit to Camp Bragg near Batesville, and then traveled to Little Rock in an effort to improve his troops’ situation. Upon his return, he moved the unit to the camp of Col. William Coleman. Later in the fall, the unit joined with massed Confederate troops under the command of General T. C. Hindman. Among 9,000 infantry, 2,000 cavalry, and 22 pieces of artillery, Company E’s men marched from Van Buren north for a major engagement with Union forces in early December 1862. On the morning of December 7th, they broke camp at 4 a.m. and marched fifteen miles to pasture land at Prairie Grove, Arkansas. In the massive conflict that ensued there, the Missouri 8th reported none killed and twenty wounded. After the Battle of Prairie Grove, the 8th was assigned garrison duty at Ft. Pleasant, Arkansas for five months.
Few soldiers enjoyed garrison duty, monotonous in the best of times. Discipline and morale deteriorated with drinking, gambling, and fighting. It was during the garrison duty of the 8th Missouri Infantry that William last appears present in the official military record, April 30, 1863.
What Happened to William?
A story passed down by the descendants of John Randolph is that once the war ended, William was mustered out of the Army with a mule, his bedroll, and a little money. As he approached his house (location not named), he saw his wife standing on the porch with an infant in her arms. Without dismounting, he inquired as to the paternity of the child, to which she replied “Wes Wallace.” (It is not clear whether Mr. Wallace had taken up residence.) After a pause, William nodded his head, spat over the mule’s withers, and rode off. The story is that he went to Texas and was never heard from again.[16]
Another oral tradition regarding his subsequent whereabouts, passed down through the family of William’s son James William, asserted that he deserted his Army post and fled to Scotland, where he married and raised another family.
Neither story is true. According to subsequent research and documentation, it is known that upon abandoning his service in the 8th Missouri, William did in fact go to Texas but not in the circumstance of departure as described in the family story. Whether in some official capacity with the Confederate forces or on his own, after April 30, 1863, he went to Red River County, Texas, where he joined his brother-in-law William Sira Norris “WSN” Lamberson. WSN operated a stagecoach stop for a stage line that ran to Missouri, likely along the old Southwest Trail. WSN was a blacksmith and driver and had enlisted in a Red River Volunteer Unit, the William B. Stout Company, on June 29, 1861, as a private.[17] It is believed that WSN and William “ran guns” for the Confederacy. This may also have included a return trip south with cotton for French blockage runners.[18]
In a letter written late in his life, WSN’s oldest son, Peter Abel Lamberson, states that “Wm. S. N. Lamberson died Jan 13 1864 (in south TX) in the confederate servis [sic] as a teamster.”
There is a historical marker at Clarksville, Red River County, TX which states:
“Across the street from this site and facing the county courthouse which was later (1885) torn down, the
Running from St. Louis to the Red River Valley, the Southwest Trail became a major immigration route in the 1820s. By the 1830s more than 80 percent of the Arkansas territory’s population had entered through the Southwest Trail. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Southwest_Trail
Donoho Hotel and Stage Stand operated during the Civil War. Travel in those years was heavy. Soldiers arriving in Texas from Arkansas, Indian Territory, or elsewhere would catch the stage here for home. Many called by to give news to the Clarksville Standard, one of fewer than 20 Texas papers to be published throughout the war. The Standard’s emphasis on personal news from camps was valued by soldiers’ families… 31 stage lines in Confederate Texas hauled mail, soldiers, civilians. 26 made connections with railroads or steamships, expediting travel.”[19]
Was this location part of WSN’s route? We don’t know. WSN Lamberson’s place of death and burial has not been confirmed, but it is believed that he died within the vast area called Kings Ranch. During the Civil War, this wealthy landowner controlled a large portion of southernmost Texas, an area was known as Kings Ranch. This landowner allowed supplies and guns to flow from Mexico and Gulf ports into the hands of rebel forces. When Union soldiers eventually raided the ranch, they killed most of the men there. It is believed that WSN died in this raid.[20]
William Campbell survived this particular battle and lived until early the next year before suffering injuries somewhere south of Red River County. Injured, William became ill (reportedly measles) and tried to get home. He got as far as WSN’s house, where WSN’s widow Martha Jones Lamberson was dying of “brain fever.”[21] She died February 26, 1865. Within a few days or maybe weeks, William also died.
