During the stay in Balboa Mona decided to perform her serious shopping and we tagged along. I recall Chanel No. 5 and Shalimar perfumes as well as hand embroidered table cloths and napkins at what Mona assured us were high bargain rates, and over several days a number of trips would be made to the same shop with a differing offer from the last trip until finally a deal was sealed. I purchased one of the tablecloth sets for mother which she hand laundered and used on special occasions thru the end of her days. I coveted a "good" camera for myself but in spite of many obvious bargains felt I couldn't afford one.
Again traversing the isthmus by standard gauged rail we reembarked at Cristobal this time on a United Fruit Lines sister ship, the Veragua. The initial destination was Kingston, Jamaica. The day of arrival was spent touring the city and that section of the tropical island. Beautiful Kingston Gardens proved to be the site of a large movie company shooting a show in period costumes that afternoon. If I ever saw it later in a movie house I was unaware of it. Again local postal officials assured that we saw the most highly desirable sights during the limited time available.
Somewhere along the line I performed a meticulous inspection of my prized machete. To my chagrin and consternation carefully inscribed on one section of the blade was "made in Conn. USA".
From Kingston we sailed directly for New York, about a three day or so trip as I recall. I enjoyed watching the plentiful, playful porpoises from the deck. While at sea, on September 1, 1939, Hitler's Nazi armies invaded Poland and the world was progressively thrust toward WW II. No fear was expressed in my presence although we were informed that hostile German submarines were patrolling up and down our Atlantic coast. We failed to spot any but a couple of our naval destroyers were seen at a distance on one occasion.
The train trip from New York to Washington was uneventful, and after only a day or two I again boarded the B&0's National Limited for St Louis and transferred to the Missouri Pacific for Judsonia because our local schools opened long before those in Washington. For many years this trip to Panama was regarded as my major travel event, and it was a superlative experience for me which my parents never regretted.
I attended summer school at Harding in Searcy for several weeks in the summer of 1940 in order to sustain a high grade point as I was in the running for valedictorian of my senior class which was to be '40-'41. I also believe that was the summer a small garden snake I had in a tin can crawled out during Bible class and resulted in the distaff members of the class evacuating the room with loud squeals......and I was banished not far behind them followingi wth an admonition from the instructor that I might return on another day after the snake was "disposed of".
- Basketball; In the spring of 1940 the "Glomers" made it to the semifinals of the state "B" tournament where we were defeated by the team from Elaine by a very disappointing single point. Chas Bauer, and Philip Walters made the first all-state first team.
Our fortunes improved in the spring of 1941, our senior year and the Glomers won the Arkansas state "B" tournament held in Marion, Ark by comfortable scores and even I managed to score in the final game, my first goal a short overhead shot from near the free-throw line on a gentle feeder from Bill Taylor who immediately yelled to me to "shoot, shoot, shoot". His brother Henry also was a teammate. Bill and Sneezeweed made all state. It was the first and only time a JHS team won a state championship.
Alton Williams was the superintendent and a very dedicated teacher whom I admired, respected and worked for academically. He taught several classes involving the juniors and seniors and I found his teaching style challenging. For one thing he posted a huge map of the world without labels. He would select an island or country on the map and challenge the next student to identify it and its capital. If one missed the next in line to answer correctly, would jump him into the next vacant seat. By the end of the semester most of us knew the geography accurately, and I managed to occupy the number one seat a large part of the time.
During the same time Mr. Ishamel W. Dillaha served as the school principal. The most stimulating course I took under him was plane geometry in which we were introduced to theorems, hypotheses, corollaries and the logic employed to prove them. The reasoning this stimulated resulting in applied logic was probably the most valuable course I took in preparing me for college and medical school. Mr. Dillaha had the misfortune of having a glass eye and we never knew what had befallen the original, but it appeared to be a minimal handicap.
