From the Past

Antiques and Genealogy go together for me. Things that have belonged to and were used by my grandparents are the most precious. Each article tells a story that is a part of my heritage. This antique wall begins the stories of the items here as it came out of the home where my husband was raised. The medicine cabinet in the middle of the wall also came from that house. Most of the kitchen items came from my mother and her mother's kitchens, but are stories to come. The old telephone was used by various members of my father's family through the years. It is not the one my parents used when they first married.

The phones were connected by a wire that ran along the fences and up in trees. A little handle on the side of the phone was used to 'ring' your neighbors. Each was identified by a certain number of rings and every phone on the line rang. My father's grandfather was blind and lived with Momma and Daddy when they first married. They lived in a log cabin (a story of it's own) on Little Piney Creek. When the phone would ring Grandpa Dill would go to hollaring "Pearl who is it, what do they want, " etc. My mother was embarrassed for people to know she was eavesdropping even tho everyone else along the creek was listening too. My daddy fixed their phone by putting a switch so Momma could listen but they couldn't hear Grandpa hollaring

the background. That's how I know the phone passed down to me was not the one my parents used, no sign of a switch ever being on it. But what a wonderful thing these old wall phones were, cabins and houses were scattered, everyone walked or rode a mule, a horse if they were lucky, and the phone brought them instant gossip, news of new babies, or calves, and most important it summoned help if they had an emergency. I was going to replace the parts that are missing on the phone but it wouldn't be the same so I enjoy it just as it was when it was passed "down" to me.

Vanishing Monuments

One of the things I enjoy most in doing genealogy is walking thru cemeteries. I like to read dates, names and the poems and quotations on all four sides of the old, old, tombstones.

Because of the cost of funerals, cremation is being used more and more. Someday cemeteries as we know them will be gone. One of my favorite tombstones is in a small cemetery not far from Lima, Ohio. It looks like a small log cabin. In a country cemetery in Newton Co. Ar. you find two stones that break your heart. One is for a little boy who lived to be three or four, next to it is a stone with his five brothers and sisters who died as little ones, all listed from the eldest to the youngest on the side of the stone. Knowing of the family we know the parents and two siblings later lived in Ok. where he became a successful businessman and was able to erect a stone but rocks still mark the graves. In Johnson Co. Ar. there is a large stone with a lady and her daughter's names on one side and her parents on the other. Way across the cemetery is the man's second wife all by herself. An Ok. cemetery has a gentlemen with a wife buried on each side of him. In Tenn. a huge walnut tree marks the site (no stones just flowers) of a man, his second wife and some of their children. It is a large cemetery with fence and all buried there are his decendents. Knowing about where the graves were they 'witched' to locate the grave sites.

Walking thru a cemetery your imagination can run away from you. Writers looking for ideas

need go no further than the nearest or perhaps the oldest cemeteryand start reading the tombstones. All sorts of plots for a best seller will come to them......... Let me know when your book is finished.

Memories

One of the first things I do of a morning is check my e-mail and blogs. E-mails to see if the kids have sent a message and the blog of my cousin Freddie. Each day she has something new to be grateful for. Today it was an attachment to an e-mail I had sent her.......how nice to feel that something you liked brought good memories to someone else.

It's a joke around my house because in doing genealogy I spent a lot of time at the computer and my kids laugh about grandma hunting bones and sending e-mails all over. Grandma got on facebook, that was really funny to them, but it is the best way I know to keep up with them.

It depends on the matter covered in the e-mails who receives them. I have a couple in Springdale I have known since 1959 who want jokes......and a cousin in California wants jokes with her morning coffee....so the last thing I do before I shut off the computer is e-mail them jokes. E-mails regarding animals (especially baby animals) go out to the grandchildren to show to the great grandchildren. Blonde jokes go to the blondes in the family. And so it goes.

It was a pleasant surprise to see that Freddie was grateful for my e-mail. Freddie and her three sisters sang like birds. They harmonized so well together. I was not raised in Arkansas and so for years we only saw one another at funerals, so I referred to them as my funeral cousins. As life brings people together, it brought three of the girls and I together at different times thru the years, the fourth lived too far away but I know we would of enjoyed knowing one another. When Freddie moved to Bella Vista we created a friendship that has grown thru the years. We may not see one another often but when we do, we just pick up like we had seen one another yesterday. The last time we were together was for a funeral, what else? We went with her oldest sister and her husband and oh, so much catching up we have to do when we get together.
I will continue to send the e-mails, and hope someone gets something from them. Freddie's dad would of loved e-mail, for he loved to laugh. My grandmother was sitting in her rocker laughing at a joke he had told her when she died, she went out of this life enjoying life, just the way she lived it. Thanks Freddie for that memory.

Garber, Johnson Co., Ar.

The pictures just posted are of the Garber Postoffice where my grandmother was postmistress for 20 years. The little postoffice building also served as a small store. Along with a grist mill and a blacksmith shop it composed the 'village' of Garber. The couple in front of the P.O./store are my grandparents, A.C. 'Bum' and Susie Ober Beasley. On mill day farmers from all around came to get their corn ground. They spent the day visiting and Grandma always had a place at her table for all who came.
The gentlemen on horseback is my grandfather A.C 'Bum' Beasley who was the mail carrier at that time. Mail was carried by horseback from Garber to Ozone, and back to Garber. At other times it was carried from Mt. Levi. The gentleman getting his mail was Spurgeon Warren.
The other picture was made several years after the postoffice was closed.

A Small Spark of Fire

I love genealogy and my husband has been wonderful and patient to tag along to various states and walk cemeteries looking for relations from the past. A few years ago we went to Tenn. and met a cousin who lived on the farm that had been settled by his great, great grandfather Asa Reeves. The log home was there and rooms had been added as the family increased thru the years. The house sat near the cemetery where only Asa and some of his decendents are buried and is still in use today. We opened the handmade doors and toured the house and felt the history of the site.

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A small spark of fire, so very small grew and grew and grew and as it grew it took with it memories of several lifetimes.

In the early 1800's Asa Reeves fled the state of South Carolina. His wife drown on her way to join him. Left with several small children he remarried and built a log house near Hermitage Springs, Tn. His dreams for a free future were realized and he became the owner of a large farm. The log house was added on to as his family grew. His son Franklin built more rooms on the log house and raised his family there and his mother lived with him. In later years the house stood empty, but oh, the wonderful memories those walls, held of dreams, births, heartships and deaths.

Nearby under the limbs of a huge and old walnut tree lie Asa and his second wife Mary with some of their children who died young. This small plot has grown into a large fenced cemetery where Asa is surrounded by some of his children, grandchildren, their children and grandchildren. The house and cemetery is where many present day family members come to see where Asa lived out his dream.

On Sunday morning, March 9, 2008, you didn't see, but spirits rose from the graves and the walnut tree cried as the house burnt --and with it the memories and dreams of generations. The house is gone, the walnut tree remains a sentinel holding memories of the past and dreams of the future as its branches reach out to protect Asa where he has lain at rest these many years.

The many scattered members of Asa's family will continue to come to find their roots, but it will never be the same. They can't reach out and touch the walls that Asa touched but they will come, close their eyes and think back to capture some of the magic, the old walnut tree will welcome with arms outstretched, and all will curse the little spark that grew and grew.