I wanted to see the country where they spent their childhood. I wanted to find the first family homestead, see the house they built from their own native woods, run on the paths my Dad had made through the forest and caress the ground where he stood. He told us stories of their struggles as well as the fun and adventure they lived through. He spoke of the Missouri homestead with a voice of deep and abiding love. I always felt that he left a part of his heart in Missouri when he moved to New Mexico and later settled in Horse Branch Community in Jackson County, Oklahoma.

Every time I looked at the old Martin house picture, I dreamed of making a trip to see some of the things that Mom and Dad talked about. In 1984, Charley and I decided to take Gilbert and go back to Alton, Missouri and see where Mom and Dad started their married life in 1896. We began to search for family keepsakes that would help us find clues to the family puzzle in Oregon County, Missouri. We had family pictures that had accumulated over the years. Some of them were labeled with names, others we could recognize as our Martin and Thompson cousins. We knew the people's names in the pictures but we did not know about their lives or stories of their families. Gilbert was the only member of the family that remembered the Missouri house and family. We planned the vacation to include Jodean and I, Nell,Charley and Gilbert Martin, Joanna and Jim Clark. Joanna is a niece of the Martin boys and lived in Arkansas. She is the daughter of Roy and Dorothy Martin Roberts.

In June, Gilbert, Jodean and I drove to Weatherford, Oklahoma where Charley and Nell lived. We were on our way to Oregon County in search of the Martin Heritage. We had a tape recorder to capture Gilbert's stories. We spent the night at Charley's looking at family pictures. Our first stop would be at Prairie Grove, Arkansas where Joanna and Jim Clark lived.

In Arkansas the soil is big rocks, small rocks, gravel and pebbles. There is so little dirt that you wonder how anything can survive in such an environment. We enjoyed the beautiful forests and clear streams that were so different from our dry land of western Oklahoma. From our visits to see Joanna we knew to visit in the spring or fall and not fool around in the summers in Arkansas. You can hardly breathe on the hot, humid August days when there is not a breeze to be found. There are a few hazards about visiting Arkansas that Joanna always cautioned us about. The same places that grew deep Piney woods, also grew beautiful patches of poison ivy, which you had better learn to identify or you will have red, itching, oozing sores that never stop burning. Some of our travelers were first time visitors so we had to educate them on the perils of Arkansas.

Jodean is an �off the beaten path� kind of traveler, she wanted to see every little town and forgotten historic building along the way. What she really wanted was to stop at every antique shop and junk store from our house to Joanna's. After traveling I-40 on several trips to Arkansas, she complained to Jim that we didn't really see the beauty of the country on the big highway. He unfolded our well-worn road map and with his pen marked a new route to Prairie Grove. �I guarantee you will like this road. It's for the natives.� We turned onto Jim's back-country route. The fun was about to begin!

The first town on the map was Clyde, Arkansas. Before the years of neglect and hard times, it had been a historical town that was built on the site of an old Spring. In its splendor, it had been a very progressive town. The first time we drove through Clyde there was a house or two, a barn and the old country store that was falling down. I am so dumb!

My wife had maneuvered me through Clyde to see that old store again. On one of our previous trips we had prowled around the old buildings, taken pictures and looked at the relics. Of course, we never found a junk store that she didn't want to buy all the stuff and take it home in the trunk of our car. I had a good idea what she had on her mind. She had never forgotten all that junk. I grumbled and fussed but she knew I was having a good time. If I didn't love that woman so much, I'd put my foot down about these shenanigans. Oh, what the heck!

I agreed to stop and see the store. By this time she had told everyone in the car about all that junk and they couldn't wait to investigate. We found the owner and knocked on the door. Jodean said, �We were passing through and wondered if the old store is still here?� He said, �Yes, but we are going to have an auction.� I was relieved and thought, �Good that gets rid of that problem.� In the next breath he said, �Would you like to see it?� While I was trying to find the word �NO�! Jodean said, �Yes,we would!" Off we go. She always manages to get the last word. Forsaken, dilapidated, deserted and almost forgotten the old Mercantile Store sat on a weedy plot of ground, slumbering in the warm Arkansas sun. The windows were broken, the ceilings were falling in and porch steps were missing. Waist high grass, wild flowers and weeds surrounded the old store that was built from board and batten pine planks that were bleached by the sun and rain to a weathered silvery gray. It had never seen a drop of paint in all its lifetime. The pioneer builders had used beautiful Arkansas rocks to make four steps at the front door of the old General Mercantile Store. Colorful tin advertising signs, in different stages of rust, were plastered over the front wall of the building.

