SILENT STRANGERS: WEST AFRICANS IN IZARD COUNTYBy Dale HanksPart two
In 1880, 13 Izard County white families had black servants living with them. Harrison Daughty (Daughtery), a black servant, was raised by white farmers, Lonzo Daughty and his wife, Sarah. Harrison, taking the Daughty name, was, for all practical purposes, a member of the family along with his white “sister”, Louisiana Daughty.
Lillie Mae Daughty, who married a Watkins, was one of the last Daughtys to leave Izard County. She was the daughter of Ernest and Lizzie Daughty, and the granddaughter of Dave Daughty, all of LaCrosse. Lillie left Izard in 1954 and now lives in Batesville in her 82nd year. I had the privilege of talking with Lillie while preparing this article.
The youngest servant among Izard County white families was Robert Gardner, eight years old, who lived with the Ransom Gulley family. Was Robert related to John Gardner, a white teacher? Who knows? In any case, Robert had a white father, doubtlessly, an Izard County man. I suspect that Robert Gardner, at age eight, was more a regular family member than an active servant in the Gulley household. They had three other children close to Robert’s age.
Elizabeth Gardner, a black woman, age 20, was listed in the 1880 Izard County census as a “boarder” in the Josephus B. Hunt family. She had a one-year old son, Lewis. Was Robert Gardner also her son? Perhaps. We may never know. Robert, 20 years later, was still in Izard County working as a day laborer. He and his wife, Dola, had a son, Hursel, and a daughter, Mollie.
Living next to the J.B. Hunt place at the same time was Sina, a 20-year old mulatto woman servant of William B. Baird and his wife, Lucienda. Sina had a young daughter, Anna, and they both took the Baird name. William Baird was a merchant and part-time minister. He and Lucienda had no children of their own living in the household. It is fair to say that the peculiar institution of slavery led to some peculiar family constellations among Izard County folk after the Civil War ended.
Harrison Watkins and his wife, Ann, (both black) raised the largest black family in Izard County during the 1880s. They had nine children from ages one to 17. Nancy, the oldest girl was a mulatto. The rest of the children were black. They were Emma, 12; John, 13; Tennie, 10; Willie, 9; Newton, 6; James, 5; Ida, 2; Mollie, 8 months; and a granddaughter, Mary, age one. A remarkable fact about this family is that Harrison was only 31 years old at the time, and his wife, Ann, was 30.
Here is a list of white families and their black (or mulatto) servants in 1880:
HEAD OF FAMILY SERVANT AGE
John Anderson Julius Cesar 22
Lonzo Daughty (Daugherty) Harrison Daughty 22
Thomas Williams Henry Sherrell 16
John Gardner Dan Thompson 22
Ransom Gulley Robert Gardner 8
Owen T. Watkins Rhoda Hunt 21
J.W. Dodd Rachel Watkins 23
Josephus B. Hunt Elizabeth Gardner 20
William B. Baird Sina Baird 20
Leander Jennings Jencie Campbell 30
Michael O, Kinnard Susan Puckett 14
Owen T. Hunt Amanda Watkins 19
If Alice had been in Izard County in the 1800s she would have thought she was back in Wonderland. Things grew “curiouser and curiouser” as a result of the introduction of West Africans to the area. Blacks and whites depended upon each other for mutual support and protection from the many dangers lurking in the mountains and the valleys. And despite the rigid class structure, slaves and their owners attended the same churches, fished together, hunted together, and sometimes slept together.
More than a few Izard County whites and blacks were (are) blood relations. In 1880, of the 220 people of color in Izard County, 29 of them had white fathers, or grandfathers. In 1920, 28 of 247 had white fathers or grandfathers. It follows that one whose roots can be traced back to Izard County in the 1800s may have distant cousins not found in their family tree. And, like Humpty Dumpty when he fell off the wall, all the King’s horses and all the King’s men couldn’t put these fragile and tangled relationships together again.
