A Pioneer Woman of the 1900's.

Susie Lavonia Ober Beasley
born Mossville, Newton Co. Ar.April 7, 1889
died Clarksville, Johnson Co. Ar. Jan 24, 1956
buried Oakland Cemetery, Clarksville.

Married Arthur Claude Beasley. April 17, 1906 at
Swain, Newton Co. Ar.

She was one of the last of what history refers to as a
"Pioneer Woman"


She grew the food, made the clothes, gathered herbs for healing and cooking, raised the children, milked the cows, worked in the fields, took in boarders, nursed the sick, laid out the dead-making the pillows and linings for the homemade coffins and all the other 'chores' that enabled a family to exist.

She had large vegetable and flower gardens with rock fences to keep out the animals. In one corner of her vegetable garden I remember gooseberry bushes and a few tobacco plants. She kept her tobacco 'twists' in a flat wooded apricot box under the bed. A smoke house was used to cure the meat of homegrown pigs and cattle.

In her front yard was a glower garden, where she raised asparagus at the end of a row of roses.
This was used at decoration time in the many flower arrangements she made. Dozens of flowers were made of tissue paper to supplement the wild roses and flowers growing along the fence rows and in the fields. Starting the first Sunday in May, Decoration Day ran throughout the summer.

Union Cemetery on Memorial Sunday, Rosetta the first Sunday in June, along with Russell Cemetery in Ozone were among the 'must attend'. If transportation was available they went to Mossville Cemetery decoration where Grandma Ober was buried. Grandma wearing a new homemade 'decoration dress' and hat loaded up the wagon with food and flowers, grandpa in his white shirt, the kids, friends and relatives made up a caravan of wagons and horses off to the cemetery to see family and friends. Some they wouldn't see until the next summer when Decoration came again.

Grandma was an excellent seamstress and I can imagine the joy she felt when she got her first treadle machine. Her daughters were among the 'best dressed' in the community. The coat she wore to milk in was an original ' coat of many colors' that Dolly Parton wrote and sang of. Grandma had cut in various shapes and colors pieces of scrap material, sewed them together, and then did briar stitch embroidery on each seam, cut out and sewed the jacket, lining it with and old blanket. I thought it was beautiful.

In a letter to her older sister Bertie, she urged Bertie to carry her own wood and water as she did. She wanted her husband "Bum" to be a strong old man.

There was always company, especially in the winter when men couldn't work ( a lot of them could be referred to as 'free loaders') so grandma canned in half gallon jars using washtubs placed over a campfire. Years latered she commented that her children didn't eat certain foods anymore. Her daughter-in-law reminded her that the children never did eat those foods, but there was so many around the long kitchen table that Grandma was to busy to notice who ate what. With the money she received from timber/sawmill worker boarders she saved and bought a battery radio. It had a long wire antenna that stretched through the trees for several yards like a telephone wire. She ordered the radio from Sears Roebuck and Co. along with an extra set of the glass tubes it used. If one blew out she would immediately order a replacement so they always could listen to the radio.

They built a new house when my daddy was a young lad. Grandma did not have door sills put in so she could just sweep the dirt right out the door. She built her own kitchen cabinets out of scrap wood and wooden boxes. Some of them had curtains instead of doors. She made her quilts, her brooms, caned bottoms for her chairs, crocheted and made rugs out of necessity. Today these are called crafts. An educated woman she loved to read and used coal light (kerosene) lamps for light.

She dug roots and peeled bark sending full mail bags to the Chicago Drug houses to used used in making medicine. This brought in some cash. In the 1920's she became postmaster for Garber. They build a small wooden building which was the PO and a store. Supplies were brought in from Clarksville. She kept a basket packed and was ready when a neighbor needed help with illness or accidents. She helped a neighbor deliver twins and then buried them in the lady's flowerbed.

For a number of years in the fall she sent me a matchbox of chinquapin nuts because she knew how much I loved them and they weren't available in Oklahoma where we lived. I still treasure a small black autograph book with my name in gold that she sent me for my 8th birthday.