Jodean looked at that old store front and saw a beautiful relic. I looked at it and saw a worn out building that was dilapidated and falling down. The store was built in several add on sections until it was sixty feet in length. It seemed to float up the sloping hill, and casually squat on foundation pillars of stacked rocks. On the east end of the old building the foundation rose at least three feet off of the ground, leaving a space underneath that was full of rocks, junk and critters. A leaky porch roof of rusty tin roof was held up by splintered grey posts. Get the picture? Just close your eyes, ---really-close your eyes, relax and let your mind wander back a hundred years and think of the most forsaken building that you can imagine and then multiply that by a hundred years of neglect and that is what this old store looked like. It died a natural death soon after the turn of the century when the depression of the �dirty thirties� struck and its inhabitants moved away. This time to California.

The owner dug into his pocket producing a skeleton key that he placed in the lock. As we pushed on the door it moved along the gritty floor, groaning in agony as it swung open. It was spooky, a perfect place to find the ghosts of the old town lurking in the rubble. The silence hung heavy, flitting and floating around, brushing against us in the darken room. Not a word had been spoken since we entered. As our eyes adjusted to the darkened room, we stood in awe, motionless, hardly daring to breath. With the click of a rusty key we had retreated into the private demise of Clyde, Arkansas. that had lived a hundred years ago. It was unbelievable story of the past. I'm telling you the truth!

Slowly, our eyes began to follow the walls of the old store, our senses reacted to the relics of the past and our hearts became mellow and soften as we remembered places like this in our earlier life. Places that our Grandparents would have visited and told us about. A place to hide deep in your heart and mind. This was a picture of how our parents had lived before the turn of the century. We saw what was left over, discarded and abonded by the pioneers of Clyde, Arkansas. In the corner of the store was the old Clyde Post Office. The original thirteen Government Issue Post Office boxes were still in place for the paying customers. Behind the worn counter were open boxes for those who chose not to pay for a box. They walked up to the counter and called for their mail by their given name and the Post Master reached back in the alphabetized �pigeon holes� and handed them their mail.

The old postal bulletin board stood on the east end of the counter. It stretched to the ceiling, sagging from the weight and the burden of history that it carried. Every official Post Office notice that they had ever received had been layered, one layer on top of the other. The original announcement for the opening of Clyde's Post Office was on the bottom of the pile. Every time a new Postmaster was hired, his assignment was added to the bulletin board. There were World War I announcement in black and white print. There were colored World War II bond posters in red, white and blue. Time and age had turned the black and white pages yellow but they proudly proclaimed their place in Cane Hill history on the old bulletin board. The social life of a community began and ended at the post office and general store. The pot bellied coal stove sat in the middle of the room circled by several cane bottom chairs where the local men sat and "jawed" about the gossip of the community. The death of a baby, the marriage of a daughter, the James boys being seen, Belle Star visiting her folks, the fortunes being made and the sad days when the community died. There was a heavy hush in the air. In the murky shadows there was a silence that you could feel. More than that, it seemed to reach out and touch you. We found ourselves wiping tears of nostalgia. These relics were the living souls of real pioneers. You ask if we believe in ghosts? Well, I believe that their spirits were present and they were sitting in their favorite chairs around that old pot bellied stove. Be they ghosts or spirits they certainly touch me with a vapor of real living history that I could never forget in two life times.

We walked through the building to the west end of the store where the farmers brought their eggs, cream and butter. All the testers, scales, cream buckets and egg baskets were still there. Stacks of wooden egg crates with gray dimpled cardboard dividers lay around on the floor. The old cash register still held the credit receipts. It looked as if the families had stored their discards and castoffs since before the turn of the century. There were kitchen cabinets, pie safes, long pine tables that had been used in the store, dining room tables that had belonged to families, buffets, dishes, pans, counters, shelves and many other things. The man said, �This isn't all of it, there is a barn full over there in the woods.� The excitement we felt as we arrived turned to quiet reverence as walked through the store. It was a sad good bye when we turned to leave. I didn't look at Aunt Nell for there were tears in my eyes and I knew her well enough to know that she was thinking of her own life and remembering towns such as this one and yes, she was shedding a few tears of her own. We were saying farewell to a time and place that was no more to be. We'd never again experience such a nostalgic picture of "pioneer living". We left by the same creaking door that we had entered. Retreating down the long porch, stepping off the rock steps that had been laid over a century ago, we turned to look back and knew that this was a treasured moment in our lives.