In some cases, cemeteries were strictly segregated according to race while in others blacks and whites were buried together. Some blacks even owned black slaves. In other instances, freed slaves were able to buy their own children from their masters. Even though, as a black man, he was not eligible to vote, Daniel Earl’s house was used as a voting place by whites. In this topsy-turvy world, slaves who were considered incompetent to look after themselves sometimes looked after their own masters when they were drunker than the slave. And to top it all off, some black slaves were so revered by whites that they named mountains and a town after them to honor their memory. Indeed, slavery was a most peculiar institution in Izard County.
The peculiar family constellations spawned by slavery were common not only in Izard County but, throughout the South. Colonel John Eaton, Jr was the General Superintendent of Freedmen for Arkansas and Tennessee with headquarters in Memphis. In a report to General Thomas, Adjutant General of the United States, in 1864 Colonel Eaton revealed that Jefferson Davis, Confederate States President, had kept a colored woman as his mistress. She was the daughter of Joe Davis, Jefferson’s brother. This was confirmed by the testimony of hundreds of people who knew of their relationship. Davis’ mistress moved to Cincinnatti after the Civil War. Moreover, Colonel Eaton, venturing further into forbidden territory, reported the existence of six mulatto offspring of white Southern women by colored men
Now, of course, the whole world is aware of the long-standing relationship between Thomas Jefferson and Sally Hemings, one of his slaves at Monticello. Sally, who bore two or more children by Jefferson, was a half sister of Martha Wayles, Jefferson’s deceased wife. Both Sally and Martha had the same father, John Wayles. But I digress. Let us return to the people of color in Izard County.
Mertie A. Harris, writing for the Izard County Historian in April 1971, recalls her discussions with George Wiegart about a lime plant where many blacks were employed during the early 1900s. The lime operation was at Ruddels on the eastside of White River about two miles below. Sylamore. In the hot summer months, about the only workers at the kiln where the limestone was heated were black employees. The Lime Company at Ruddels once sought more workers with this advertisement:
WANTED AT ONCE
Five quarrymen, wages
17&1/2 cents per hourFive firemen
17&1/2 cents per hourTen pick and shovel men
16 cents per hourFive teamsters
16 cents per hourSteady employment, no shutdowns, no lost
Time; payroll each day, houses furnished at
$2,50 per month. Apply in person at Manager’s
office ofARKANSAS LIME COMPANY
A black preacher known as Parson Brown filled his church pulpit in the south part of Ruddels. In addition to blacks, many white families also attended Parson Brown’s services. Reversing the usual seating patterns of the South, in Parson Brown’s church, the blacks sat down front and the whites sat in the back pews.
The Will Harper family was one of the more prominent black families at Ruddels. Will, his wife, Collie (Callie?), and children, James, Clarence, Lena, Rena. Stella, and Enos lived upstream at Mt. Olive before moving to Ruddels after 1920. Likely they moved to Ruddels seeking work at the lime plant.
Henry Harper, his wife, Mary, and their children, Virgie, Albert, Walter, and Alice also left Mt. Olive and moved on down White River to Ruddels. Like Will Harper, Henry was drawn by steady work, good wages, and cheap housing offered by the Arkansas Lime Company.
Julius Caesar Dillard was an interesting young black man who also was lured to Ruddels by the economic promises of the lime plant. W. O. “Bill” Dillard of Calico Rock had purchased Julius when he was only two and a half years old and raised him to be a house boy for the Dillards. After he was grown, Julius left Calico Rock and made his way to Ruddels seeking prosperity and the possibilities of a better life offered by work at the lime plant.
Since there was a shortage of young black women at Ruddels to suit his taste, Julius decided that a mail-order bride would be the solution to his amorous notions. George Weigart remembered the big day when Julius’s bride was to arrive on the train. Julius showed up at the depot for the great occasion all dressed up in spats, a frock-tailed coat, polka-dot vest, and top hat (move over, Fred Astaire).
When the great day arrived, the steam powered locomotive chugged to a stop at Ruddels, Julius and a band of curious spectators had gathered at the depot with breathless anticipation. Suddenly, she appeared in the doorway. There she was! Julius’s Dreamgirl! Shining in the glow of an emotional crowd, this 200-pound mail-order mama stepped gingerly from the train and lumbered excitedly to Julius’s waiting arms. Several strong men were required to unload her heavy trunk. The trunk contained few clothes, but housed a large stash of whiskey.