Sears and Roebuck and Montgomery Ward catalogs were read from cover to cover, new styles, new inventions, everything, it was there. Grandma used them to look at when she designed and made clothes and curtains. The old catalogs were used by the children for paper dolls. My cousin envied me my cut out paper dolls and I envied her the catalog dolls.

Grandma raised a son, four daughters and a grandaughter in very primitive circumstances but
she managed to provide them with things that most of the neighbors didn't have. I can only imagine the wonders upon wonders Grandma felt when they moved to 20 acres on the edge of Clarksville in the fall of 1947. A pump in a pump house, no more well with a lard bucket on a rope, electricity, a wringer washer and Uncle Ester gave her a new and her first refrigerator.
Later then moved into Clarksville, no more cows to milk, walking distance to 'downtown' and their first indoor bathroom.

Her hard life came to an end at the age of 66, sitting in her rocker, laughing at a joke. She left this world as she went through it' enjoying life'.

The chin tells it all----

Jo Reeves age 15, Susie Ober age 17, Susie's oldest brother and sister George and Emma.

Genealogy can tell us so much about our past and one of the most interesting things I like about it is going thru old papers, books and photographs. The pictures above show how siblings can look alike, but Jo isn't a sibling----she is Susie's great granddaughter-- Obers pop up in our family photos, not by name but by looks. Dark hair, dark eyes and dark complexion. My sister, and cousins are called the Ober in their families. The Obers are the envy of some because they don't sunburn, they tan beautifully.

Next time you set down and go thru your photo albums, check those chins!

Autograph Memories

Autographs used to be popular when I was in grade school. I have a black one with my name stamped in gold on the front that my Grandmother Susie sent me. I have another one that has
always held my interest. It belonged to a man who used to board and work for my grandparents at Garber, Ar. The autographs are dated from 1935 to 1938. He was 58 in 1938. Many of them are written by men. They vary from funny, to words of wisdom. The first one in the book was written by a young woman, a cousin of my fathers.

"May your life be like a snowflake, leave a mark,
not a stain, is the life long wish I pen for you"
-----------
'Dog in the wood pile, barking at a rabbitt.
Girls kissing boys, is a pretty bad habit.'
was written by a girl named Marie who also wrote-
'When a girl is single, she eat chicken pie,
When she is married its root hog or die'
-----------
The local doctor penned these words of wisdom-
"Life is either a success or a failure; If we scatter sunshine
along the pathway of others so as to make the world happier,
we are worthwhile.
But if we spread gloom instead, we are a failure and a
stumbling block in the way of others who perhaps might be
a success 3-19-1936.
------------
Other words of advice from a young lady-
Long may you live,
Long may you tarry,
Spark who you please
But mind who you marry-
-----------
This advice is good today....
Sweet to meet but oh how bitter
It's hard to court an old tobacco spitter!
----------
Tall is the mountain, cool is the breeze,
The younger the couple, the harder they squeeze.
---------
I love you a little, I love you a lot,
I love you enough to fill three wash pots.
--------
Crackers are dry without any cheese,
Kisses are no good without a squeeze.
-------
The river is up and logs a floating
Why don't you get married and quit this courting.
-------
Another cousin of my father wrote this at Salus, Ar. Aug 27, 1937
Although this life is sometimes dreary and our hearts are often sad,
We may think of that tomorrow, and it often makes us glad.
Just to know that Jesus waits us in that bright and cloudless sky.
If we live as he intends us, We shall live and never die.
-----
The last page in the book gave this info:
Tennessee Tobacco Co., Sharon, Tenn.
10 lbs. 1.00 sweeten or natural

Rosetta Decoration June 1927

This is a letter in rhyme that Edra Beasley and Gladys Warren wrote to Edra's sister Mildred when she was living in Washington state in 1927. The names and events are true. They probably had as much fun writing it as Mildred did reading it.

Come all you people young and old, and listen to a story that has never been told.
It first began on a Sunday morn, the sun was high and the dew was on the corn.

The creek was up and the moon was low but to the decoration we was bound to go.
A jolly gang that was numbered nine, we mounted our horses just feeling fine.

