The Boy from Altheimer: From the Depression to the Boardroom

Introduction

BOWENrevisedpages.qxd:Layout 1 2/6/08 4:00 PM Page x Introduction Why did I write this book? The idea came into being in the office of U.S. Tax Court Judge Clarence V. Opper in the summer of 1951 in Washington, D.C. I was one of two law clerks employed by him; the other was Arnold Hoffman of New York City. Arnold was a first-generation American. His parents emigrated from Russia at the turn of the twentieth century. We were discussing reports in the press of planning already underway to celebrate the one hundredth anniversary of the beginning of the Civil War. In passing, I had shared with Arnold that my grandfather, James Quinn Falls—my mother’s father—was a Confederate soldier, but that he had died early and my mother, orphaned at age six, knew little about him or his experience . Arnold’s interest in American history was such that he encouraged me to visit the National Archives on Pennsylvania Avenue during my lunch hour, since it was located only about two blocks from our office building. I did so, returning less than pleased with my findings. Grandfather Falls was shown to have joined the Second Arkansas Mounted Rifles on May 15, 1861, at a site near Galla Rock in Pope County, where Galla Creek empties into the Arkansas River. The sources I consulted reflected that this unit was in the Battle of Pea Ridge near Bentonville, Arkansas, and that my grandfather had deserted in the summer of 1862. This did not agree with family legend and Arnold encouraged me to research it further. I undertook it fitfully. As the one hundredth anniversary approached, Arnold and I had long parted ways. He was practicing in New York City and I in Little Rock when my interest in the Civil War came to the attention of a Shreveport, Louisiana, native whose grandfather had also served with the Second Arkansas Mounted Rifles. He invited me to join him in the research on this regiment, which resulted in a book published in Little Rock titled Rebels Valiant. The book reported that Grandfather Falls continued his service after a glitch in the summer of 1862—probably to help on the farm in Pottsville—in a consolidated regiment he joined in Tennessee that fought across Tennessee, Georgia, South Carolina, and North Carolina until the soldiers were discharged shortly after Appomattox in the spring of 1865. A parallel interest was whetted on a visit to Alaska and Dutch Harbor, in the Aleutian Islands. I discovered some seven or eight books on the campaign xi BOWENrevisedpages.qxd:Layout 1 2/6/08 4:00 PM Page xi in World War II, but no mention of the service of the 206th Coast Artillery Regiment of the Arkansas National Guard. My next older brother, John, died in service in the Aleutian Islands on October 19, 1942. To celebrate the fiftieth anniversary of the Japanese attack on Dutch Harbor (June 3–6, 1942), the 206th Coast Artillery Association returned for a reunion. They had employed the coauthors of the famous book, Miracle at Midway, a definitive account of that famous naval battle—which included a two-carrier task force attack on Dutch Harbor—to record their story. At the fiftieth anniversary ceremony in Dutch Harbor, the book The Williwaw War: The Arkansas National Guard in the Aleutians in World War II (Fayetteville: University of Arkansas Press, 1992), was distributed to participants. Next, the Reverend William Ragsdale of Russellville, a Princeton graduate and retired Presbyterian minister, authored a book titled They Sought a Land: A Settlement in the Arkansas River Valley, 1840–1870 (Fayetteville: University of Arkansas Press, 1997), a history of Pottsville, Pope County, Arkansas, its settlement and the creation of the Pottsville Associated Reformed Presbyterian Church. My mother’s families—the Falls and Fergusons—were among the first sojourners to that part of Arkansas. About the same time, Mrs. Bill Payne, a friend from Pine Bluff, provided me with a study of my family that totally surprised me—a story of a Hessian soldier named Johannes Reiden who landed in Brooklyn in 1776 with Hessian forces employed to help George III fight the Colonials. He fought in the battles of Brooklyn, Princeton, and Brandywine before he left the service in South Carolina at the end of the Revolutionary War. Then Johannes changed his name to John Reed, settled in Smith County...