Crown Him Lord Jesus Fairest Crown Him Lord Jesus Fairest 
Reunion
[From message of 25 Feb. ’03, subject : EARLY OZARK LIFE]
Hi, Bill.
This is just your pal, and I want to bring you up to the point when you came into my life in the Ozarks. I am not a writer, do not expect much except for the observations.
When you spoke of your rabbit hunting for food, it triggered what you are about to read. I just wanted to share with you my birds-eye view of life up until the time that you became my pal in the Ozarks. It goes a bit beyond, but you will be able to see me in the setting of the Ozarks as a boy. Who knows, this might give you inspiration for a new chapter in your writings or perhaps a revisit to the “Arkansas Traveler” for a sequel.
The depression was so crushing to all of society. Many did not have a house in which to live. When I was 6 or 8 years, I remember some older people who came into the community, took up residence in an old house that could hardly be considered shelter housing. Dad would usually see that they had a sack of potatoes, a bushel of apples or would try and help in some way. We ate quite well and, in many ways, were better off than most in the area. Our housing was not of the city variety, just country housing as it was in those days.
My great-grandfather’s parents and himself were victims of the potato famine in Ireland. Hence their move to America.
My father was born near Pitkin, Arkansas, now known as Woolsey, on May 6, 1909. As a young man of twenty years, trying to establish a farm of his own, he was working the wheat harvest in Kansas. He owned his own automobile in those early years and found himself stranded in Kansas after the stock market fall of ‘29. They offered two choices to him; he could keep working and at some point they would eventually pay him, or they would sell enough wheat at 25¢ per bushel (the price had fallen from approximately $7.00 per bushel) for gas to get him back to NW Arkansas. He chose the latter. It is doubtful if he received wages that season. The location in Kansas is unknown, except that he could look and see the Rocky Mountains to the west.
During those years the depression was devastating, but life goes on. Dad persevered and continued in the harvests of Kansas and West Texas. He worked in the area under the cap rock, in the area of Turkey and Estelen, Texas. Just a mention here of his Texas barber who became a western swing musician by the name of Bob Wills. Dad had opportunities in both states to become a farmer in the community. But he was anchored in Arkansas and continued working the harvests in his pursuit of his own farm. This continued through the harvest of 1935 I believe.
He bought his own 40 acre farm, on which there was a house and out buildings, called the “Jack” place and married my mother, Mary Adeline (Arnold) Doyle, in 1933. That was the same year that my aunt Bertha Doyle married Burl Smith, Conrad’s parents.
Burl and Bertha did not have a home, and my grandfather, Charles Arthur Doyle, wanted them to have one. The story is not totally clear on this issue. I only know that Dad and Mother worked to pay for Burl and Bertha’s place. Carol Sue knows more about this as Mother talked with her about the work they did to pay for Burl and Bertha’s property. This is the original Doyle property where my great-grandfather settled and raised 10 children after leaving the Great Lakes region. I am trying to document this story, and several family members are working on this as well. I am just trying to collect and coordinate the effort of those who have the information that still exists.
My grandfather was at least comfortable in those earlier years. He was into the hog business some way. In any case, the stock market wiped out his monies. My father did not place any blame on him regarding the total loss.
Another setback happened to my grandfather. I believe he became bedridden and nearly froze the family out that winter. He could not stand heat in the house, the windows had to be left open. In the spring, a doctor from Prairie Grove said he could cure him. It was necessary for the family to move to a boarding house in order for the doctor to treat and care for him daily. My father and grandmother picked strawberries that spring as they could not put in crops.
Grandfather regained his health and was never bothered with this problem again. The problem was fluid around the heart. The bill was insurmountable in the eyes of Grandfather. He approached my dad and said if Dad would pay off the bill he would deed him the property with the provision that he and Grandmother could live on and have use of the property for the remainder of their lives. Dad paid off the bill and this is how my father came by Granddad’s farm, recording and holding the deed from those early years.