Julius greeted his new bride-to-be while astonished spectators mumbled words of disbelief in between shouts of encouragement. Not since the day Mammy Julie saved all the children at Norfork had such waves of excitement rippled up and down White River.
Mammy Julie was a black cook for Jacob Wolf and his family. Her honey-sweetened gingerbread made her a legendary figure among river men all the way from Norfork to New Orleans.
Actually, Mammy Julie was more than a cook. There were two main power sources at Norfork: Mammy Julie and her owner, Jacob Wolf. Mammy Julie ran the Wolf household as she damn well pleased, and bossed and babied the entire village with good humor. No person at Norfork enjoyed greater respect from the community than Mammy Julie.
One day, W.M. Wolf, Major Jacob Wolf’s oldest son, piloted the first steamboat up White River to the Wolf House. When Mammy Julie looked out the back door and saw this mighty contraption belching smoke and steam from its boilers, she quickly took over the entire village. Gathering up all the children she could find—white, black, and a few stray Indians, Mammy Julie and all the kids headed out for higher ground. “Run chillun, run,” hollered Mammy Julie, “she’s a goin to bust!”
Again, I digress. Back to Julius Caesar Dillard and his mail-order bride. Later reports from Ruddels said that Julius returned the bulky mail order package unopened. Hopefully, he had a snort or two from the lady’s trunk to ease his disappointment.
At least two Harpers are buried in Ruddels Cemetery. Henry Harper, age 53 and husband of Mary Harper, was buried there in March 1903. Judie Harper, age 72 and wife of James Harper, was buried there in June 1903.This cemetery is a couple of miles south of Sylamore and just east of the railroad tracks that run along White River.
After a short 25-year life, Ruddels no longer exists, but it flourished as a small company town from 1905 until 1930. In 1930 the plant was dismantled and moved to Limedale near Batesville.
William O.T. Watkins, who most surely was named for the brothers William Watkins and Owen T. Watkins at LaCrosse, is one of the more interesting stories of a young black man from Izard County who “made good” in the post-slavery era. After the Civil War, he made his way to Batesville and was hired to run the black school there. The Freedmen’s Bureau in Arkansas was established in 1865 to help blacks learn to function in a free society, and education was one their priorities. Batesville, through the Freedmen’s Bureau, opened a public school for blacks in the late 1860s in a handsome, new brick building on Rock Street.
Curtislene Lawson, writing in the January 1980 issue of the Independence County Chronicle, tells us that by 1890 the black enrollment had increased to the point of requiring an assistant teacher. W.O.T. Watkins and his wife, Callie, were retained as the principal and assistant teacher to educate 196 black kids at the school. Their salaries were set at $35 per month for William and $25 for Callie.
Three black trustees were designated to oversee the new building on Rock Street. Then, suddenly In1892, the trustees refused to allow the school board to continue use of the brick building for purposes of educating black students. Finally, the school board rented a building in another part of town for the blacks to hold classes. Why would the black trustees suddenly refuse to allow school to be held in the building for purposes for which it was intended? When you dig beneath the surface of that situation a rather sordid chapter in the history of Batesville begins to unfold.
Batesville was growing eastward and soon many whites had built homes in the vicinity of the original black school. When the school was first built, it was conveniently placed out on the edge of town, but the town eventually grew out to where the black school was located.
Soon the white families who had built around and near the black school began to demand that it be closed and moved somewhere else. S.A. Hail, a former member of the Ku Klux Klan who once boasted that “a few of them (Negroes) had to be killed before they would be good” was a prominent figure in the school dispute. He was the founder of Hail Dry Goods Company in Batesville, and a member of the white school board. He and others in the white power structure brought intimidating pressure on the black trustees forcing them to close the black school building down.
In the midst of all the unrest, W.O.T. Watkins continued to head up the black school, and even got the school board to put in a blackboard. Pleading “hard times” in the 1886-87, the white school board cut Watkins’ salary from $40 per month back to $35. T.W. Cothrine (Izard County roots) was hired to replace Callie Watkins as substitute teacher. Later that year, William Watkins successfully negotiated with the school board to reinstate his $40 per month salary.