WSN’s oldest son, Peter Abel Lamberson, was fifteen years old and would have been the one, perhaps assisted by neighbors, responsible for caring for and then burying his mother and uncle. He and the rest of Martha and WSN’s orphaned children were taken by the Jones family, none of whom knew how to get in touch with the Campbell family and so the information of William’s end did not get back to Melinda or their children.[22]
According to Peter Lamberson’s later account, “…Uncal Bill discharged as Confederate soldier on acct bad health. Couldn’t get to his home in Mo, came to our hous in Red R. County and died in 1865.”[23]
It may have been intentional on William’s part that he did not inform his wife Melinda of his whereabouts or military activity. The southern counties of Missouri and the northern counties of Arkansas where Malinda and four young children lived were the site of continuous conflict throughout the Civil War with both armies vying for control and conducting a scorched earth policy. In the region of Arkansas where William and Melinda had married, military activity centered on navigable portions of the White River. Eighteen officially-documented war engagements occurred in Independence County beginning with a skirmish at Batesville May 3, 1862. Two skirmishes occurred at Oil Trough Bottom. Expeditions, skirmishes, scouting, and attacks occurred throughout the area, including an attack at Jacksonport April 20, 1864. Likewise, farms and settlements in Howell County, Missouri were repeatedly burned and raided by both sides. Knowledge of William’s whereabouts would have been a liability for Melinda.
Other family historians disagree that once William went off to war, Lennie and the children were left to their own devices. The likelihood is good that he took time to help her set up an alternative place to reside and periodically visited at the new location with whatever resources he could manage. The idea that WSN’s stage route ventured as far north as the Missouri line lends credence to this idea.
According to family history (through descendants of William’s son James William), Lennie and the children hitchhiked to Newton County, Arkansas after William enlisted or, in some version, after the end of the war. At this point she would have been around 30 years old.
She was now the head of the household and had to make a home and provide for her family … Most of the country had been devastated by the Civil War … carpetbaggers often stole what little the people had left. The price of most things had skyrocketed and Confederate money held no value. She had a two-wheel cart for horse or ox. She had no house and no money with which to buy or build one, so she constructed a lean-to on (under) a cliff near a stream, probably using small logs, stones, and bark.”
Here the family had shelter from the winter’s cold. According to her grandson Dale Comb’s account, “she grew a garden and gathered what she could from the land. She was a good herbalist, knowing every flower, berry, green leaves, that were edible … She also shot squirrels and rabbits, and fished … She was a very resourceful person, not only provided for the physical needs of her children, but also their medical needs. She was a midwife or ‘granny woman.’”[24] Her children would have been important helpers, especially oldest son John Randolph who would have been twelve by 1865.
Following the apparent disappearance of William, Melinda produced a child named Wesley Wallace /Wallis, but the exact date of birth is unknown. The assumption is that she married Wallace since she took that name, as shown in her record of marriage to her third husband John Briggs.
On December 29, 1873, “Lenny” Wallis age 40 married John Briggs age 52 in Independence County, Arkansas, joined by Justice of the Peace W. H. Palmer.[25] In the 1880 census, the family is shown at Ash Grove, Green County, Missouri with John Brigg age 67, occupied as ‘miner,’ Malinda Brigg age 45, and stepson Wesley Wallace age eleven (yielding a birth year of 1869).[26] The household also included two boarders. Briggs died in 1911.
The 1900 census for Independence County Arkansas lists Wes Wallace as age 35, with a birth date of April 1865. He was shown as a day laborer owning his own home, married 14 years, with a current wife of age 25, and with seven children but only three living. Wallace’s birth year has been recorded in various documents as 1862, 1865, and 1869.
Melinda lived later years of her life with her son James William and family in Woodruff County Arkansas, where she died March 3, 1922, age 94. She was buried in Pumpkin Bend Cemetery outside McCrory, Woodruff County, Arkansas in an unmarked grave.