Upon Old Joe was a lass and a lad, upon old Rhoda was Bertie and her dad.
Upon old Blue rode Annabelle, and Susie happily rode old Nell.

Poor old Jonah with his ragged old saddle, carried two girls riding a straddle.
We scampered away in a pace and a trot, the faster we went the further we got.

We sat in the saddle with a steady nerve, and we blowed the horn at every curve.
Our motors got hot and almost boiled dry, but we just stepped on the gas and made it in high.

We started up the mountain going very slow, and Edra tore her stocking from the top to the toe.
We stopped at Mrs. Baucoms - she was doing fine, and has named her baby Ryntha Catherine.

We out out there about 11:15, and began seeings sights we had never before seen.
Olzetta had a fellow - T. was her pride and joy, someone said he was a Boen boy.

There was Pearlie Hughes, in a dress way below her knees,
And the shoulder seams were long enough for sleeves.

Her dress was brown, trimmed in blue and was big enough for two.
They sat the dinner on the ground - then the people gathered round.

There was ham and there was steak and Belle Warren had a candy cake.
There was pie and cake -- thin and fat -- and Herman Warren wore a jellybean hat.

Rosette Pierce and three daughters all dressed alike - in dresses so big they would never draw tight. The baby was short, wide and fat and like it's mother, it wore a hat.

There was Oliver Boen - a big tall man - he brought their dinner in a blue lard stand
With an oil tablecloth, rolled up in a roll, long and slim like a fishing pole.

There was two recitations, a song or two.
A talk by Rufus Warren and the decoration was through.

Some of My Memories of Garber

This picture was taken in 1929. Mail was brought to the little
village of Garber by horseback except when it was time to send roots to the drug houses in Chicago and other points east. (A drug house at that time was where they made legal drugs)
Times were hard, money scarce and sometimes digging roots brought the only hard cash the people had. They raised everything they ate or traded with their neighbors.
In the late 30's my grandmother was still digging ginseng, and peeling cherry bark to ship east. Sassafras roots and may apples were two of the main 'crops' they dug. Many people from the creek moved to Oklahoma looking for work during the depression.
I left Ark. before I started to school and only lived one year in 1942 on Little Piney but I thought (and now I know) it is a little bit of heaven. There was a huge sweetgum tree by the blacksmith shop. Want chewing gum? Just grab a horseshoe nail and dig out some sap and you had chewing gum. My cousin and aunt and I spent hours with a pieces of bacon, a safety pin and a string catching crawdads.
Times were changing fast that year as we were at war. People living along Little Piney joined the move west looking for work. We went to Calif. in 1942 and I remember visiting Little Piney folk everywhere we went. In 1948 progress in the name of REA came to Little Piney even tho the majority of the people were gone. My grandparents had already sold the farm and moved to town. Two of my aunts still lived on the creek so we still had a connection to Little Piney plus
my father had 40 acres that his grandfather had given him. Today that 40 acres is in a trust for our children and grandchildren. Through the years my father showed my husband and sons, then the grandsons and great grandsons where the best fishing holes were and taught them to hunt where his grandfather had taught him. The family camps, swims, fishes and hunts and each one has their own Garber memories even tho Garber is no more except for the old PO building, Grandma and Grandpa's house and the barn Uncle Charlie built.
Memories of Garber, a little bit of heaven for me as a child .

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.

Language, which button do I push ?

Listening to Dial a Deal on the radio can be entertaining. This morning a man had among other items to sell, a cheer. Another fellow had some fencen. I remembered a grandmother who always said 'Het' for heat. Wonder why we have never been asked on the phone to push a number if we spoke Queen Elizabethen English? It is gradually dying out but you still hear it in the moutain states.
Were you ever told that you 'orta' do something? The south has it's own language, which # do we push to talk to 'you all', 'efin' we 'wanta' talk 'to-ye'? ' I had the bjesus skeered outa me and there ain't nary anuther body theer'.
Oh what fun we can have just listening to English, Some people would say we are butchering the Kings English......No, we are not, just depends on where you live, where your folks were from and which # you push.