In 1889, William Watkins obtained a leave of absence to attend a teacher training school in Pine Bluff. Later, he was rehired as school principal. The average daily attendance at the black school was 57%, notably higher than the white school at 44%.
By 1902, William Watkins and his wife, Callie, had had enough and resigned after 13 years of service at the Batesville black school. T.W. Cothrine, his assistant, replaced Watkins at the school. R.L. Cothrine, likely a relative of T.W. Cothrine, taught school in Izard County during the early 1900s. In 1912, he taught at St. Marks Academy, a black school, about two miles south of Franklin. St. Marks Academy was in operation for about 15 years.
In 1905 a new school was built for the blacks in Batesville away from the white area. Instead of the $2480 brick building constructed by the Freedmen’s Bureau on Rock Street, the blacks now had a cheap frame structure built for $1065 between Oak and Neely Streets. Meanwhile, the sturdy brick school building stood empty and unused in the midst of an elite white neighborhood.
After the whites were successful in closing the black school, local government officials began to press the black trustees for payment of delinquent taxes on the school building since it was no longer used as a school. The black trustees were caught between a rock and a hard place. They had a school building they couldn’t use and no way to pay the taxes.
Then later, the white school board turned up the heat on the trustees by claiming they owned the brick school building. This dispute of ownership of the black school between the black trustees and the white school board ended up with a trial in 1913. When cross-examined in court, S.A. Hail, a white school director, offered the following testimony:
Q. Did you ever make any objections to having a Negro school taught
there?A. Yes, sir.
Q. Were there other parties who objected?
A. Yes, sir.
Q. You know that white people objected to having a Negro school taught
there?A. Yes, sir…
Q. After you made this protest to the trustees, did they cease having a
school taught?A. Yes, sir.
Predictably, the court ruled against the black trustees on December 6, 1913, and they were forced to sell the original brick school property at auction. Interestingly, S.A. Hail forged a good deal for himself from the dispute. After working hard to close down the black school, he then bought the well-located property for $455--a fraction of its worth.
Hail had built his dry goods building on Batesville’s Main Street in 1908. By 1914 he needed additional storage space, so he added a second floor as a warehouse. This was shortly after he worked to close down the Negro school and buy their building. When the Negro school was torn down, were the materials used to add the second floor to Mr. Hail’s brick building? One might logically conclude that if the walls of the second floor of the Hail Building could talk, you could hear echoes of William O.T. Watkins teaching Batesville’s little black kids their “letters”. In 1925, Hail added a third floor and after almost 100 years, this building remains in good condition today.
By 1920, many blacks had left Izard County for Batesville and other places to enhance their opportunities for employment. The blacks in Batesville were clustered in a residential area beginning on Vine Street and reaching Main Street and 12th Streets. However, pressure from Batesville’s continued growth brought more whites eastward to where the blacks lived. Suddenly, one day in 1920 the black area was consumed in flames and more than 50 small residences housing poor blacks were destroyed.
To add to this dark chapter in the town’s history, the Batesville Guard printed an article in May 1920 that said:
“It’s an ill wind that blows nobody good is a statement that is very true, and in this connection, we are not admitting that the personal loss of any property owner in the recent fire was good, but we must add that since the condition brought about by the fire cannot be helped now, it is a timely opportunity to suggest that the beautiful residential lots which were formerly occupied with undesirable rent houses, situated very close to a most desirable residential district, shall not be replaced with the same kind of buildings.
“Indeed, as Batesville moves upward to consume the upper Main Street lots as a business section, and the other residential streets well built up at present, it is well to look to the preservation of these lots recently made vacant by the fire, as places for permanent and desirable residences and, it is hoped that the property owners will thus consider the future prospects of Batesville when contemplating a disposition of their lots.”
Thus, by 1920 the whites in Batesville, through intimidation, cynical government manipulations, and fire had effectively moved much of their black population to a more remote area in the vicinity of St. Louis and Neely Streets. Included were many blacks with Izard County roots. Almost a century later their descendants would again be dislodged from their homes just west of St. Louis Street to make way for fast food restaurants and other businesses. But this time, they were paid for their trouble.