[1]Interview with John Carl Campbell 1988, at his home in Winslow Arkansas
[2]Independence County, AR, Chancery Court Record A, Pgs 100 & 102
[6]Year: 1860; Census Place: Glenwood, Mills, Iowa; Roll: M653_336; Page: 82; Family History Library Film: 803336
[7]The National Archives at Washington, D.C.; Washington, D.C.; NAI Title: U.S., Civil War Pension Index: General Index to Pension Files, 1861-1934; NAI Number: T288; Record Group Title: Records of the Department of Veterans Affairs, 1773-2007; Record Group Number: 15; Series Title: U.S., Civil War Pension Index: General Index to Pension Files, 1861-1934; Series Number: T288; Roll: 70 The
[12] A fieri facias is a writ of execution after judgment obtained in a legal action for debt or damages for the sheriff to levy on goods of the judgment debtor.
[18] “Texas was the only Confederate state to border a foreign country. Trade with Mexico made more materials available to Texas than to other states. Confederates managed to smuggle 320,000 bales or 144 million pounds of cotton through Mexican ports and past the Union blockade. In return for cotton, Texans received military supplies, medicines, dry goods, food, iron goods, liquor, coffee, and tobacco.” https://www.tshaonline.org/handbook/entries/civil-war
[21]Brain fever is generally understood to have been encephalitis.
[22] Information in this paragraph from Judy Benson Nov 13 2003 email
[23]The letter revealing the nature and place of his death was from WSN’s son Peter Abel Lamberson who was fifteen at the time of William’s death. “In 1980, Virgie Campbell Combs was corresponding with Wilma Benson, a descendant of Peter and Elizabeth Lamberson. Their grandson [Peter Abel], and a nephew of Melinda Lamberson Campbell, had written a couple of letters detailing some family history. These were found in an old trunk belonging to Wilma’s aunt.” This material provided by Harriet Brantley Lane, a descendant of William Campbell, in an email to this author dated Jan 13, 2005.
[24]See “The Campbell Clan” by David Dale Combs later in this collection. (not included here)
Combining four generations of family history and up-to-date genealogical information, this collection of ancestry information tracks a group of families which settled in Greene County, Arkansas in the first two decades of statehood. Family trees, deed records, census records, and other official records create a factual framework for personal narratives and vintage photographs, creating a fascinating archive of information for any descendant of these families as well as any fan of local history.
Each marriage between these pioneer families brought certain talents and backgrounds to the next generation. They farmed the rich land of Crowley’s Ridge and other Greene County areas, weathered the storms of poverty and loss, and suffered the ravages of sickness and war. Yet they survived, and their great-grandchildren entered the twentieth century determined to continue as they had begun.
Now the 21st century brings us the internet with its vast collection of historical documents, making it finally possible to reflect on their adventures and aspirations. The story of these families is the story of thousands of us descended from them.
If Samuel Alito, Clarence Thomas, Neil Gorsuch, Brett Kavanaugh and Amy Coney Barrett really stood up for their convictions on the abortion issue, they wouldn’t just shuffle the decision to the states. They’d completely overturn Roe v Wade.
Why didn’t they?
Because they AREN’T convinced they are right.
If bodily autonomy isn’t guaranteed for the entire nation, and states are the appropriate venue for giving or denying those rights, what’s next? Slavery?
After all, former Confederate states form the bulk of those states eager to strip women of bodily autonomy.
What is loss of bodily autonomy other than slavery?
But wait! Save those cogent arguments!
Fanatic evangelicals eager to sacrifice women on the altar to their angry misogynistic god will never change their minds.
Lawmakers eager to harvest the fruits of their fifty-year campaign to be elected by targeting women will never stop the manipulation.
Evangelical women eager to bow down to male authority in order to avoid taking responsibility for their own lives believe their salvation depends on submitting to authority, God and men.
These people do not have the intellectual capacity to reason through the facts. Whatever intellect they might naturally possess has been subverted by religious brainwashing.
Throughout the millennia, women have aborted unwanted pregnancies—or abandoned unwanted newborns to die. Their decisions have shaped the human race. Yes, evangelicals, even you are the result of selective breeding.
Evangelicals believe that overturning Roe will magically end abortions. They are willingly ignorant of the history.
What would it take to really stop abortion?
Monitor all women of childbearing age, every month, for pregnancy.
If they test positive, sequester them so they can’t grab a coat hanger. Keep them locked up until they give birth.
That means keeping them away from their jobs, their husbands, their children.
It means turning women into baby machines under the force of law.
In truth, it is not possible to stop abortion.