We were stunned with the experience. It is hard to believe that things had not changed in all these years. We were all touched by the site of the old store and the memories it held. We walked to the north side of the store where the shade of a huge oak tree covered the ground. Leaning up against the tree was a corner stone that looked like a tombstone. We asked who was buried there? Our friend said, �That's the corner stone from the First Women's Academy in Arkansas it marked the death of the First Women's Academy in Arkansas. It was the first women's college west of the Mississippi River and dated 1852. It was built when this tree was small. The name of it was Cane Hill Female Academy. The War and hard times had closed the Female Academy and it later became a grade school. Today all was gone except the corner stone."

He said, "People from the southern plantations migrated here before the Civil War, bringing their money and slaves and they lived lavishly. Many fled the south to escape the War. They had become rich raising cotton in the southern states, worn out the land from abuse and moved on to the virgin lands of Arkansas. They had come to the western frontier to make another fortune and they wanted the best of education and living conditions for their families. They were very ambitious people, well educated and from aristocratic families east of the Mississippi River. They started this school to educate and teach their young daughters to be ladies. Unknown to them the soil of Arkansas were even more fragile that where they had come from. In the years that followed the fertility of these soils were gone and again they faced poverty."

Our friend from the store was enjoying all our questions and he began to tell us other stories of the country. He said, �My wife's father owned the store. My wife died and I have been away working but I have come back to retire.� He had only been back in this country for a short time. He continued, �Jessie James' sister lived one mile west of Clyde. Jessie and his men would bring their horses down to Brawley Springs, just south of here, when they were in this part of the country. Uncle Hugh Yates and his sister were children and they would come down to Brawley Springs and watch them. Their mother told them it was alright to come down and watch them---but don't get too close, because they weren't Sunday School Men.�

Beneath the huge oak tree there was a spring that had a faucet where the local people came for water. Our Arkansas friend said, �This spring is called the 'Water Hole'. Every one in the community comes here to get water to drink. Over at Lincoln the leaves get in the lake and it turns over and makes the water smell bad. People even come from Prairie Grove to drink our water. People will call and say, 'Have you still got that hydrant where we can get water?' You have no idea how many people come just for water. I can remember one time my pond up here saved a man's turkeys. He brought his truck and took as much as 5000 gallons a day to his turkeys. It comes out of a leveed spring over there.�

Now, I want you people to drive up the road to the north. That's where the Old Mill used to be. It was the most popular place around here during the Civil War. They ground wheat and corn. This little creek back of us is called Jordon Creek. There was a Pottery place just over there a ways.

I have an old churn that came from their pottery. There was a mill trace that runs around the hill. A mill trace carries the water to the water wheel that is used to power the Mill. That is all over at Boonesborough which was named after Daniel Boone.� �The biggest business now is chickens. One man said that he used the chicken litter to fertilize his pastures so he can raise cows. Back over here on Skylight Mountain it used to not sprout peas, the ground had leached out so. Now there are cows and horses. Those mountains are lush. They use the chicken litter on their grass.�

We thanked our friend for the history lesson and the tour of the old store. We bade him good bye because we had to get to Prairie Grove before night. Jodean asked him if he would send her a sale bill and he promised her if she would leave her address, he would mail her a bill of all the things. Sounds like I am coming back to the sale.

Four miles down the road was Cane Hill. It had been a Victorian town with a fine mansion on a hill west of the town. Over the years the mansion became an apartment building. It was still beautiful but had been altered to accommodate the need for living space. On the west side of town was an old three-story building with many windows. The corner stone said. 'The First College in Arkansas Later it became the area high school, which was discontinued after 1945. The people of Cane Hill open the building once a year for open house when all the old timers are invited to come and celebrate. Several houses in the area pre-date the Civil War, some have been restored; some are empty and discarded. They have a house tour to tell the history of the county and the old pre-Civil War houses.

