Arkadelphia, Arkansas: Home

By Dr. David W. McMillan

To me Arkadelphia is the family’s home. This is the place where most of Poppa Taylor and Mary Francis’ children lived. Though I don’t know, it appears to me that Horace took over things in Sparkman after Poppa Taylor’s death and prospects in Sparkman were not the best for the Taylor women. Perhaps someone who knew Sparkman can tell the story of that place and how it was dear to them.

In my novel I describe Arkadelphia this way: The Caddo River joins the Ouachita River right outside of town. The Ozark Mountains dwindle down to rolling hills in southwest Arkansas. At Arkadelphia the last of those hills roll into flat land at the Ouachita River. Arkadelphia has the green beauty of the Ozark hills and bluffs and it has the good rich farm land of the Ouachita River delta. The hills west of town grow tall strong pine and red oak timber. Arkadelphia is home to an active logging industry. There are fine farms along the river and east. Flooding can be a problem southeast of town but Arkadelphia itself is built on a bluff that looks down on the river above the Ouachita River and the Missouri Pacific Railroad line from Chicago to Dallas.

John Allen Adams did a much better job in his description of the Ouachita River:On a summer day just a stone’s throw upstream from the Caddo Street Bridge a fat brown moccasin slides silently from a low hanging willow branch into the current and sinuously swims down stream angling toward the shore until it hits a patch of slack water where it parts floating willow cotton sending it tumbling and spreading like smoke before it disappears into the shadow of a grassy overhang. Three turtles sunning nearly in single file on a bone-white fallen cottonwood take no notice of the snake. On a leafless twig at the tip of the tree now only two feet above the water a dragonfly with multiple river images in his compound eyes is poised on point while a squadron of his brothers fly above him, alternately darting from side to side then holding still in air while below them a bluegill with orange belly and blue-tipped “ears” hovers above a platter-sized patch of bright burnished stones on the river bottom diligently guarding the eggs resting there.

Several under yards further upstream high atop De Soto Bluff, sweet gum and hickory stand on tiptoe where the river has eaten away at the cliff and exposed their roots to the air and hardened them into elaborate bracings and cage-like scaffolds as they struggle to hold their purchase in the red dirt and so keep from plummeting in the river and joining the trees fallen from earlier seasons. Below them and up and down the water’s edge other trees stand like soldiers marching into battle, the front rank already lying strewn along the bank, casualties of earlier spring torrents, many in the following tier wounded and headed for the ground in a slow fall while the upright ranks behind stoically wait their turn to contend with the implacable Ouachita.

And so the river runs as it has for centuries, for mellenia, since long before red or white men followed its course seeking game and fertile spots of ground to plant their seed.

As I think of Arkadelphia, I too see trees, giant pin oaks, hovering over the streets all over town, especially providing the sanctuary of cool shade and soft filtered light to 210 N. 5th Street, my home and Aunt Margie’s driveway across the street. Sanctuary is the word, isn’t it? The tops of the oak trees on each side of the street met in the air some 100 feet over the center of the street. These trees created a gentle cathedral ceiling all the way down 5th Street to Ouachita and the white columns of Cone-bottom dormitory.The color I see, as one I imagine Arkadelphia is green. Green above in the trees and below in the St. Augustine or bermuda grass. In between were splashes of pink azaleas and pink and white crepe myrtle. In my mind the image of the crepe myrtle merges into watermelon red and that moves into orange day lilies.My mother planted her garden so that all year around, except for a period deep in the winter, there were flowers in our yard that she might use to provide for flowers every Sunday at Church. Camellias and gardenias played important roles in this project. Then in the Spring daffodils, tulips and dogwoods were the centerpieces of her arrangements. But green was the taken for granted frame for the plentiful flowers.

I remember my parents talking about spending summers in the swimming hole in the Ouachita River just above the Caddo Street Bridge. Apparently the river was the setting of a great deal of mischief. Jane once confessed that she went skinny-dipping with Dolly Winburn in the river. My father used to challenge Martha Thomas, one of mother’s good friends, to a race across the river and back. John T. often told of his struggle to row a boat up the river against the current. He would fight the current for what seemed forever to him for the purchase of a quarter-mile upstream.My father dreamed that he could one day make Arkadelphia into a major metropolis by politicking the Army Corps of Engineers to dredge and maintain a river channel up from Camden to Arkadelphia. But river transport was succeeded by rail and now by interstate roads and Arkadelphia is on a major interstate and the population has remained at around 10,000 people for sixty plus years.