What is possible—and predictable—is that laws restricting abortion rights will cause women to suffer. Sterility and even death are often outcomes of back-alley abortions.
This is the Big Win for evangelicals. In religious teachings, God said women should suffer because Eve tempted Adam into falling for the apple. So why ease that suffering? God said.
Never mind that pathetic Adam couldn’t think for himself and Just Say No. That bitch used her sexuality to manipulate the poor guy into something he knew he shouldn’t do.
What could better ensure that God extends welcoming arms when the faithful reach those pearly gates than a record of supporting the punishment of women?
NEVER MIND the truth staring us in the face, the result of smug religious thoughtlessness: OVERPOPULATION.
The greater the world population, the greater the environmental damage. The higher our standard of living, the greater the environmental damage. Electricity, motor vehicles, chemical agriculture, waste disposal—already we see the oceans rise, thick with waste. Already we watch as climate change disrupts agriculture and water supply.
It’s not possible to maintain anywhere near our standard of living with the population projected to double in the next 80 years.
World population estimates from 1800 to 2100, based on “high”, “medium” and “low” United Nations projections in 2010 (colored red, orange and green) and US Census Bureau historical estimates (in black). Actual recorded population figures (as of 2010) are colored in blue. According to the highest estimate, the world population may rise to 16 billion by 2100; according to the lowest estimate, it may decline to 7.2 billion.
For decades, we’ve seen the increasingly negative results of overpopulation—people dying of starvation, the spread of disease, the expansion of desert into previously productive lands due to climate change as well as overuse of farming and grazing in marginal areas.
The evangelical solution: Teach them about Jesus. It’s in God’s hands.
No. It is in OUR hands.
We see the rush of people from marginal lands into areas of greater resources. From Africa into the Middle East, from the Middle East into Europe. From Central America and South America across our southern border.
The evangelical solution: Build a wall.
How long until the money runs out to care for the disabled, the elderly, the compromised? How long until schools are so crippled that they fail utterly? These are problems of OVERPOPULATION.
When the time comes, do we allow women to continue their ancient role of deciding who is born, or do we authorize the government to make those decisions? A government empowered to force birth is equally empowered to deny birth.
The evangelical fight to make the United States a “Christian” nation is nothing less than an attempt to overturn our government. The Founding Fathers were clear on this point, to keep religion OUT of government. Power to the people.
“The people have the power. All we have to do is awaken the power in the people.” — John Lennon
Senior year in high school included the long-feared ‘senior paper.’ A project of English class, the paper’s thesis had to be approved first then the long drudgery of research would begin. The paper itself, to be footnoted and typed, would form a significant part of the final grade in that class.
I was no stranger to research and looked forward to hours at the local library, which was located only a block from the high school. Unexplored wonders could be found in that quiet place, books on the history of the world and the various exploits of human kind. As I sought further information to prove my thesis, I jotted my notes on 4×6 index cards, another requirement for the project.
My thesis asked the question: Why did existential thought that existed throughout the history of mankind suddenly become an overwhelming condition of modern mankind?
The material I explored included Will Durant’s The Story of Civilization, James Gutman’s Philosophy A to Z, John Killinger’s The English Journal, and a long list of citations from the Bible as well as ancient writings from world cultures. In reading these materials and processing the information into a coherent statement in proof of my thesis, I realized that much of what I had come to believe in my eighteen years was right: Christianity—indeed, all organized religion—was a construct of humanity meant to salve our existential despair.
The difference with the modern age, as so clearly delineated in philosophical examination, is/was that by the very process of advancing civilization, humans have cut themselves off from key partnerships that once provided balm to our woe: Nature, tribal life, our gods, and ourselves, the latter with our frenetic pace and endless amusements. With these alienations, we find ourselves utterly alone, a condition so difficult that we endlessly seek escape in intoxicants, entertainment, and work.
The paper earned me an “A.” I packed it away along with the notecards in their little clasp envelope. I’ve always remembered the paper and the education I gained in my research, but I never looked at those cards again. If the question ever arose, I would have guessed they had been tossed out a long time ago.
Not so. My mother saved them, and they once again entered my domain when a few years ago she handed me a couple of boxes crammed with souvenirs of my life—photographs of junior high and high school friends, letters home from California or the Philippine Islands, clippings of my various public activities through the years. And the notecards.