As birds of a feather flock together, some evil blacks and whites got together during the Civil War to mutually rob and pillage the decent folks in Izard County. Most blacks, however, remained loyal to their masters, but at least two slaves escaped to join the Union Army.
In researching black soldiers in the Civil War, Jane Fagg, formerly a history professor at Lyon College, discovered the military record of Richard Gravelly. Richard Gravelly was born in Izard County near Riggsville (now the Mountain View area of Stone County) in June 1835. He was a slave of the Dillard family until one of the Dillard girls married Henry Harris in Izard County. Then, he became a Harris slave.
Gravelly made his way from slavery in Izard County to Batesville where he joined the U.S. Colored Infantry on April 12, 1864. He rose to the rank of sergeant and was mustered out of the Army in 1866. Two years later he married Matilda Pinkett, daughter of Edward Pinkett, one of the three black trustees of the Freedmen’s school in Batesville. By 1913, Gravelly was, himself, a trustee of the black school. He served as a trustee during the time the trustees were brought to court in a successful effort by S.A. Hail and others to get possession of the brick building that had housed the black school. Richard Gravelly died in September 1921.
Charley and Nancy Lipton were a popular young black couple who worked at the old Muncy Hotel in Melbourne in the early 1900s Charley had been trained as a house boy by his previous owners, and was a skilled employee of the hotel. Nancy was well known around Melbourne for her beautiful singing voice.
There are at least three famous structures in Izard County built by blacks that were noted for their durability and character. These were the Watkins house at LaCrosse (now gone), the old A.C. Jeffery house at Mount Olive (still in use) and the Rector barn. Helen Lindley recalled that local people still talked about the old barn, about three miles northwest of Melbourne off Highway 9. Early slaves in Izard County, of course, built many, many houses, dependencies, mills, etc. that have disappeared with time.
Two slaves in Izard County lived to be among the world’s oldest people. Sallie Deskin, at age 105, was the oldest black person in Izard County in 1920. She was born in Tennessee in 1815, just one year after George Gill, Robert Livingston, and Colonel Stewart took up residence along White River with the first slaves. Sallie said her parents were born in America but she knew not the exact place of their birth. Sallie lived in Big Springs Township with the George Rattler family.
Lucy Watkins of the Watkins plantation at LaCrosse lived to be more than 102 years old. Lucy recalled for an interviewer in the1930s about her fears at the Watkins “Big House” in 1862 when Yankee soldiers approached. The soldiers did little damage, but stuffed their pockets with food and filled their canteens with “sweet milk”. She married another slave from the Watkins plantation and never ventured more than a few miles from her home.
The Watkins plantation also had a blind slave craftsman who made furniture. So the story goes, he made enough chairs at one dollar each to purchase his freedom. One wonders about this story, however. Given the time and place of extremely scarce job opportunities and social support, would a blind slave trade the peace and security of the Watkins place to seek a home and employment elsewhere?
A Civilian Conservation Corps (CCC) camp was operated at Sage during the 1930s as a part of President Roosevelt’s New Deal to overcome the severe economic depression. White National Youth Administration (NYA) workers occupied the camp in 1938. In November of that year the whites were moved to another camp north of Melbourne. These were young men who were working to build the new courthouse in Melbourne.
Shortly after the white NYA group moved out of Camp Sage, CCC Company 3790-C (for colored) moved in on December 1, 1938. This contingent of about 185 young black men was under the direction of the Arkansas State Forestry Commission. They built telephone lines and roads, and made maps and worked toward forest fire prevention.
The NYA group left Camp Sage in poor condition, so the black CCC company did a lot of work in refurbishing the camp and its buildings. Suddenly, “for reasons known only to God or the Army” (the Army ran Camp Sage for the CCC) the black company was transferred on July 8 to another camp near Smackover in south Arkansas. Rumors and unfounded allegations of illegal whiskey and libertine dances at Camp Sage persisted among whites in the area for many years.
