MEMORIES KEEP COMIN’ IN

(Run originally 4/16/04 on our old site)

Jo Ann Roth Cooper

I remember Madie Armstrong, I really thought it was Sadie. She was dressed just like everyone said. I was afraid of her too. However, she never chased me. What I remember most is she walked the railroad tracks picking poke salad. I wouldn't eat it for years and, finally, had an aunt that had it for lunch one day and I thought it was greens and really liked it. Later she told me it was poke.

I also remember picking strawberries. I lived close to Molly Gillian, the Kelso girls and Bobby Latimer. The Latimers had a little store were we bought bread, milk and others things we needed between going to Kroger or Safeway.

We would meet at the store, a wagon pulled, I think, by a truck, would come by and pick us up and take us to the strawberry fields and we would pick. I can't remember how many hours we stayed. I can't remember how many caught the wagon. Seems like I remember taking a sack lunch. It was hard work on your hands and knees.

I was glad to get to go to work at Rodgers Hospital in the office. I worked there my last two years in high school, everyday after school until 6:30, every other Saturday all day and one Sunday a month, full time in the summer.

There was a lady that worked in the kitchen that had worked for us when I was a little girl. At the hospital, when they were having something she knew I really liked for dinner at night, she would come to the office and tell me so I would be sure and eat before I went home. I believe her name was Martha. Dan E. might remember.

Anita Hart Fuller

The Yarnell Ernie mentioned was Richard Yarnell, and he did, indeed, drown in his pond out by their house. His wife was Sarah and they had a daughter, Carmen, who married Bob Choate - a "boy" who was in Bob's high school choir in Jonesboro. I add that just to illustrate what a small world it is. I think Richard was Albert's first cousin, his father being Ray's brother ... but correct me if I'm wrong"

This came from my mother, who remembers, too, "Flywheel" Price. She said he was a lawyer in Searcy, but not very ambitious. He had a sister who worked at Roberson's Drugstore...She told me who it was on the phone but now I've forgotten her name!!!!

Dan E. Randle

If you could get in touch with the people that set up the reunions for their class, you might be able to talk them into putting our site in their news letter they send out to announce their reunion. That would be one way to increase the hits the site gets each day, and increase the input also.

Tom Pry

My most outstanding memory of strawberries (other than the day I pigged out and ate the entire supper dessert preparation of them … then had to go out to a hot henhouse to pick eggs; the smell had a dire effect on the strawberries I was, as it turned out, briefly lugging internally) is the neat way my grandparents kept them weeded: they got geese.

Geese? Yep. They put a goose-proof fence around the strawberry patch and put some really ornery geese in there. Simple truth is that geese HATE strawberries: the fruit and the plant, so they ate all the weeds. Maintenance then became a case of picking and, every four years, carefully digging up the plants and replanting them, after cultivating the ground.

Now, to another subject: your memories and photos.

This site, I’m happy to report, is averaging 40 “hits” or visits a day; it’s gone as high as 56 on a really good day. That’s not bad for a site like this. But our contributors list is much, much shorter than that. Now, I’m grateful to all of them, but I could use more. Where are YOURS? You don’t have to be a good writer, or a great punctuator or speller: that’s what editors are for, and that’s what I am, primarily.

I’ll make you look good and literate, trust me; besides, alongside some of the product coming even out of colleges these days, I’ll bet your writing and affiliated skills are better than the youngsters’. We were fortunate to have some pretty dedicated teachers.

As for photos, we can always use them, and then also post them on Dan E. Randle’s site, http://groups.msn.com/searcymemories (or use the link on the left).

If you’ve got the photos, but not the other resources necessary to convert them to digital format, let me know. I can handle prints, slides, even negatives. E-mail me and we’ll figure out how to get them to me and then back to you, unharmed, after processing.

PLEASE … this site is maintained for you. We don’t ask that you contribute money. What we want is much, much more valuable than that: your memories and knowledge.

Have a memorable day.