At first, I picked up the small packet of cards not knowing what it contained. On the outside, at some point my mother had written “Denele’s – what helped her turn away from God!”
Well.
Yes, insomuch as I indeed turned away from the Church of Christ’s concept of God, this project helped. But what my mother could never grasp is that I had been questioning God, or more to the point, religion in general, since age five. By eight years of age, I had settled on key questions no one wanted to answer, typical questions for young people such as ‘Where did God come from?” and “Who did Adam and Eve’s children marry?” The answer always condensed down to “Don’t ask.”
Fast forward six or seven decades while I continued to read and question and discover. I have no regrets that I discarded the blinders imposed by my parents’ fundamentalist faith. I’m happy that my curiosity led me to explore philosophy, natural history, and science with the many mysteries of human existence. What makes me sad is that even today parents still seek to limit their children’s exposure to knowledge that exists outside the boundaries of their rigid belief systems or which violates the dogma of their faith.
For example, I once lamented the limited extracurricular activities available at the small rural school my children attended, pointing out that so many opportunities were being lost. Where was the encouragement to attend college, learn music or art, explore the wonders of the world? The response from one parent actually struck me speechless. “Well, honey, somebody’s got to flip the burgers,” she said, fist propped on her hip. “What about that?”
Indeed, what about that? How tragic that her children and so many others would be trapped in that mindset.
The price of limiting the thinking of our children is immeasurable. We see it every day in intolerance even hatred for anyone different, whether ethnic, racial, or gender differences. We see it in embrace of authoritarian figures like Trump who fit a distorted concept of leadership based on an authoritarian god. We see it in the fear of change that leads to violence against those perceived as ‘Other.’
Frans Hals – Portret van René Descartes, Wikipedia
Much of what is written on those cards is nonsensical taken in isolation, like quotes from Heidegger’s book Being and Time (1927) about the two kinds of being, “Sein” meaning all things, and “Dasein” meaning only mankind. Or the postulation of Descartes in his 1637 Discourse on the Methodwherein he wrote: Ego Ergo Sic, or “I am, therefore I am thus,” or more widely conceived as “I think, therefore I am.” Pondering these kinds of concepts is not easy and tends to take oneself out of the hum of routine. And away from the strict belief systems of doctrines undergirding religion.
What my mother exclaimed in her quickly penned remark about my notecards is true. Those learning experiences helped me abandon religion entirely. Another big step on that path was a college course in English Bible, where the three authors of the Books of Moses were examined with comparisons of material in Genesis to the Sumerian books of Gilgamesh—and much more. It’s been a lifelong study, full of empathy for others who, like me, struggle with the very essence of existence, remarked by feminist French philosopher Simone de Beauvoir in her book The Ethics of Ambiguity (1948):
“The sub-man is not very clear about what he has to lose, since he has nothing, but this very uncertainty re-enforces his terror. Indeed, what he fears is that the shock of the unforeseen may remind him of the agonizing consciousness of himself. …Everything is a threat to him, since the thing which he has set up as an idol is an externality and is thus in relationship with the whole universe; and since, despite all precautions, he will never be the master of this exterior world to which he has consented to submit, he will be constantly upset by the uncontrollable course of events.”
For de Beauvoir, freedom comes in the act of trying to be free and accepting that this journey is the freedom.[1] Freedom to believe, to act, to question, to reach out to others in individual acts of kindness—these fulfill us in myriad ways that counter the existential despair of modern life. Understanding that, and the awareness that our personal journey is best seen as an opportunity to make the world a better place, has helped me live a rich life.
I thank the notecards. I thank the Founding Fathers for enshrining my freedom of thought within the Constitution. And I thank my parents and ancestors for giving me the intelligence, if not the freedom, to choose.
“Sylvia Sidney prefers brimmed hats.(Left)”Pied Piper,” in black pebble crepe straw, topped with yellow fan feather, tips far forward over one eye for that demure look in the Spring sunshine. (Right), “Gingham Girl,” for afternoon and restaurant dining, in cloudy blue. New squared crown and coquettish brim that permits the wearer to see without being seen !” https://glamourdaze.com/2017/04/sylvia-sidney-1930s-hat-style-for-spring.html
Hats were a disguise for many women in the 1930s, creating a protective shield around her feminine innocence while at the same time allowing for curious–if not blatant–flirtation. In Fayetteville, at least for one madam who operated a house of prostitution three blocks from the town square, hats provided a useful cover. Advertising as “Cookingham Millinery,” Birdie Hickey set up residence at 115 West Spring where she housed several girls as well as a slightly older couple, the husband of which probably served as her bouncer/protector.