No one will ever know if it was it by accident or design that the large kitchen and mess hall at Camp Sage burned the night before the black CCC company moved out. All equipment, stoves, refrigerators, etc. were destroyed. The Melbourne Times reported that the blaze “may have originated from defective wiring.” In any case, it is clear that white political pressure effectively removed the young black men from Izard County after a brief stay of only a few months.
In 1900 there were 198 blacks and mulattos still living in Izard County. By 1920, the African-American population in the county increased to 219 blacks plus 28 mulattos. Of this number, there were 33 Watkins, mostly in the LaCrosse area. The Mount Olive area claimed 28 Harpers. Other leading family names at the time were 13 Harrisses and 10 Billingsleys. The Harrisses were mostly in Harris Bottoms and the Billingsleys were clustered around Violet Hill.
While taking their owners’ surnames many blacks, however, created some interesting first names for themselves such as Croney, Varnise, Nepolian, Pocolia, Velzora, Seda, Sina, Cornlie, Cuba, Tiree, Olon, and Quindora. States also came into play with names such as California and Colorado in addition to Careen, Arneily, Metissa, Narcissa, Minerva, Birdie, Tennie, Ludie, Caesar, Polk, Rilla, Silvy, Verline, and Letichea.
The largest families in Izard County with West African roots in 1920 were the Brooks and the Harpers. Joe Brooks and his wife, Lula, in Franklin Township had eight children at home in addition to Lucy Watkins Johnson (who lived to be more than 100). The two younger Brooks girls, Ruby and Cuba, were twins. Walter Harper and his wife, Jane, at Mount Olive also had eight children including a set of twins, Grady and Gracy.
Today, as we enter a new millenium, there are few (if any) blacks left in Izard County. Where did they go? And why did they leave? Like many whites in Izard, they began to gradually drift down White River to Batesville, Newport, and other towns in search of better employment opportunities and a more fulfilling lifestyle than that offered in the rugged mountains of Izard County. A few made their way to southern Missouri to pick cotton and settled around places like Malden and West Plains. Others migrated to larger cities such as Little Rock, Memphis, Kansas City, Chicago, Peoria, and St. Louis. Some of their descendants have settled as far away as California.
Lillie Mae Daughty was one of the last African-Americans to leave Izard County. She was the daughter of Ernest and Lizzie Daughty, and the granddaughter of Dave Daughty, all of LaCrosse. Lillie Mae married Arvin Watkins of Lacross in the l930s. Arvin was one of many descendants of the slaves owned by the Watkins brothers at LaCrosse before the Civil War.
According to stories handed down in the family, Lillie Mae’s grandfather came to America from West Africa. “We did not know what our names were—or even if we had names,” said Lillie Mae, “so we took the Daughty name from Lonzo Daughty, my grandfather’s white owner.”
Lillie Mae says she was quite green about life for many years—having been told when she asked where she came from that her daddy found her in a hollow stump. Having access to no other information, she assumed this was true until she was a young adult and married Arvin Watkins.
By 1954 there was hardly any work for Lillie Mae and Arvin at LaCrosse. The moved to Batesville in 1954 in search of work. They bought a house in Batesville, but Arvin died a short time later. Lillie Mae continued making payments on their house and paind it off by doing housework in Batesville for 50 cents an hour. Lillie Mae still lives in Batesville and enjoys excellent health and mental and physical vigor in her 82nd year.
I had the privilege of talking with Lillie Mae while preparing this article. In recalling her early life around LaCrosse, she told me about the farm work she did as a girl. She picked and hoed cotton and corn, and plowed with a team of mules. She broke ground in the spring with a turning plow and operated a two-team cultivator before she was ten years old. When I suggested that was awfully young for a girl to be doing a man’s work, Lillie Mae said, “Well—I was right stout!”
Lillie Mae described her early schooling in Izard County as “occasional”. Like many white kids, she and other black kids in the area attended a separate one-room school with a single teacher. They went to school only during winter and early spring when they were not need in the fields. Bud Guthrie and O.G. Watkins were two teachers she remembers.
Like many others in the LaCrosse area, Lillie Mae shopped at Wren’s Store, a Lacrosse landmark for many years. Occasionally they would go to Melbourne for supplies, and maybe once or twice a year they would go to Batesville for a wider selection of clothes. They traveled to Batesville in a mule-drawn wagon that required a full day for the journey there and a full day for the return trip back to LaCrosse.
