The Ggma Chronicles, part 6: More Notes on Kansas and Arkansas
Thomas Drags Annie by the Hair, and Lillian’s Photography
photo by Lillian Green (Ggma’s sister)
The following was written by my maternal grandmother, Alice Green-Kollenborn. She starts off talking about her maternal grandfather Sylvester Myers, who lived with his family in a sod house on their Kansas homestead:
Sylvester was anxious to find a milder climate. Therefore, when he met a man from Arkansas offering his Benton County home for sale, Sylvester bought the farm after looking it over.
It had a 4-story, 10-room farmhouse on Sugar Creek, approximately 5 miles north of Bentonville.
In the spring of 1904, they loaded their covered wagon once again and started for their new home in the Ozarks. All the family but Birdie and Mary were left in Kansas, where each lived in his own home, except Harriet, the oldest, who died of measles a year earlier.
Mary recalled, “I cried all the way to Arkansas because I didn’t want to leave my friends and had to part with my horse I rode to school. Sister Birdie and I herded cattle on our horses and rode them everywhere.”
Mary often said in later years, “When we got to Arkansas, I felt like I was in prison after being used to the open prairie country.”
In 1905, daughter Belle and husband Thomas Green, with 3 children, Effie, Ruth, and Lillian, moved from Kansas to Benton County in the Dug Hill community.
In a few years, Meril and Emanuel came with their families and lived up Mills Hollow near the old mill spring across Sugar Creek from their parents.
They had to ford Sugar creek when they needed supplies from Bentonville. There was a deep hole below the crossing which could be dangerous, as it happened when Annie, Meril’s wife, with her young son, Alford, drove their team of horses and wagon to Bentonville for supplies. The creek rose slightly while she was gone. When she got in the middle of the stream on the way home, the water came even with the wagon-bed and it started to float, which panicked Annie. She started see-sawing on the lines, pulling the horses into the “blue hole.”
Sylvester heard her screams and rushed over with Emanuel’s son, Charley. When Sylvester grabbed Annie, she choked him and pulled him under. He grabbed her long hair, threatening to knock her out if she didn’t keep her hands off.
She did, and he saved her while Charley pulled his cousin to shore. But the horses drowned with their heavy load of supplies pulling them under.
Meril and family soon moved back to Kansas, where they spent the remainder of their lives raising cattle and wheat.
In 1916, Sylvester and Eunice sold their farm and moved to Bentonville where they partially retired.
Mary still lived at home and daughter Florence Phillips came from Kansas with her small son, Johnny, and left him with her parents and Mary while she worked at the Massey Hotel until Johnny grew up.
She then moved to Kansas and married a wheat farmer and spent her life there.
Birdie married a taxidermist and moved to California where she lived and died.
Mary nursed for Dr. Cargill of Bentonville, also for private parties where, “I met many wonderful people,” she often recalled. She married a Lowell man, Ferdy Bingham, and had a son, Johnny Roosevelt (J.R.) in 1919.
Mary died Nov. 2, 1982 at the age of 93 years.
Eunice and Sylvester Myers lived all their lives in Benton County, dying at age 75 and 89, respectively. They rest beside daughter Belle and husband Thomas Green in the old Dug Hill Cemetery overlooking Sugar Creek Valley.
. . . Belle [Ggma’s mother] saw all her children grow up together on the farm, but her leg never fully healed from the dreaded gangrene.
After graduation, Ruth went to Columbia U. on a scholarship. She taught school until she married and had nine children.
Lillian graduated from Springfield Business College and worked as a secretary until she returned to Dug Hill in the 1920s and took a job as general secretary to the Linebarger Brothers, owners of Bella Vista summer resort. She never married, but became a professional photographer.
Bella Vista and photography were her life. But she was best known for her magazine covers and local photography.
NOTE: google “Lillian Green Bella vista photography” to find several articles about Lillian Green and images she took.
Some of Lillian Green’s photography
Effie was an excellent horsewoman. They were her greatest love next to her three children, George, Evelyn, and Nadine.
“Man” moved to California and became a master mechanic. He raised three children.
Andy married Janet and raised two sons, Tommy and Gary. He was service manager for Burger Motors of Bentonville for thirty-four years until a tragic accident took his life in 1972.
Mary and Alice [Alice is Ggma] worked their way through school and married soon after graduation.
Mary moved to Idaho and raised four children. Alice had six children; one, Alice Rosalie [my mother], was born on the old farm in the same house her mother was. All grew up in California.
. . .
Virginia Belle lived on the old home place until all the children were grown. She lived to be 83-years old. She never remarried.
Thomas and Virginia Belle now rest beside Baby Charles and Belle’s parents, Margaret Eunice and Sylvester Myers, in the family plot overlooking their beloved farm home.
The house is gone now. The rich farmland is buried beneath gold carts and manicured fairways. The happy children that once roamed free over the wooded hills, swam in Sugar Creek, rode their horses and knew every inch of ground are all gone now. Only memories remain.