We drove on for a few miles and came to a very large Mill Wheel. This is the Grist Mill that our friend had told us about. The wheel must have been thirty feet in diameter. He said they had moved this wheel three times in order to find a place where they had enough water. I don't see how they could have moved a wheel that big. They had used their native Arkansas stone to build the foundation and the wall to hold the water. The Grist Mill and old Water Wheel were deserted and the foundation was falling down but there was still a natural beauty of what it used to be. Was it a sad sight?

Well, yes, in a way but still it was so beautiful with a peaceful dignity of the "Glory Days" that you had to enjoy and appreciate what the old pioneers of Cane Hill had left for us.

We were very close to Jim and Joanna's house. Our visits to see them are filled with rock hunting, jewelry making, painting, discussing the families and enjoying the beauty of the country. Jim is a big tease and �full of Bull-----lony� (my spelling) and always had a joke to tell Jodean. He is one of the hardest working people I have ever known. His full time job could be ten hours long and then his work day was stretched for six more hours remodeling their beautiful old farm house that he and Joanna had restored and improved. Joanna is the full time chicken raiser and gardener. She said, �Someone has to baby sit those dumb chickens twenty-four hours a day or they will self destruct.� They have three chicken houses that will hold fifteen thousand chickens in each and raise about two batches of fifty thousand chickens each year. This is a full time job and very hard work.. Jim's day job is laying carpet and Joanna stays home and cares for the chickens.

Her passion for raising a vegetable garden and flowers were second only to the chickens. I don't think we ever went there that she hadn't been into a patch of Poison Ivy. In her acquired Arkansas drawl she said, �I just have to see it to get an itch.� Yes, she used herbicides but the Poison Ivy didn't seem to know that. It was a constant battle between woman and plant to see who was going to win, and the Devil Ivy always won. She scratched, dabbed on lotions and suffered, never admitting defeat.

When we come to the old Mill Wheel we knew we are very close to Joanna's house. We reached Prairie Grove, Arkansas and followed our map to the chicken ranch. We reached her house about 3:30 in the afternoon. After we ate supper Jim took us for a ride through the beautiful scenic countryside. We visited and talked until late in the night and fell asleep from exhaustion.

When Joanna and Jim came to Arkansas they had bought 40 acres of wooded land. They decided not to live on it when they found the place where they now live. When they sold the 40 acres they bought the self-contained Winnebago

One time when we were there Jim had drilled a water well out in the pasture. If he covered the top, natural gas would accumulate in the pipe. He knew this--Jodean didn't. He called her out in the yard and said, �I'm going to send off a rocket.� He lit a fuse that went to the well and in a moment there was a boom. Something shot into the air for a hundred feet. Of course it scared her to death. He said they had discovered that there was natural gas underground in the area. We hoped that someone was going to strike oil.

We had called Joanna and Jim last week and told them that we were on our way to Missouri and invited them to go with us. When we got to their house they had the Winnabaggo loaded to go. The next morning we went by the Prairie Grove. The Civil War Memorial Park is on top of a grassy hill. The battle raged to the north and across a draw between two hills. Jim said, �Old timers tell that the little creek through the Park ran red with blood of the wounded and dying soldiers who were in the battle. The northern armies drove the southern army into retreat.

The Park has old buildings furnished with antiques of the Civil War time. There was a church, school, blacksmith, syrup-mill, cider press and a residence with a cellar. As we walked around looking, Gilbert said, �Dad ad a blacksmith shop in Missouri and he had what wuz called a bellows, they uzd it ta make air for da fire.�

We came to where they were making syrup and Gilbert began to tell us about how they made syrup in Missouri when he was a child. �We ad a syrup mill dat wuz pulled by a horse. You shoved da cane in ere n a horse went roun n roun n da juice comes out down thar n runs into a vat n you build a fire under da vat n cook it. Me and Herbie uzed to go down thar n dip a cane stalk in the syrup n lick it off. We thought dat wuz de best syrup. Dad thought we ad to have a barrel of molasses at the first of winter or we wus sure blowed up. We came to the one room school house and Gilbert said, �We uzd ta go to Gyp Hill School in Horse Branch community n ole Ernest Norman uzd ta take dos ink wells out n uz them to spit tobacco in.�

We left the Park before noon and started for Oregon County, Missouri, knowing it would take most of the day to get there. As we rode in the car we were entertained by the stories that Gilbert told us about their old home. All these were put on the tape recorder so that we could share them with the rest of the family.