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Shaifer describes some of the social life and the difficulty of getting to it over the often flooded and generally impassable roads. Greenlaws,Tenn June ,  My Dear Girl, ...We have been here since Sunday.Sister C’s school closed Wednesday night the st when Mr.Shaifer and I went out.We went from Ark. City for about  mi. in a skiff then from there to  mi.beyondTrippe on a hand car,went through water  in. deep just pouring over the track then from there to McGehee in a wagon and from McGehee toTillar on the train,didn’t we have a time getting there.I know Mrs.Jones will say I’m a daisy. Well,we got toTillar about three o’clock and Sister C and some of the girls met us at the Depot,we all went to the Church and stayed until they finished fixing it then we went over to Mrs. Tillars and at : all went to the Concert and Sallie it was just splendid.They had music, dialogues, recitations etc. and the fan drill.It was about twelve girls,small ones all dressed in red with red shoes and stockings and fans and they went through all kinds of motions using the fans and kept perfect time to music.After the Concert was over we all went up to the hall and danced. Uncle P Sister C and Mr.S[haifer] and I left at .The next day we all came as far as we could by train then came the rest of the way  mi. in a skiff [back to Arkansas City].We were real tired when we got to Sallies about dark.[Sallie is her sister-in-law in Arkansas City.] Sallie and the children were all so glad to see Sister C.We had a nice supper and enjoyed it too.You know Sallie is at the hotel now and the hall upstairs is a splendid place to dance. Sallie had scoured it out nice, had chairs all sitting around and about  o’clock both Jackson girls Louie Belse Charlie Lacy and another fellow can’t spell his name and Mr.S. came and we danced until :,had two kinds of cake and ice lemonade.All enjoyed themselves, and we told them goodbye for we left the next day.Sister C and I stayed with Sallie and the next day at noon the boat came.The “Chickasaw” you’ve seen her.We went down and got on and left about  o’clock that was Friday and got to Memphis Saturday night but did not get off until after breakfast Sunday morning.We had a pleasant trip up  The Joseph Generation 1BOLSTERLI_pages.qxd 2/6/08 3:51 PM Page 56 and enjoyed ourselves emensely.We went to the Gayoso Hotel the nicest in Memphis went to the Episcopal Church,came back and ate dinner and everything was so good and we ate so much we had to go to our room and loosen up and lay down....They had buttermilk and I drank a glass of it.You know everything is so fine you hardly know what you are eating and my sis and I are not use to such you know so I thought I’d take a glass of milk because I did know what that was and was somewhat used to such.21 Another pioneer family close enough to visit were the Calvin Strouds.Calvin Stroud’s son Alfred married Joseph’s daughter Irene after the death of his first wife and became an intimate member of the family during my father’s youth. Joseph was in charge of the Pea Ridge school during those years,and here,from his pocket book,is a list of the pupils with their ages for the year . Bennie Irby  years Hattie Irby  " A. Z. Irby  " Cornelia Coopwood  " Alice Canady  " Hugh Canady  years Stephen Irby  " Grover C. Jones  " Arthur Fillyaw  " Lou Bill Fillyaw  " Ed Pierce  " Ola Stroud  " Ruth Stroud  " Joe C. Stroud  " Mullin A.Watkins Bessie Watkins Will G.Watkins A group of seventeen scholars ranging in age from six to twenty would be a challenge for any teacher, which may be the reason so many were called upon to do it and so few lasted long in the job. The older children in the Jones family were sent to Tennessee to The Joseph Generation  1BOLSTERLI_pages.qxd 2/6/08 3:51 PM Page 57 [18.221.146.223] Project MUSE (2024-04-20...

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