“In the 1930 census, she named her occupation as “manager.” One of the lodgers was her 33-year-old sister Norma Bigger. Other tenants included Robert Gholson, a restaurant manager, and his wife Rosa. Of particular interest are the other four other tenants: Pat Roberts age 24, Pat’s sister Laverne age 21, Nannie Morrison 23, and her sister Loretta age 19. Pat, Laverne, and Loretta claimed work as seamstresses while Nannie told the census collector that she worked as a telephone operator.”
There was nothing unusual about ‘public women’ then or at any time of human history. What was unusual is that Fayetteville’s newspapers, courts, and police pretended such unsavory activities did not exist within the boundaries of their lovely town. More to the point, parents sending their sons to attend college there must not be worried that their darling boys might be tempted into illicit bed sport. At least, that was the idea, an unofficial policy probably promulgated in private between town fathers, university leaders, and local law enforcement from the earliest days of the institution.
Meanwhile, Arkansas towns as near to Fayetteville as Eureka Springs and as far as Little Rock openly admitted the presence of prostitutes.
“Allegedly hosting as many as nineteen bawdy houses at one time, Little Rock passed its first ordinances regulating its prostitution industry in 1841. In 1875, the state granted local governments jurisdiction to deal with such thorny problems in A.C.A. §14-54-103, giving cities the right to “suppress bawdy or disorderly houses, houses of ill-fame, or houses of assignation.” By the turn of the 20th century, Fort Smith’s red light district hosted up to seven bordellos alongside gambling halls and saloons including a brothel owned by Belle Starr’s daughter Pearl which featured a “talented piano player, good whiskey, and ‘the most beautiful girls west of the Mississippi.’”[1] Hot Springs, long known for its gambling and underworld associations, tolerated extensive prostitution; as late as the mid-20th century, the infamous Maxine’s Brothel operated in full view of the world. Even in the quirky village of Eureka Springs, the sex trade flourished through the late 19th and early 20th century. Today one of the town’s top tourist attractions is the 1901 Palace Hotel with a sign whose shape clearly announces the nature of its business.”
Evidence shows that Fayetteville’s police force routinely harassed, arrested, and jailed women for trading their bodies for money, but these transactions mysteriously failed mention in the news. Town folk were shocked, then, in 1935 when the police chief’s statement regarding such unsavory activities appeared on the front page of the Fayetteville Democrat. Under duress and the threatened loss of his job, Chief Neal Cruse rebutted accusations that he had failed to eradicate such practices from the town by citing four separate locations where he had ‘shut down’ the operations in question, among them Birdie’s “millinery shop.” Only one of the named ‘houses’ remains standing today, at 9 North West.
9 N. West, as shown in Google maps
The circumstances leading up to this revelation involved illegal alcohol, a car theft ring, and the downfall of Fayetteville’s city attorney, among other things, all of it stirred with a big stick by reformers led by none other than the newspaper’s publisher and local society scion, Roberta Fulbright.
Details of this scandal are explored in depth in “Fayetteville’s Immoral Houses,” one of nine articles about local history in the recently released Second Glimpses of Fayetteville’s Past.
To obtain your copy of this fascinating collection, visit Amazon. Only $11.95
James William Bell was born September 6, 1852, to William John and Mary Frances (Boggs) Bell. William’s family lived in Kentucky at the time he was born, but he had moved to Missouri before he married Mary there in 1846. Their son James was born in Missouri. William died at Anderson, McDonald County, Missouri between 1876 and 1880.
Upon the death of his father, James moved to the fledgling village of West Fork in Washington County, Arkansas, where he met and married Lucinda Linda Epps on December 2, 1879. Their children were Edna Mae (Bell) Latham (1880-1953) and Thomas Tillman Bell (1889-1973). The 1900 census shows the family household at West Fork with James 47, Linda 41, and Kilman 11 (Tillman). James named his occupation as blacksmith, and he and Linda owned their home without mortgage.