I was born November 17, 1934 on the Jack place. Jack Fennelson had owned this property and the name stuck. I still own this 40 acre piece of property and have an up-to-date abstract. Today, many transactions are done with title insurance instead.
Dad bought another 40 acre piece, next to Grandfather’s property, on which he built his own two-level log house. Dad split the shingles for the roof. I do not have in my possession his froe, Oren Hays has it. My dad had loaned it to Oren’s father and just lost track of where it went. Some 10 or 12 years back, I told Dad of Oren finding it in his dad’s smoke house. Dad was quite sure that this was the lost froe. I remember Dad splitting shingles for our smoke house, the one next to the log house, with this very same tool.
For the record, Dad bought three forty-acre parcels, and one sixty-acre parcel, as well as Granddad’s place, which I believe was 140 acres or so.
Dad, with Mother’s help at times, worked the farm. He put in an apple and pear orchard, a peach orchard and two grape vineyards. We always raised Irish and sweet potatoes and tomatoes for our own consumption and, in most years, as crops for sale. We raised our own pork and, in some years, a beef. Sorghum cane was sometimes raised for sorghum. Strawberries were raised for market. Of course you remember the milk cows and the horses that met our needs for farm life. I remember cantaloupes and watermelons too.
I was 7 years old when the Japs bombed Pearl Harbor. This was on a Sunday morning and Mother told me what had happened. I was outside in front of our home at the time it was announced on the radio. Looking back, this was the last thing that we, or the world, needed. Dad had a choice to either continually increase farm production year by year or be drafted into the military. Years later, he explained to me he knew nothing of warfare and fighting and with three young children his thought was to do what he knew best, he could farm and so he did. In many ways during those war years, I think he broke his health, but still lived until Thanksgiving Day, November 1995. Mother lived until the last day of April 1995.
At one time during the early war years, Dad had the largest strawberry acreage in Washington County. This was when I was very young. I would ride with him to town to deliver multiple loads of berries and pick up the crates to be built. Similar rounds were taken with tomatoes to the cannery. I slept many times, I suppose, rather than keep Dad company. I was raised knowing little outside of farming in those early years. We also began to raise broilers, as poultry was needed for the war effort, and built a number of broiler houses.
My uncle, Jim Doyle, was working in California. He had sheep grazing free range on Cub Knob, a mountain top nearby. On December the 4th, 1944, my father and I rounded up the sheep at Uncle Jim’s request. It was a winter day, cold and just prior to a storm moving in, I believe. There had been no rain for some time, as Dad later mentioned. We were on horseback and rode home cold and tired. Perhaps the time was 9pm when Mother fixed us a hot meal. We built a warm fire in the heating stove and warmed ourselves. The meal was so good as I do not remember having anything to eat during the day. Now after a warm meal and ready for bed, it was a goodnight to all.
Carol Sue and I walked to Sycamore to school. This was the one-room schoolhouse attended before the West Fork consolidated school system came into being. Sycamore School was south of us on Winn Creek Road.
This is a very pivotal point in the lives of our family. This was the year that Dad had finally made it to success. We children had new boots, goulashes, rainwear and all the things that made living more comfortable in the Ozarks, during those cold, cold winters so common in those years of the 40’s, which were to continue into the 50’s that followed.
After Mom fed us, we went to bed for a nice nights rest. However at about midnight, Dad was awakened. The house was ablaze with the roof about to fall in. We think that a firebrand came out of the wood heater onto the dry, wood shingles after the hot fire was built. Dad ran to the well for a bucket of water. He was barefooted and could never have done this had it not been for the horror, which was happening at the moment, as he was the most tender footed person I have ever seen. After looking back at the house ablaze, he got us children out and sent us on our way to Grandmother’s. I was sleepy and was going back to bed when they caught me returning to the house. Dad pulled the bedding off of their bed, threw it into a rocking chair and left the house with the rocker. All else was a total loss. I was 10 years old at the time.