1939-41
I'm unclear as to whether it was during my junior or senior year in high school that one of my courses was journalism. I either volunteered or was assigned to serve as editor of the school page in the local white County Record, which also introduced an informative and very interesting time in my growth. My duties were to provide a manuscript, as I recall no later than every Tuesday afternoon to "Mr. Everything" at the paper, Ralph van Meter in order to meet the Thursday publication deadline.. I had some help in compiling material, but often all of it fell my lot to complete. And, needless to relate, the material was not always adequate. And it proved to be pretty educational in those years to witness Ralph or Guy Epps type-entered everything on a Linotype machine and to observe the molten metal emerge in blocks of type which resulted in the miracle of print! I gained a little notoriety from my efforts, especially with some largely plagiarized limericks that often served as "fillers." Proofreading was also an occasional assignment. This also was the time I began to focus upon a decision about a career path.
The White County Record itself has a history worthy of comment. Following the Civil War (the War of Secession) its first number was issued on November 2, 1866 by Jacob Frolich, Jr. A second volume of the weekly (November 2, 1867 to October 22, 1868) was also issued by Mr. Frolich before he was forced to flee the state of Arkansas just ahead of an order for his arrest by Reconstruction Governor Powell Clayton.
Frolich was said to be an outspoken critic of Reconstruction. During the winter of 1868-69 a certain Captain Parker was killed in White Country and the governor was said to have suspected the Ku Klux Klan. Frolich, General Dandridge McRae and others were accused by the governor of being members of the Klan and in some way implicated in the killing of Captain Parker. He ordered their arrest.
When Frolich heard of the order he fled to Canada where he worked for a year while a "far and wide" search was conducted for him and a bounty of $1,000 was placed on his head by the Governor.
He returned voluntarily to White County in June 1871, gave himself up, was tried and found Not Guilty by a jury that did not leave their seats in the courtroom. He resumed control of the newspaper and lived to see the last of the officials who caused him so much trouble ousted from their public positions.
My earliest recall of the paper was when it was owned and published by Ralph Mann, Sr. and was housed on the west side of Judson Avenue (main street) during the era about a block and a half south of the First Baptist Church. Mr. Van Meter, as I recall started as an apprentice to Mr. Mann and succeeded him following his death. His wife "Miss Winnie Mann (nee Beals)" taught piano. Their three children Ralph Jr., Tommy, and Janice were contemporaries of mine. Ralph Jr. graduated from the Naval Academy in Annapolis in the late 1930's where he was a star batter and fielder on the Navy baseball team. Commissioned in the Marines he was sent to China where he was stationed when Pearl Harbor was bombed and World War II erupted. Someway Ralph was sent to the Philippines, captured and was on the Bataan "death march. He died a bit later on the Bataan peninsula.... allegedly from pneumonia. His brother, Tommy, became a commissioned army officer and at my last report was an eagle colonel. Janis was a year behind me in school and a part of the group with which we "hung out" as the current jargon goes during the latter time in high school.
I believe this recount conveys a bit of the inevitable nostalgia of small town America during the pre-war decade and the camaraderie that accompanied school and extra-school activities. Ralph Jr's. death, so early in the war was a source of sorrow to the entire community and we had visited him on a Sunday at the Academy in 1935 at which time he presented me with two baseballs with which he had homered in the conference play. I'm unsure of the dates but his death on Bataan was possibly the first of what was to become many "personal losses" we were to experience. It was quite a long time before his actual fate became known.
Another, loss, not attributable to war, between our junior and senior years was a classmate, Albert Earl Sheffer. Nicknamed "O'Possum" he was an avid runner and conditioned himself year round by running from his home a couple of miles north of Judsonia High School to and from same every day. In the summer of 1940 he accompanied his grandfather, I believe, on a fishing outing on a local lake (Little Brushy). Through some mishap they capsized and "O'Possum" drowned---I don't believe he had learned to swim. That too resulted in several of we classmates serving as pallbearers for him, a very sobering experience for he was a universally popular young man, and we could but wonder if his fate would have been better had we more successfully recruited him into scouting.