Friendship Surprises

A few days ago the mail lady brought me a box, priority mail. I did not know the person whose name was on the package so I opened it thinking I would be sending it back. NO WAY would I send this back. When I opened the flaps on the box I had a feeling that is was special. I felt the warm breeze of friendship engulfing me when I realized it was from my quilt chat group. We use nicknames so we don't know everyone's name. I took out a bear for hugs, a pillow case to dream on and eighteen quilt blocks with appliqued hearts on them, most of them autographed. I had sent blocks for love quilts thru the years for members who had lost loved ones, but never dreamed I would receive one. How blessed I am to have friends to take time to make these for me. My next project is to go to the quilt store and get material to set the blocks up into a top. How can I feel down in the dumps again when I can see and feel all this wonderful love around me. Thank you ladies, God blessed me when he led me to your quiltchat channel.

To day I received another package from a chatter on quilt chat with whom I refer to as my correspondence friend. We talk almost everyday by e-mail, facebook, blog, and I think of her as a special friend. She sent me a cheerful cup cuff that she had made. It is these special things in life that I don't expect that lets me know that God has truly blessed me.

A silly old grandmother still loves her heros

It's 1 am and I just spent a wonderful hour watching RFDTV. Guests were Roy "Dusty' Rogers jr. and his son Dustin. What memories the stories they told regarding Roy and Dale brought to my mind. Come the first Saturday in November I will be glued to the TV and hope that some of my great grandchildren will be there with me to watch Roy Rogers ride across the screen again.
A trip to the book store is a must as it has been awhile since I read Dale's books. They were an exceptional family that practiced and lived their Christianity.

I had two heros and they were as different as black and white. Roy Rogers and Audie Murphy.
They both fought the bad guys. Roy's way was more romantic. There were horses, girls, moonlight and singing. He could shoot and fight and always won. He wore the white hat.

Audie made some cowboy movies but he also made bloody, gory, war movies. He played himself in a movie about his life as a soldier, and was the most decorated soldier in WWII. He was a real live hero, as well as an actor. There is no comparsion, they were both the best at what they did and they were my heros.

RFD saves Trigger and Bullet

I can rest easy now..... The RFD network bought Trigger and Bullet at the auction and they will be on display in the network headquarters in Omaha. On Saturday afternoons, Dusty Rogers will introduce a Roy Rogers movie with Trigger and Bullet right there with him on the set. All the items from the auctions were sold and brought more money than the auctioneers had anticipated. Just goes to show you that America hasn't forgotten the 'good things'. When the auction closed the audience stood and sang 'Happy Trails to You'. I watched Roy, Trigger and Bullet at the movies when I was a kid, then again with my children on TV, and then with my grandchildren and now I am going to watch them with my great grandchildren. It doesn't get any better than that unless as I said if I had won the lottery I would of been there! ......And maybe Trigger and Bullet would be in my living room. Happy Trails to You.

Happy Trails to you

Saturday afternoons- Roy Rogers on Trigger with Bullet leading the way. I am sure I saw every movie Roy made. As an adult touring his museum in Apple Valley I was a giddy as a teenager when he walked up to where I was looking at Trigger Jr. He told me about the exhibit that Trigger Jr. would be put in as we walked from the back of the museum to the front. Then out the door he went to greet more of his fans as they departed from a bus in the parking lot.

Before leaving we were in the gift shop and as he quietly slipped thru the shop to a side door to leave, I overheard a lady telling her husband "There he is, there's Roy, look ". The man turned to her and said "Roy Rogers wouldn't be in here", and didn't look. I remember looking at the autograph Roy had given me and thinking "You don't know what you missed Mister".

I knew that they closed the museum in recent years and brought it to Branson, Mo. I never got a chance to go see it there before it closed. Now I read that the items in it are going to be auctioned off. If I am ever going to win the lottery, NOW is the time. I could buy Trigger, Trigger Jr , Buttermilk, Bullet, and even Nellie Bell the jeep. I could live the Saturday afternoons of my past as I would tell my grandchildren and the great grands all about Roy, his beautiful wife Dale, and dear funny Andy Devine. My children and I could relive later Saturday afternoons as Roy rode across the TV screen in his white hat, catching the bad guys and singing to and with Dale. They don't make movies or TV shows like that anymore.