Dad held up well under it all. However when he returned from town the next day, he broke down and cried, having seen me in a pair of high-water jeans. Mother explained to me years later that someone had graciously given the pants to me to wear, as we had nothing. At the moment of the fire, we were naked except for our night clothes. We have nothing when we come into the world. When we go out of the world, we take nothing, as U-Haul trailers are not allowed in heaven. Sometimes we have nothing here as well.
The community gave us a pie supper and many donated what they could. Some small donations did come in from those kind souls. Mostly it was change. Hugh Caudle, a boy in school at West Fork, gave 25¢.
I am sure that most money at hand had been spent on us children, outfitting us for school, winter clothing, winter provisions and most likely Santa’s things.
Little if any money, no home or house, what does one do? We did what the animals do, look for shelter in the storm, we moved into a chicken house. The ceiling was so low that one could not stand up comfortably and so small for five people. It was a shelter from the elements. This was a home for the Doyles for the better part of 1 or 2 years I believe. We had to cut the timber, have the lumber sawn, stacked with stripping for air drying. As I remember, it was the 2nd summer after the burnout that we built the house that you remember as our home. After I was grown and away from home, Dad made an addition and had the indoor plumbing installed. I am not sure he completed the covered porch.
Life goes on, but a person never recovers from this type of catastrophe. Dad had a bad back, I have heard him holler at a quarter mile distance when his back would go out. This would drop him to the ground in an instant. He missed one crop year as he was laid up for three months I believe. There was another year when hail completely cut all the crops, nothing left to farm for the season.
Dad finally gave up farming and went into town to work and managed a poultry hatchery. He later bought a brick home and lived out his retirement, left an inheritance, and to my knowledge and belief went to be with the Lord. What more can a person do? I don’t think I told you Lois Fern went to be with the Lord on March 10, 1990. She had cancer, surgery, and then it returned and she did not last long.
This is actually about life, conditions, people and their struggles in the Ozarks. I seriously doubt that the struggles are different from others elsewhere. Things are different there today, or are in many cases. It is unfortunate for you that I speak mostly of my Dad. However this is the facet of life that I saw and know up close. I am aware that many followed a similar pattern. I feel that you have a story, not so different from this as the Lord put us here for the many experiences in life. I still want to smell the roses.
The Lord was with us in our struggles then and now, he is so wonderful. I love the Ozarks and would enjoy living there still. It was a wonderful place to grow up.
Thanks for being a part of this rich experience. Perhaps this will give you another picture of the people in the hills of NW Arkansas and another picture of color beyond the fall foliage season.
Charles Doyle
[Message to Bill Franklin 25 Jan. 03, Subject : OLD TIMES UPDATE]
. . . Good-old Rit dye, those words have not been heard by me for ages. The "Arkansas Traveler" was quite a story and one was certainly led to believe that the dream was also real. I pictured the shortcut path in my mind, the wagon trail over the ridge to the Woolsey church, but have never taken it myself. However I have walked all over the area squirrel hunting or just out walking the woods on a misty, rainy day.
I remember an occasion while in the woods that I came upon an old rotten log. Tearing the thin covering off, I found strands of wood fiber in which phosphorus had been concentrated. I fashioned a bracelet and a ring of this material. Dad checked on us children during the night and found this glowing material in bed. He made me get out of bed and remove my jewelry. So much for a caring father. Ha
The community buildings were many thing to many people in those years. They were school houses and churches as well as the local theaters. Many were also used for polling places. Do you remember pie suppers? These were common in those days.
The church at Woolsey, I am almost positive, was first a school. I went to Sycamore School, south on Winn Creek Road, the first three years before West Fork. My father was quite instrumental in bringing about the West Fork Consolidated School system, and served many years on the school board.
It is heart breaking for me to see the Bethlehem Church/community building rotting away. This is the location where the Lord Jesus found me. Most people talk of praying through to salvation. My praying had to wait as I cried my way through. This was an agonizing time at the altar. I have never been the same, praise be to Jesus.
The abandoned general store that you mention at the junction of the Devil's Den Park Road is where I have purchased gasoline for my model-A Ford.