From the earliest record of West Fork as a formally organized town, Bell’s name appeared regularly. A group of men visiting West Fork noted, in an 1885 newspaper article, that “During our stay in West Fork, we were the guest of Mr. James Bell, the best blacksmith in the whole country, and a most excellent gentleman and citizen.” Bell was among the men who signed the petition to organize the town, submitted to the Washington County Court on May 3, 1885. His blacksmithing business was among West Fork enterprises listed in Goodspeed’s 1889 history of the county.
Bell specialized in horseshoes, but served a wide trade of needs for articles of made of metal. A history of blacksmithing in the 1800s notes:
“Blacksmiths living in the 1800s took on the roles of both tradesmen and businessmen in order to manage successful workshops and provide a variety of services. Townspeople and farmers alike valued the range of skills blacksmiths possessed and relied on them to create the tools and implements necessary for survival. Smiths could manipulate metal in endless ways, but usually created and repaired farm equipment such as hoes, plows, rakes and other tools as well as hardware and wheels for wagons, kitchen utensils and horseshoes.
“Smiths managed their businesses carefully and kept detailed records of daily work orders and the debts owed by their customers. They interacted with other business owners in their community to build solid professional networks and advertise their services. Because they worked for themselves, smiths had to skillfully negotiate their compensation, which often took the form of cash payments, traded goods, or services promised by customers skilled in other trades.
“Smiths kept their workwear simple and functional by dressing in everyday clothing and adding a leather apron to protect from stray sparks. Crafted from affordable cowhide, the apron allowed for free movement while providing essential protection. It covered the blacksmith from the waist to below the knees and sometimes split in the middle to allow smiths to cradle the leg of a horse when fitting shoes. Blacksmiths usually wore sturdy boots to protect their feet and a belt to hold their frequently used tools. Smiths did not wear gloves because they preferred direct contact with the metal being worked.”[1]
In February 1882, Bell was among nine West Fork men who served as charter members for a local chapter of the Odd Fellows lodge. In July 1883, Bell was one of men called to serve on the county’s grand jury. In 1886, he was one of three men selected by the county’s Democratic Party to serve as poll ‘judges’ for West Fork.
He regularly advertised his blacksmithing services in the Fayetteville Weekly Democrat throughout the early 1880s, stating in one 1887 ad that “Work guaranteed and done on short notice. Prices low.” Another mention in that year’s newspaper stated that “James W. Bell, of West Fork, whose handy-work furnishes the farmers in that community with the best of implements, was in the city [Fayetteville] yesterday. He was accompanied by Mrs. Bell.”[2] No advertisements are found after 1887.
In March 1907, James and Lucinda deeded a West Fork lot to “The Deacons and Elders of the Christian Church of West Fork…for church purposes only, and unto their successors in office.” The property was located in Bells’ Addition to West Fork, “beginning at the NW corner of Bell’s Addition and running south 25 degrees East 100 feet, thence East 50 feet, thence North 25 degrees West 100 feet, thence West 50 feet to the beginning, containing Lot One of Bell’s Addition.” It was further noted that “when not occupied by the Christian Church, it shall be free to any and all orthodox denominations to preach in, and when this property is not used as herein stated, this land shall fall back to the original owners, J. W. Bell and Lucinda Bell, or their heirs.”[3]
In this 1908 plat of West Fork, J. W. Bell’s property features prominently. His ‘smith shop’ is marked and their home is probably the structure shown just west of the shop.
James died April 8, 1910, at the age of 58 and is buried at the West Fork Cemetery. Lucinda died in 1958 just a few months short of her one hundredth birthday, and is buried beside James.
This morning a friend commented on Facebook that he’d received a treasured gift for Christmas, a re-issued vinyl of the original Getz/Gilberto 1964 album that included the ever-stunning “Girl from Ipanema.” I was immediately sent hurtling back to my high school years in a small Oklahoma town (1964-1966) where, after classes, I worked at a music store and performed various tasks out front as well as teaching guitar lessons to various motivated pupils.
One day while I dusted store shelves, the manager set that particular album on the stereo. When that song came up, I couldn’t move. The music and lyrics filled me with wonder and emotion.