While some people saw distinct differences between the Baptists and Methodists in Izard County, Lillie Mae and her friends and family alternated their church attendance between the two. One week they would attend the Baptist services and then go to the Methodist meeting the following week.
When the black CCC Company was a Sage during the great depression, Lillie Mae was not allowed to go to the dances there because her mother did not approve of dancing. However, she recalls one dance she attended at another place but her date would not dance with her. “It didn’t make sense to me,” she said, “for somebody to go to a dance and then not dance. That was the last dance I went to with him.”
LaCrosse offered sparse recreational opportunities for black kids growing up there in the 1920s, 30s, and 40s. There were no swimming pools, no parks, no corner drug stores, no malls to hang out at, no television, no telephones, no movies, no CD players, no CDs, no dirt bikes, no bikes of any kind, no skateboards, no skates, no computer games, no computers, no Walmarts, no high school proms, no basketball games, no little league, no hay rides, no weenie roasts, no tattoos, no nipple rings, no Cadillacs, no nothing much.
So what is a kid to do when there’s nothing much around? You have to learn how to make your own fun. Like Julius Dillard discovered up at Ruddles—when you are surrounded by a barren landscape you need to be creative to brighten up your life. In the midst of a sterile social environment, Lillie Mae created a structure that today remains her fondest memory of Izard County. Lillie Mae designed and built a playhouse. It was not a house where you performed plays, but a house where she and her friends could escape the dreary reality of cornfields and cotton patches and create a different world all their own. In her playhouse they would all be transformed through the magic of make-believe. They could be whoever they wanted to be and they could do whatever they wanted to do.
Lillie Mae selected a level site near the barn for her magic house. It was a sturdy structure. She piled up rocks to make the walls and used old boards for a roof. Here she often cooked specializing in mud pies and other such delicacies. She invited her friends to play there with her. Often they would all sing together and make music. Sometimes she would retreat alone to her world of make-believe just to be by herself and enjoy quiet times.
Lillie Mae grew up in a very strict household. She does not drink or smoke—never did—but she does remember a few “youthful indiscretions” with Royal Crown (a popular brand of whiskey back then) and peach brandy. “It’s a right powerful potion when you mix ‘em,” she said “Only problem is when you’ve got to pick cotton the next day.”
Despite the harsh economic times and a limited social life in Izard County, looking back Lillie Mae said, “There were some good times, too! And I will never forget those pleasant memories of my playhouse.”
An annual homecoming for African-Americans with Izard County roots is held in August of each year. Sometimes the event is in Izard County (LaCrosse), and at other times in Batesville. This function draws crowds up to 200 people. Many of them still have familiar Izard County names such as Harris, Watkins, Cothrine, Harper, and Kinnard. They have every reason to be proud of their Izard County ancestors whose loads were heavier and whose hills were steeper. Yet, despite the overwhelming social and economic barriers they faced, they made many important and lasting contributions to the growth and development of Izard County.
*******************************************************************SOURCES Independence County Chronicle: articles by Jane Fagg, James L. Morgan.
Izard County Historian: articles by Curtislene Lawson, Helen Lindley, Elizabeth Stone, Mertie A. Harris..
Government Records: Federal Writers’ Project, Works Progress Administration; Freedmen’s Bureau; Civilian Conservation Corps; US Census Bureau, 1850, 1860, 1870, 1880, 1900, 1920. Izard County Wills.
Newspapers: Melbourne Times, Arkansas Gazette, Bandera (Texas) Banner.
Books: History of Izard County, A.C. Jeffery; and from writings by S.C. Turnbo, and Jehoiada J. Sams.
Personal Conversations: with Bobby Cothrine, Lillie Mae Daughty Watkins, Batesville, Arkansas.
© 2002 by Dale Hanks all rights reserved. This information may be used by libraries and genealogical societies, however, commercial use of this information is strictly prohibited without prior permission. If copied, this copyright notice must appear with the information. This page is not associated with USGenweb or Rootsweb and the information on these pages is not to be used or copied by them.