Salt Of The Earth People

Fifty-five years ago this month, my second great-grandfather, Wilburn Malley Wagnon, passed away at his rural Arkansas home. He was 82 years old.

By all accounts, Grandpa Wagnon - Mal or Malley, as everyone called him - was an affable guy well liked by his community.

Lived Off The Land
Born in Washington County, Arkansas on February 12, 1880 to John and Mary Jane (Calfee) Wagnon, he was raised in a farming family. In the 1900 census, John Wagnon was enumerated as a farm owner and his son Malley worked as a farm laborer.

In October 1905, Malley married Annie Charles Winkler. They raised five children, including my great-grandmother Mary Pauline, on a farm in Baldwin, Arkansas just outside Fayetteville.

I recently corresponded with a resident of Baldwin who, as a young man, knew Mal and Annie Wagnon. He recalled that, "They were country folk. They were hardworking plain country folk. They were just salt of the earth people. They lived off of what they had. He raised cattle, chicken. They had an orchard. They just lived off the land."

Annie (Winkler) and Wilburn Malley Wagnon

Hard Working Plain Country Folk
The Baldwin resident's recollections painted a picture that brought them to life and made them seem more real.

"Annie had homemade dresses...flour sack dresses [with] lace up boots. She had a homemade bonnet that she wore [or] gray hair pulled up into a pony tail most of the time."

"She walked all over these hillsides and sold Grit weekly newspapers (delivered on Sunday mornings). She had a route that she run all over the hillside. It cost a nickel [and] out of that nickel she made two cents."

Malley was a character who "done a little bit of everything. Mr. Malley stuttered. He'd get ahead of himself a bit. He'd get hung up on words."

"He nipped the bottle a little bit. One of my other uncles was a bootlegger and he'd supply Malley with the White Lightning. Boy, Annie hated that! Annie was a front row Christian Church [attendee]. She is on the original roster of the Baldwin Christian Church when it was organized in 1908. When Malley would get to nippin and come home that wouldn't sit well with her."

They Canceled Each Other Out
My grandmother Marilyn recalled visiting Malley and Annie shortly after marrying their grandson Charles. She remembered that, "They lived out in this little - I think it was a log house with a tin roof. At least it was a wooden house with a tin roof, and it had an upstairs. She had it real organized. It was nice, but it was very primitive."

Annie (Winkler) and Wilburn Malley Wagnon pictured with daughter Mary Pauline
(left) and her children, including my grandfather Charles behind Annie and Malley.

She added, "I ate my first mock apple pie there. Mock apple pie is made using soda crackers and some conglomeration for filling and it tastes just like apple pie. That was Grandma Wagnon's recipe."

Grandma Wagnon's Mock Apple Pie recipe from Marilyn's
cookbook collection (believed to be written by Annie).

Marilyn reminisced about Annie's earthy character, remembering that, "She was very friendly. All of her grandkids loved her. Grandma [Annie] smoked and she rolled her own. She canned about everything they ate. Even meat."

In subsequent visits, Marilyn made a point to bring a souvenir. "[Annie] collected little bitty miniature pitchers. You know, like water pitchers only itty bitty things, so the kids and I would always try to take her a pitcher."

Marilyn also told how Malley and Annie took their civic duties seriously: "They would walk to town to vote on election day and cancel each other out. One would vote Republican and one would vote Democrat and I don't recall which was which, but they walked into Fayetteville to vote and canceled each other out. They could have stayed home."

A Fitting Tribute
When the town of Baldwin was paving old dirt paths, they extended the road up to the Wagnon's home. The road was named in Malley's honor, which seems like a fitting tribute for a hardworking plain country man. I suspect he'd be pleased with that honor.

Family History on the Road - Day Four

Yesterday's rainstorms subsided and gave way to a beautiful morning. We were ambitious for day four of our family history journey with lots of ground to cover on the agenda.

Our first stop was Hester Cemetery near Baldwin, Arkansas on the outskirts of Fayetteville. There's a small sign alongside a two-lane county highway pointing down a gravel road. Keep your eyes peeled, or you'll miss it!