Chapter 5 1940 - 1944
It was 1977, when Ewing Orr ran an LDM ( Lookin Down Main) column with a story concerning Bill and others in the Taylor family that Skinny labeled his favorite White County story and represented my initial awareness of the incident. It was so representative of happenings during those years that I elect to redocument the gist of it here.
The beginning was in a cotton patch belonging to W. T. Taylor (Bill and Henry's father in 1925 or 1926). Mr . & Mrs Troy Taylor lived with their five children about 4 1/2 miles southeast of Clay. The sandy soil contained numerous protrusions of a soft black rock quite different from that seen in neighboring fields. There were fossils to be found in this rock, and the Taylor boys had a large collection of arrow heads they had picked up in their wanderings over their father's acres. Nearby was a hill which had a peculiar attraction for lightening.
The Taylor clan worked as a unit during "cotton chopping time". All the Taylors took their hoes and headed for the cotton patch to resume their annual battle with the crab grass. As usual on this summer's day, Alice, Troy's 10 year old daughter was among them. Even before this particular day her family had noticed that Alice had a habit of picking up any bright and shining object that she found in her path Bits of glass and slivers of tin had found their way to her pockets since early childhood. So, as they worked side by side among the cotton rows it was no surprise to the other Taylors to hear Alice suddenly exclaim, "Oh goody, I've found a diamond".
She held up a shiny black stone that she had picked up near the old tree stump where she had been hoeing. It looked like a thick piece of glass that had been in a fire. The others clustered around her for a few moments. Although they had never seen anything exactly like it, they quickly passed it off as just another peculiar rock. The crab grass seemed more important.
Alice took the stone back to the house that evening. Then began a haphazard existence such as few "diamonds " have experienced. The Taylor brothers discovered that it could serve as a marble and took it to school for their games of "keeps". As will be seen never have marbles been played for such fabulous stakes as in the games during the next few months on the old Holly Springs school grounds. Sometimes the Taylors would lose their black "agate" and it would be several days before they would regain it. Occasionally it would reappear in an overalls pocket as the family wash was being done. "There's my diamond again", Alice would proclaim.
The years went by. The stone lay in isolated corners of the house, even at times being out in the yard for days at a time. Alice grew to womanhood. She married Pellie Howell and moved away from the family home and left her "diamond" behind.
Her husband went to Michigan to work for a few months. One day when she was visiting her family she saw her stone again and took it home with her. As the days passed she found herself thinking of it more often. Once she rubbed a file across it and noted that it was so hard it left a mark on the surface of the file, rather than the reverse.
She finally decided to write the Kansas City Star for information and advice. When the Star finally responded it was with the suggestion that the stone be submitted to a college laboratory for identification. Placing it in a small box she mailed it to Arkansas college in Batesville, Ark. They weren't certain what it was and suggested it be sent to the University of Arkansas and once again it was transmitted in an uninsured container, and again the response was inconclusive but it was advised to send it to Tiffany's in New York.
In May, 1948 a letter of response came from New York containing a check at which Alice glanced hastily while making her way with the mail back to her family. They were out in the field again.
"Well, at least I got my postage back" she quipped to them. "They sent me a check for eighty-five cents." One of the other workers glanced at the check. "Eighty-five cents nothing he exclaimed" "This check is for eighty-five dollars". A brother's hands quickly grasped the paper. "It isn't $85.00 he gasped in hushed tones. This thing's made out for $8,500.00!"
And it was true. Tiffany's had subjected the stone to thorough testing. Not only was it a diamond-- it was the third largest found on the North American continent at that time; It weighed 27.21 carats. [Youtube video, Searcy Diamond, Searcy Diamond]
Mr. William T. Lusk of Tiffany's sent a letter confirming most of the details, accompanied by an article by A. F. Alexander concerning the stone which was published in the Feb. 1950 issue of the Gemologist, a British publication. In it Dr. Alexander reported, "The diamond is the third largest ever found in North America, according to available records, and is a perfect hexoctahedon. Except for a small white crystal visible in the gem it appears to be very clean. The color of fine Cape, plus its high quality, places this gem among the best that have been found on the North American continent."