The Blackburn Church/community building, on the Park road, has also been kept in good state of repair. It has been modernized. As I remember, it now has interior bathrooms, air conditioning and gas heating.
I would not change anything in the “Arkansas Traveler”. I am just sharing thoughts with you.
Charles
[message 17 March ’03, subject : about family history and anecdotes]
Hi, Bill.
Yes, what I have written is strictly oral tradition.
Burl Chalmer Smith was my uncle by marriage to Aunt Berth Ethel Doyle. His mother would have been a Purser I believe. The Smiths and the Pursers were residents of the area and may have come from Tennessee or Kentucky I believe.
The Caudles were all related to my mother. Mother, Mary Adeline Arnold, was from Crawford County, Arkansas, joining Washington County on the south. On her mother’s side were the Bunyards, and Weburgs.
The Kimses boys (not related to any of us) were from the general area and were the notorious bank robbers of that era. There are stories and there are stories, as far as History is concerned. I can find out a lot more if you want to get involved, the history is rich with true stories of their riding horseback and cutting fences on their way to escape into Oklahoma. There is a lot to tell about the area of Blackburn Creek, the large crevices and their hideouts. When I was a boy, they let one out of prison and he went back to his old ways. I remember some of his comments after being caught again. This was near Fort Smith, remember the Hanging Judge.
I have the Doyle history, most of it in text from various sources and I should get it in the snail mail in the morning. This may give you an overview for your writing. Doyle history is a work in progress. Perhaps within the next year or less it should be as complete as is possible. Many people have down-stream information to submit but this can be added anytime.
I talked with a grandson of Thomas, my great-grandfather Doyle, this past Sunday and learned something new. It seems that in New York City one night he went to a Church Meeting, being held in an old store-front building, and accepted Jesus as Lord and Savior. This was quite upsetting to his father who was Catholic, and the next morning told him to give it up. He had received the Lord and held fast to his belief. In fact, he went on to preach and serve the Lord. Apparently he had also received his call to preach. We talked about the story of him being on a boat on the Mississippi River on his way to New Orleans. This was probably a paddle-wheel steamer. He was carrying a pistol. There was a killing (murder) on the boat. Thomas did not shoot anyone, but other men on the boat needed a scapegoat and were planning to pin it on him. He realized that having a gun on his person did not look good under these circumstances and dropped it into the river. He commented that, had he had the gun 15 minutes later, he would have killed a Nigger. Knowing the plot against him, he quietly jumped into the Mississippi River, swam to shore on the Arkansas side and returned to Northwest Arkansas. Those men on the boat were unaware as he eluded them. The Lord must have been with him as one does not swim in the Big Muddy, at least not from a boat. It is a treacherous river.
Later
Charley
[18 March ’03, additional family history]
As I mentioned, Mother was related to the Caudles. Dad early on worked, helping the Caudle girls and their mother, Aunt Annie, run their farm, as she was a widow. There was the hay crop, they had a sizable flock of sheep and this is about all I remember of their farm. Aunt Annie and my mother’s mother, also a widow, were sisters. Her name was Katherine, known as Aunt Kate. Aunt Annie's home was up on a hill, visible from the road less than a mile from where you lived. It joined the next-generation Cates farm as one would head back down the Mountain.
Here is how Dad became acquainted with Mother. My grandmother moved from Crawford County after the death of Grandfather Arnold. I am sure this was before I was born. As you know our home burned and all documents were lost, but I feel certain that they married locally. This is a piece of information I need to locate from the public records.
The last of the Caudle girls died just last year. She was 100 years of age, had been an educator and was principal of a school in Fayetteville. Some of the Caudles were County judges, jailers, educators and some were simply farmers. My mother was the equivalent of today’s certified teacher and, in fact, did teach me one year in the rural school known as Sycamore.
Mother was an Arnold. It seems that perhaps they have weak lungs and many died of pneumonia. It could have been made worse by the severe winters. Fireplaces were the only source of heat for homes in those days.
Charles