Denele Pitts
So it was that in the late spring of 1966 in preparing for the annual senior event where most of the graduating class were expected to perform in some way or another, this song sprang instantly to my mind. I had hummed it, sang it to myself in the mirror, and couldn’t get it out of my head. I was an experienced vocalist, having performed in the select choir as well as Allstate Choir in addition to a trio of me (on guitar) and two other females (tambourine, banjo) who sang folks ballads of the day for civic luncheons and other similar events.
A collaboration quickly developed between me and my high school sweetheart Bill, a performer in his own right on percussion as well as modern dance. I labored hard and long to transcribe the recording into written music for a piano accompaniment as there was no sheet music available, but the transitions in the piece evaded me entirely, and so I determined to sing acapella with only rhythm instruments. Bill planned to ‘hoof it,’ as he said, making it up as he went along. We rehearsed together once.
Our duet, as it were, presented me in a slim pale blue sheath at one corner of the stage singing my husky rendition of Astrud Gilberto’s song at the microphone while, in black tights and leotard, Bill danced his evocative modern style along the shadowy blue footlights. At the brick back wall where we’d pulled back the curtains, three of our musical classmates, also in black, carried the rhythm of the piece with claves, maracas, and guiro while perched at various position on a tall platform ladder.
A few notes into the song, the packed house became dead silent. They all knew the history of the relationship between me and Bill, a passionate on-again, off-again torment that had been no secret among our 300-odd classmates. We’d been voted “Most Talented” in our graduating class, and that acknowledgement seemed to require that we surpass anything we’d previously accomplished.
And it felt like we did. My naturally low-pitched voice perfectly suited the song, and Bill’s lithely muscled body moved in exact response to the lyrics. We had changed the lyrics to make the song about the ‘boy’ from Ipanema…
Tall and tan and young and handsome The boy from Ipanema goes walking And when he passes, each one he passes Goes “A-a-a-h” When he walks he’s like a samba That swings so cool and sways so gentle That when he passes, each one he passes Goes “A-a-a-h” Oh, but I watch him so sadly How can I tell him I love him Yes, I would give my heart gladly But each day as he walks to the sea He looks straight ahead, not at me Tall and tan and young and handsome The boy from Ipanema goes walking And when he passes, I smile, but he Doesn’t see. He just doesn’t see No, he just doesn’t see…
As Bill moved across the stage, strutting and sauntering to fit the lyrics, I whispered my love song as if nothing existed but the two of us. I hit the notes perfectly as his movements gave visual fulfilment of the lyrics. It was, for both of us, a moment of unrestrained joy.
At the last fading breath of my voice, as Bill’s body slowly became immobile in the footlights, a long extended moment of silence filled that auditorium. I thought briefly that somehow we had failed in the execution of our performance, that my voice or his dance had been unworthy of the audience. Then, as if waking from a dream, the applause came thundering down, whistles and shouts and calls that exceeded any response to any of the countless times either of us had given ourselves to a song or dance. We had two curtain calls after which I simply refused to go back out for another.
Bill in “A Chorus Line,” third from front
All these years later, that experience lives on in my memory. I suspect it lives on in Bill’s as well, but within a few years of graduation, he landed in New York where he pursued his talents on Broadway with the fortuitous experience of working with Bob Fosse and performing in The Most Happy Fella, A Chorus Line, Cabaret, Rags, Dancin’, and Sweet Charity. to name a few. I, on the other hand, left my stage presence behind and ended up a back-to-the-land wife and mother of three in a thirty-year career as a piano tuner/technician, somehow feeling better suited to working behind the scenes.
For me, the song remains a highly emotional experience and a high point in my high school years. Singing in that style suited me whereas all the voice lessons and choral performances had pushed a more operatic style, which I did not enjoy. I’m still proud of myself for stepping outside the expected boundaries of my music education and daring to break new ground. I suspect Bill feels the same in breaking away from tap and ballet. Although we’ve had infrequent contact over the years, we’ve never discussed that event, as if somehow any remembrance would tarnish the glow we both felt.
And that’s perhaps best, since there is nothing either of us could say that would make the memory any more perfect. Just as the song as preserved forever on that slip of black vinyl would not be made any more perfect. It was a moment in time.
denelecampbell 