My father’s dreams for the Ouachita came in part from the Charlie Richardson painting that he had of a river scene at what is called beaver’s nose. This is the southeastern corner formed by the intersection of the Caddo and the Ouachita. As I write this, I am looking at the painting. The river flows in the foreground. The bank slopes gently down some ten feet above the river making an excellent landing for a small canoe or paddle boat. Above the bank is a forest mix of pine, oak, hickory and maple trees. In the background is a wooden picket fence.De Soto Bluff is downstream just on the edge of what in 1960 was Arkadelphia’s city limits. This was and is Arkadelphia’s most scenic spot, a must picnic spot for all young lovers. From the top of the bluff you can see for miles over verdant forests, to the south and east across the river the land is flat, north and west the hills roll into the Hotsprings mountains. Jack Mountain, some ten miles north, is clearly visible. The river’s ribbon winds softly below, south and east to Arkadelphia and Camden and northwest to Malvern and Hotsprings.

Standing on the bluff looking out one imagines being an Indian looking for bears, and deer, or Hernando De Soto looking out over the land drawing a map of his discoveries or an eagle flying high over the earth or an ant following a trail from under the red clay and gravel to a persimmon that has fallen from a tree.

In the fall the countryside around Arkadelphia mergers from greens to oranges, reds and shades of brown. I wish I knew the name of that scrub tree that was everywhere along any road. It turned bright red during fall.I haven’t mentioned the kudzu in the ravines. It seemed to grow a foot a day in my Grandmother McMillan’s ravine. We would run down to the creek behind on a path, kudzu vines beneath our feet and kudzu leaves on either side, not noticing the screams of the cicadas that seemed to be part of the landscape. The kudzu grew over the small trees and formed a cave or a tent for us to use as a pretend wigwam or a place in which to take cover in a short summer shower.

The topography of the land and the prolific vegetation was only part of Arkadelphia’s blessings. Arkadelphia was the Athens of Arkansas. As early as 1851 Arkadelphia was an educational center in Arkansas. At that time the town had only 250 residents and Rev. Samuel Stevenson founded the Arkadelphia Institute. A Baptist minister, Rev. Hauke, lobbied the state legislature to create the Arkansas Institute for the Blind.

The Civil War ended support for higher education all over the South, but in 1886 Dr. J.W. Conger established Ouachita Baptist College. In 1890 across the ravine and 10th street Arkadelphia Methodist College was established. These colleges became the educational foundation for most of our families.As I think about college at the time my parents were students, there was not as much information to learn. Latin was an important subject. Japanese was not part of the curriculum. Perhaps the subject that required more of its students than any other was music. Ouachita’s and Henderson’s music department contained perhaps the largest segment of the faculty.

The colleges’ music emphasis along with churches and the community’s general interest in music created many social settings around music in Arkadelphia. There were recitals and visiting musical acts coming to Arkadelphia to perform on campus. Citizens of Arkadelphia had opportunities to be exposed to art, talent and ideas of the day that citizens of Sparkman, Camden, Hope, Prescott or Hotsprings did not.I went along with my mother to musical performances and plays at Ouachita and Henderson auditoriums. Then there were activities at all of the local churches.The colleges and the high school had baseball, football and basketball games. There were track meets, and tennis matches. John T. was a member of Ouachita’s marching band. My father played on the tennis and baseball teams at Ouachita.

Because of the Colleges there was a greater tolerance and openness in Arkadelphia. Though racism was clearly present there, it was not like Amity where there were signs telling negroes to be gone from town by dark.I have always been proud that my mother was valedictorian of her Arkadelphia High School and Ouachita College graduating classes. But one day when I looked at her year books, I saw that her graduating class at both schools was much smaller than I imagined. On the McMillan side of my family two great aunts and two aunts were teachers at Ouachita. My grandfather David McMillan was on the board. I think my kin the Williams and the McMillan families may have had something to do with the founding of Ouachita. John T. was on its board from many years. My father received an honorary doctorate from Ouachita for his many years of service to the school. A.J. Vestal was a significant contributor to the school.

In the 1950’s and 60’s when I was growing up in Arkadelphia the Caddo and the Ouachita River were not social scenes. The summer social scene had shifted to the Arkadelphia Country Club swimming pool. My mother could drop us off there and leave us for hours. When she returned she would pick up tired children, well exercised, ready for supper, a game of kick-the-can and the bed by 9:00 P.M.

The two colleges were great settings for riding bikes, exploring and making mischief. I especially loved the ravine behind my Grandmother McMillan’s house. The ravine merged into the ravine that separated Ouachita from Henderson.As I remember it, the small creek that ran through the ravine was once a clear, pure stream that became a polluted mess later. In that ravine my cousins and I played cowboys and indians, Tarzan and Jane. We would swing across the creek on grape vines. We smoked grape vine cigarettes and we imagined finding lions and tigers among the giant pine trees there.