The stone was placed on permanent display at Tiffany and Company. Despite many subsequent searches, this is the only diamond ever found on or around that property.
Why is this my favorite White County story? queried Skinny Orr of himself. "All my life I will continue to be fascinated by the picture of that little group of rural schoolboys noisily engaged in their game of "keeps" with an $8,500.00 diamond in the center of the ring, he concluded!
1941 - High school graduation, I was valedictorian of the senior class and received assistance in the preparation of my valedictory address from Mrs. Mavis Jarvis, our English and literature instructor who lived in a room in the Forbes home.
That fall I entered the University of Arkansas in Fayetteville as a pre-med student and resided during the first semester in the Razorback Hall dormitory. Following the semester break I was pledged to the Kappa Sigma fraternity and moved into the frat house on West Dixon street. On Sunday December 7th I accompanied a frat brother or two to the UArk movie theatre about a half block down the street. At mid movie an announcement was made from the rear of the theatre "The Japs have bombed Pearl Harbor; we are at war." The theatre emptied rapidly and the remainder of the day was anxiously spent back at the Kappa Sig house listening to the radio and speculating about our futures -especially by those in advanced ROTC.
I had not devoted much heed to females "of the opposite sexes" they were dubbed by Stover during my high school years, and "dating" was a bit foreign to most of us, although we did socialize in peer groups and occasionally "paired off" for a short time with someone to whom we were attracted. As best I recall I had been led through some of the morass of uncertainty, anxiety, and great ignorance by a cousin who resided in Little Rock, Eura Jeanne Jones. "Jonesy" was an attractive girl a year or so my senior who seemed capable of being at ease in any group, One of the Little Rock street car lines passed within a block of her home, enabling us to attend a number of movies. Commuting from Judsonia to Little Rock was a challenge and I don't recall how it was usually solved, but probably by bus. Dad had taught me to drive on "back roads" and I was gradually allowed to expand the distances and the drive to Little Rock was only about an hour each way. As socially backward as I was (and mingling with students from Little Rock Senior High only exaggerated my reactions of uncertainty, if not inferiority). I was made to feel at ease by Jonesy, and dating her did a great deal to lead me through some of the crises of an early, backward, very self-conscious teen-ager.
My first roommate in Razorback Hall, Jim Pence of Little Rock, further assisted indoctrination to dating by including me with his group during a few week-end breaks and the holidays in Little Rock. One "blind date" arranged by Jim was with Gail Puterbaugh, who lived on Shadowlane in Capital Heights section of the city, and I became lightly interested in her. She was a year my junior and following her graduation from LRHS matriculated at Stephens College in Columbia, Missouri. This was shortly after I entered the University of Arkansas Medical School in Little Rock in the summer of 1943 and we spent considerable time on the phone after school each day during the summer and fall before she left for Columbia. I suspect her parents were pleased to recover greater access to their phone thereafter. By the time I was in third year equivalent of medical school (we were on an accelerated schedule for the convenience of the army whereby we would complete the four year curriculum in three years. Dad allowed me to utilize a Ford two door sedan which greatly enhanced my mobility, and also enabled me to commute daily to/from medical school and Uncle Bud's relatively spacious apartment onCavanaugh Blvd in Pulaski Heights. He allowed me to move in with him. The car also facilitated dating as well as week end jaunts to/from Judsonia, but school was usually given priority over socializing. On one of our semester breaks five of us pooled our gasoline ration stamps and drove to an Arkansas-Missouri football game in Columbia which Arkansas won by a 7-6 score. We returned to Little Rock via Fayetteville but with no dates en route.