Oh the good ole days.........

Honoring our Past

This

is

Union

Cemetery on Little Piney in Johnson Co. Ar. near where the little community of Mt. Levi was.
Why the two names? Probably because when the small 4th class postoffices were establshed many of them used the home of the postmaster for the office. Mt. Levi was moved from a mountain to the creek area where the cemetery and the school were already named Union. Settlers moved into the area in the 1830's. The Cox family were among the first and the oldest moument is that of a Mary Cox, born and died Feb 14, 1844. Note the concrete stones in the second picture. It shows where members of a Griffith family are buried. Orginially these graves were marked with rocks. In the 1940's a group of ladies who called themselves the Sunshine Birthday Club took on the project of making markers for the graves where the families could identify the burial plots of their loved ones. At least half of the graves are still marked with rocks and no identification and no one knows how many no longer have rocks to mark the plots.

The third photo is the grave of James White and his second wife Lucinda Johnson Skaggs whose picture is featured in my first blog this year. In the background members of the Beasley family are buried. The first photo shows Skaggs and Warren families. These graves are only one end of the cemetery. Relation of these families donate to pay for repairs, weedeating, spraying and relation of the Hicks and Beasley family mowed this year. Repair of a few of the broken stones is next, and plans for a meeting to incoporate are being made. This is an important part of what we are and it must be preserved now. In these graves are relatives, friends and neighbors who divided in the Civil War, then renewed their relationships and went on with their lives. Today they lie in rest in this beautiful spot of God's world.

Family Weekend

First pay no attention to date on picture, change it and it goes right back to this.

July 4, 2010...annual reunion.....this year we had 13 tents, 30 people and 9 dogs.

Pic 1- We say goodbye to Gary in the place of his choosing. Billy is waiting to take one last swim with his grandpa, by the rock where Grandpa liked to show off his cannonball dive.

Pic 2- the most popular site at a campout....the Outhouse.

Pic 3 - some of the tents

Pic 4 -camping: the only place a little girl can get dirty and no one cares.

Pic 5- upper end of swimming hole -Little Piney Creek, Johnson Co. Ar.

Pic 6 - lower end of swimming hole. Creek was up 1 ft from all the recent rains so there was lots of water.

Our family started gathering at our camp ground on Thursday , July 1, coming from SC and Texas. This year's campout was to be extra special. Gary was coming to stay. His request before he died in March was to be brought on the annual camping trip and to remain there.

It was hard without him for he was the camp cook. But the children rallyed around their mother and everything went smoothly. On July 4 we said our goodbyes, knowing that he will be there when we return. Before the cabin was burnt we had Thanksgivings and Beasley reunions there. This land is special as it came to my family before the Civil War when my great grandfather and his new bride moved into the first handhewed cabin in the area. My grandfather and my daddy were born just across the fence. Four great uncles homesteaded by their father and the log cabin built by one of them still stands just past the swimming hole. My sons and grandsons learned to hunt and fish here. It has always been special but now a loyal Texan son-in-law who loved Arkansas enough to move here years ago, has made it even more special.

These are pictures of a quilt I just finished. I used to handquilt but arthritis has forced me to quit to so I had to have this one quilted. I did put the blocks together by hand but I don't have to use a thimble to do that. For many years a friend and I had our own little quilting bees and quilted for our church bazaar. I made my first quilt when I was a sophmore in highschool and didn't dream I would have to quit someday.
My mother when she died had completed quilts for my sister and I. I chose a double wedding ring. She also had tops made for her granddaughters and grandsons,and the great grands which included one unborn baby.
I don't sew as much as I used to as computer, reading and genealogy take time from the sewing machine. I find myself making blankets out of fleece and flannel. I am not really happy with them as they aren't quilts. SeWhatt, they keep the babies warm and knowing memaw made them makes them special. At least I think so for they are made for special babies.