Wheel ruts have been carved deep into the dirt path. The tires of my rental car sank into these canyons while the molded lump of earth between the ruts dragged along the underneath of the car's frame. I worried that we would tear loose the vehicle's undercarriage. (Take note, family history road warriors, rent an SUV!) After a short distance, the road opened up into a small grassy parking lot in front of a gated cemetery that's well maintained.

Hester cemetery is where my 2nd great-grandparents Wilburn Malley and Annie Charles (Winkler) Wagnon are buried. The Wagnons were dealt a traumatic blow when they lost their 15-year-old son Wayne in 1937. According to a newspaper account, Wayne was run over by a "loaded truck" at his parents' home when he tried to board it. "He lost his footing and fell under the machine, which was loaded with rock, with a wheel passing over his body."

A homemade stone marker sits on his grave with his name scrawled into the monument's skyward-facing surface. Later in the road trip, an aunt shared with me a haunting photo of Annie visiting the grave of her son, laying flowers at the base of his headstone. Clearly, the heartache and loss was something she carried with her the rest of her life.

Today, the stone's inscription is difficult to read. On either side of Wayne's grave are two small square-sized numeric markers embedded in the grass. To the left of Wayne is a stone marked 47 and to the right is one marked 49. These are the graves of Annie and Wilburn. Annie is buried in plot 47 and Wilburn is buried in plot 49.

Our next scheduled stop was Neal Cemetery in Madison County, Arkansas. It's an old cemetery with the last burial more than 70 years ago. My 4th great-grandmother Elizabeth (Powell) Reeves was buried here in 1884. She was the wife of Jeremiah Turner Reeves, the War of 1812 ancestor whose grave we visited on day three. For unknown reasons they were buried in different cemeteries.

Following directions from FindAGrave and ArkansasGraveStones.org, we searched for an unnamed dirt drive that turned off Highway 74. There were several. The GPS kept conking out as the cell signal was lost deep in the Arkansas hills. One of the drives was sealed with a gate. Another shot upward at an insurmountable incline for the rental car. A third drive led to a private residence with no cemetery in sight.

Back on Highway 74, I pulled off the pavement alongside a lush green pasture populated with a dozen calves. I stepped out of the car to see if I could catch a cell signal. The cows paused their grazing and cocked their heads left and then right, curiously eyeing me as I walked with my iPhone futilely trying to reactivate my GPS. Although we knew we were close, we were at a loss and our day didn't have time enough to accommodate continued search efforts. We decided that Great-Grandma Reeves would be the reason we would come back. And hopefully with better instructions!

We left the hills behind us, and pulled into Strain Cemetery - the final resting place for my 3rd great-grandparents John and Mary Jane (Calfee) Wagnon (parents of the above-mentioned Wilburn). When Mary Jane pre-deceased John in 1914, he erected for her a modest-sized monument. Although there's no inscription on the stone or separate marker for John, his 1923 death certificate confirms that he was also buried in Strain. I believe he's buried beside his wife.

Headstone for Mary Jane (Calfee) Wagnon

The journey continued to Baptist Ford Cemetery in Greenland, Arkansas where my 3rd great-grandparents John Wesley and Martha (Bowen) Upton are buried. During the Civil War, John Upton served with Union forces, and readers of this blog will recall that I recently learned from his pension file that he was inoculated with "poison vaccine."

Upton Burial

It was difficult to locate their marker because the inscription was very faint. We discovered that someone had taken an abrasive tool to the surface of the stone to remove the obstructing moss. In the course of their efforts, they inadvertently scraped away portions of the inscription. I'm sure they meant well, but it's disheartening to see irreparable damage to stonework that's over a century old.

I couldn't travel all of this way and not make the extra 60 miles south to Fort Smith National Historic Site. It was at Fort Smith that John W. Upton enlisted with the Union army on October 1, 1863 - more than 150 years ago. Although the soldiers' barracks from the Civil War era no longer exist, I wanted to set foot on the ground where John enlisted and where he received his tainted vaccination. It was a tremendous experience to wander an American historic site with an articulated link to my family's own history.

J.W. Upton's Enlistment and Fort Smith grounds

Closing the day, we drove across the Arkansas River into Oklahoma - our road trip's fifth state. We spent the evening in Muskogee reconnecting with family that we hadn't seen in 21 years.

Day Four Recap

Miles Traveled: 180

Direct Ancestor Graves Visited: 6