July 17, 2006

Jonesboro, AR

Dear Danyelle,

Regarding Dr. W. H. Martin: He was the only practicing doctor in Holly Grove at the time I was born March 4, 1934. He delivered me at home. That is the middle house just east of the Methodist Church on Spruce Street. I lived there until I graduated from Holly Grove High School on May 16, 1952, and married on June 15, 1952.

My mother, Katie Thompson King often assisted him when he made house calls. Mother had nine months of nurse's training at the Helena Hospital before she married my daddy, Ellis Graydon King.

I remember one time she went out in the country, south of town and when she returned the next day she was carrying a small bundle in her arms. She had helped Dr. Martin deliver a premature baby. It had taken all night. Mother put the baby in a small box (maybe a shoe box) lined with  some sort of soft material. I was just a small girl, but I was impressed with what Mother did. She put that box behind a small coal or wood burning iron stove in the kitchen. She had made an incubator. That child lived, but I do not know who it was.

Dr. Martin would ask Mother to attend when someone was dying. They would go to the home and after Dr. Martin did all he could do to help, he would leave Mother to stay with the person. He would check on mother the next day, unless she called him at the time of death during the night.

I remember when Mrs. Hudson, who lived on the corner of Hwy. 17 South and the dirt road that went over Dial Creek to the homes of Mr. and Mrs. Abner Hall, Carl and Earnese Bowls and Mr. and Mrs. Banks Johnson, was dying, mother stayed one or two nights. Someone else stayed with Mother and when Mrs. Hudson died, she asked Mother what she was going to do. Mother told her she was going to bathe the body and dress it, put her teeth in her mouth and then she was going to put half dollars on her eyes to keep them closed. The other lady got scared and said, "I'm not going to touch her." Mother told her she would have to, because she couldn't do it by herself. Mrs. Hudson was the local fortune teller.

Mother was able to purchase Mrs. Hudson's  bed. Of course,  it was a perfectly good bed. But guess who ended up sleeping in that bed until she left home. Yep, it was me, Elizabeth King. I would love to have that bed today.

Dr. Martin took my tonsils out when I was 7 years old. He operated on me in the house that Lula Tyler lives in today. His operating "theater" was in the cove of the room on the north side of the house which I believe was the dining room when a family lived in the house. Again, Mother assisted him. By this time, 1941, Dr. Martin, like so many doctors was hitting the bottle pretty hard. I suppose they had to in order to keep going to attend the sick.

The surgery was done under local anesthetic and all went well. I went home, stayed in bed a day or two until the danger of bleeding passed. Mother made some vegetable soup for supper the second night and I wanted to try to eat some of it. Mother told me I would propably not be able to, but she would bring me a bowl to see. Mother always made cornbread to eat with soup. I asked her to bring me a piece and she told me I would not be able to eat cornbread, because the meal would scratch my throat and might make it bleed. I insisted. She brought the bread and after I ate that I asked for another piece. When she brought that piece and I ate it, Mother asked to look in my mouth. I opened it and she looked inside and said to herself, Um, Um. Quickly she turned arould and all but shouted, "Open your mouth!"

Apparently Dr. Martin's hand had slipped and when he went from left to right or vice versa he had slipped and removed the uvula, that soft piece of skin that hangs down from the soft palate in the back of your mouth as well as the tonsils. I have had no ill effects from this accident. I had asked Dr. Martin to save my tonsils so I could bury them. He gave them to me in a small bottle and when I went home I buried them in the side yard on the north side next to Granny Johnson's house. Mother made me dig them up so she could check and sure enought there was the uvula.

I am sure Dr. Martin did the best he could at this time in history. I remember him well and thought he was a kind and good man.

Elizabeth K. Hansen

Does anyone have any memories about my grandfather's (D.A. McNeill) businesses?  He owned a barber shop, a bowling alley, and a cleaners.  I've never seen photos of any of them (I've sent out an email in my family asking if any photos exist).  But I was wondering if anyone could describe them or share memories of them? 

Looking for information on the following people, places, businesses of the past:

-Dr. Martin
-The Mayo Clinic (donated by Will Mayo and Will's brother, ?)

Monroe County Sun
Thurs. Nov.26, 1987
Mull House Goes Down in History

"Rising proud and majestically on a small hill on Highway 17, south of Holly Grove once stood the 'Mull' house, surrounded by ancient cedar, pecan, and oak trees.
Vast acres of fertile farmland stretched north, south, and east of this once beautiful stately southern home, and a landmark of Monroe County.
Built before the Civil War by Benjamin Franklin Kerr, it was the replica of his childhood home in Alabama.
Construction began in 1854 and was completed five years later in 1859, one year before the Civil War began.
Built of the best materials, the two-story house has withstood the ravages of the elements, time decay, and neglect until a few years ago, and has recently been demolished.
The lofty 20 ft. columns that supported the porch and balcony were sagging and inside the rooms, four of which had fireplaces, was strewn with rubble, wallpaper fading and peeling floors falling in and in general deteriorating badly.
B.F. Kerr sold the house several years after the Civil War to a Mr. Allen from Helena.
Thomas Mull, Sr. acquired the house and surrounding land from Mr. Allen in 1880. It is not clear how he actually acquired the property.  One legend has it that Mull won it in a poker game.  Another says he won it by racing his white horse against a train from Holly Grove to Palmer and winning.  When the Senior Mull died in 1923, he left the property to his adopted son, Tom Mull, Jr.
The younger Mull and his wife, Auree Bullington, lived in the house until 1940, when Mr. Mull's job with the Game and Fish Commission took him to Little Rock.
They returned for visits for a while.  Then one morning, they got up from the breakfast table, leaving the dishes on the table, left and never returned.  No one knows why.
So the Mull house no longer exists and only a clean spot of land now marks the place where it stood.
With it goes the mysteries, romance, legends, and historical events surrounding it.
B.F. Kerr was the great-great-grandfather of Mrs. Nellie Pennington of Nevada and the late Flora Fakes of Clarendon."

The building where Wong's Grocery resided originally housed a mercantile business owned by my great-great grandfather, D.B. Renfro, Sr. I've often wondered if any photos of his original business exists. Also, my great-grandmother Virginia Matthews and my great aunt Lizzie Renfro owned a drug store for a time - I've also wondered if photos of that store exist. My late Aunt Susie Sims Creed worked at the drug store as a kid. She said that they kept the store open until midnight most Saturdays because everyone came into town to shop on Saturdays - and that the town was packed with people. People would come into town in cars and trucks, wagons and horses....it was a big day each week for people coming into town and for the town as a whole.
She also told me that she got so tired of serving ice cream at the drug store that she never really liked ice cream the rest of her life.

http://home.comcast.net/~dfletcher20
Monroe Co. genealogy