The picture I posted yesterday was of my daddy Quinton Beasley and his father Arthur Claude
'Bum' Beasley and it was posted on the 25th but like 1 am in the morning, guess my computer and I aren't in the same time frame.

Grandpa was known as 'Bum" all his life because he bummed pennies. He had an older brother whose name was Charles Anderson. I have noticed in some genealogy sites that it is indicated
that they are one person, C. A./A.C. There were definitely different people. Uncle Charlie was a hard worker and built the barn pictured here before moving to Hughes Co. Ok. He farmed and later moved into Wetumka. He has a large garden in his back yard with grapes and fruit trees.
There was a big garden at Grandpa's but it was called Grandma's garden.

Grandpa never owned an automobile and I don't remember ever seeing one at Uncle Charlie's. We always went to see him and he went to Little Piney with us to visit.

Wetumka's highschool burnt one year and they didn't have school that fall so Uncle Charlie's daughter Wanda went home with us. She was there the day I started to school. Years later I was visiting her family in Shawnee, Ok. Her son Dennis took me to meet a lady whose house he had wired for an intercom. It was my first grade teacher Mrs. Shubert. It is indeed a small world.

Uncle Charlie and Aunt Bertha had two daughters, Maxine and Wanda. Maxine's daughters were younger than I. One year we stayed at Uncle Charlies over Christmas. Santa still came to see me but not in Wetumka. I had to wait until we got home but I forgave him. There was a baby doll I named Jimmy, a quilted cradle and a little trunk filled with doll clothes, blankets and a flower garden quilt. That is one of the few Christmas's I remember from when I was young.

Happy Birthday Daddy

If my father was living he would be 93 today. Born on June 25, 1907 he was the eldest child of 'Bum' and Susie Ober Beasley and was born beside Little Piney Creek in Johnson Co. Ar. His name was Quinton Dillard and he was named for his grandfather Quinton Dillard Beasley who lived across the field in a two story log cabin built before the Civil War. I loved to hear him talk about his childhood.

His Uncle George Gillian gave him a puppy that he named Woodrow after President Woodrow Wilson. To keep Woodrow from whining Grandma Susie fed it butter. Woodrow lived until Daddy was a young man.

A time that was exciting for daddy was when the peddler came in his horse pulled hack. The sides opened up and it had double doors in the back. Oh the wonderous things the peddler brought. Tops that spun, whistles, marbles, pocket knives coveted by the older boys, dolls and dishes for the little girls. Needles, thread, pearl buttons, chewing tobacco, tools, spices, it was all there.

Daddy got his first job when he was about 12. His parents built a two story frame home and he fired the boiler for the sawmill which was set up by the creek.

As his grandparents got older he stayed with them, bringing water from a spring at the creek, chopping wood, picking the leaves from spice bushes for his Grandma to use for her tea.

What a wonderful place for a little boy to grow up, a paradise of swimming holes, fishing holes, and hunting all sorts of game. Happy Birthday Daddy.

What do I write about?

Mentally (is that a word) I have a long list of ideas I would like to write about but would anyone but me be interested? Guess we will find out. I love genealogy and have spent years searching for ancesters of my 'families'- Reeves, Beasley, Wetherington, Lester, Skaggs, Ober, Nicks, and on and on. I have traveled to South Carolina, Kentucky, Tennessee; Ohio, Pennsylvania; Arkansas, Oklahoma, Missouri, Texas, and Arizona searching for our past. The rest of the US I have covered by computer. I am fortunate that Jerry enjoyed traveling and walking thru cemeteries. We have met distant cousins that have become good friends.

On the wall in front of my computer is my genealogy wall. A large picture of my great great grandmother, Lucinda Johnson Skaggs White who came from Green Co. Kty to Johnson Co., Arkansas in the 1840's is surrounded by pictures of other early settlers and each have their own stories. I hope to share some of these with you.

Do I want to do this?

A year ago I opened a blog and didn't follow up on it. A cousin has asked me why I don't have a blog, I remembered that I had one, checked it out, and lo and behold it was still there. I don't know where it is going to take me but we shall see.