Jerry Vestal remembers a time when we walked on the bridge over the ravine behind the Ouachita gym in order to explode cherry bombs. We would stand on the bridge, light the cherry bomb, hold it until its fuse was burned near the bottom and let it go so that they would explode before it hit the ground, creating huge reverberating echoes from the blasts. As I talked to Jerry recently, he wondered who we might have disturbed. That thought had never crossed my mind.

As a ten year old boy I would wake up at 6:45, ride my bike down to the Ouachita tennis courts and practice hitting the ball against the backboard there. I enjoyed having the girls watch me and compliment me as they walked to morning breakfast in the cafeteria.

In a three block radius of my home lived four grandparents, three great aunts, three aunts and nineteen cousins ranging in age from eighty to four. Three or four times a week in the summer Aunt Margie would pull up in front of our house in her black 1951 Plymouth and honk the horn. My mother would yell at us boys to go get whatever vegetables Aunt Margie was delivering from her harvest at her farm on the Ouachita River. I would run and get one or two large paper sacks filled with some assortment string beans, lima beans, corn, black-eyed peas, okra, tomatoes and figs later in the summer.

Cousins would come from out of town to visit every summer and when there were funerals. Jan Vestal would go in mother’s closet, play dress up and make Jerry and I play some part in a bizarre wedding. Jerry and I would explore Aunt Margie’s house and be sure to sneak into Uncle Arthur’s forbidden study and tinker with his ticker tape. We would have sleepovers together on Aunt Margie’s sleeping porch with the windows cranked wide open. Daphna Ann would come and so would the Cole sisters, Lisa, Carol and Susan. My mother would do her best to entertain them, embarrassed that my father could not take some time off from work to entertain Uncle Wilbur.There were great feasts at Aunt Margie’s. The adults would sit at her giant dining room table. We children would sit at the round table in the smaller dining room. Under each table Aunt Margie had a button for a buzzer that would go off in the kitchen when pushed. It was fun for me to use the button to make noise. At every one of these meals pickled peaches were an option.

The floors in Aunt Margie’s home were made of wide elegant boards I believe tongue in groove constructed and held to the floor with pegs, not nails. Oriental rugs filled the downstairs. Brass tiffany-like lamps were everywhere. Light switches were round buttons. When you pushed one in, the other popped out. The house was steam heated with radiators hissing.

Bobbobie’s home was a white clapboard house with a large front porch and a porch swing. Many days, especially just after Betsy was born, my mother would dress us boys and send us down the street one block to Bobbobie’s for breakfast. The best oatmeal in the world awaited us. It was cooked with real cream. It was rich in fruit, bananas, peaches, or blackberries. In the winter the fruit was boiled prunes.

We ate with Hippop who poured his coffee in a saucer and sipped it from the saucer’s edge, not from the cup. Hippop had a morning regimen that included drinking eight glasses of water before breakfast. It was his notion that he was cleansing his system. And soon after breakfast he lit his corncob pipe filled with Prince Edward tobacco.Aunt Selma’s house contained (I believe) her apartment and two others. One downstairs and one upstairs. Her apartment contained a bedroom, a bath, a small kitchen between her bedroom and her living room. The living room and the dining room were one room. One entered her part of the house from the side, I think into her bedroom.

The smell that emanated from her house was always of something baking. She was, of course, famous for her angel food cakes but she baked pies, cookies, rolls and biscuits. And she smiled with delight when you walked in her door.

Arkadelphia was my home and a place that many of you came home to. It was a generous kind community filled with loving friends. Anywhere I would go, I was known. The community accepted and nurtured my sister Betsy. She was the first child with special needs to go to school there.The story of the life of John Allen Adams perhaps best represents the character of this small town. John Allen was a good friend of Bill Vestals. In the fall of 1938 he was injured in a football game at age sixteen and paralyzed for life from his neck down. He lived out his life of 64 years in Arkadelphia. When I knew him, he and his aunt ran a small bookstore. We and everybody else in town bought our magazine subscriptions and our Christmas cards from him. Though his Aunt Bessie and later his wife Joy were his primary supports, the whole community saw it as its responsibility to see to it that Bessie and John Allen had a means to support themselves. As his biography Fortune Teller’s Blessing portrays Arkadelphia’s kindness and generosity allowed John Allen to have an independent, dignified and stimulating existence.

Arkadelphia was a good place to call home for our family and many others.