The Haynes Family came to America in the 1720s from Ireland and England. They enjoyed playing games from cards to ball games. Many were drinkers and smokers, all hard working, honest and great entertainers with their stories and jokes. In 1993 our branch of the Haynes Clan had their first family reunion in over forty years after losing touch with each other when the parents died. Cousins from coast to coast met for the first time since they were children. The first food box carried into the hospitality room was the alcohol assortment. One of my brother-in-laws who had never met the Haynes side, grinned and joked with me, "Now this is the kind of reunion to have." The Woodard and Ketcherside reunion is held on the mountain each year with much food and drink, but the style of drink is quite soft.

Errol Haynes of West Helena, Arkansas first met Iva Woodard in 1926 when his parents, Aretus "Cap" Haynes and Helen Gordon Haynes moved to Lurton. "Cap" Haynes operated a barrel stave mill on the Sutton property at Lurton near the old Sutton barn. Young Errol Haynes and his brother Coleman worked for their father at the mill until the mill moved to Moore, Arkansas in late 1928.

Iva Woodard, fifth in a line of eight sisters, was born in a log house on the old Markey Place near Lurton in 1906. She completed eighth grade Tarlton school before moving to work in Jasper at the Murray Hotel in the early 20s, where she made many new friends.

The Woodard side of the family came to America from England in the early 1720s and the Ketcherside clan came from Edinburgh, Scotland. Ephraim Moore Woodard and Martha Ketcherside Woodard, Iva Woodard Haynes' parents, moved to Tarlton in 1904. Eph was a farmer, hard working and neighborly, people in the community knew they could depend on Eph Woodard for lending a hand.

Colleen Haynes Rongey is my name and my parents' newly married life was spent in the back woods of Newton County and for a short time, in the farther back woods of Missouri and Kentucky, following oak timber where Dad worked as a sawyer for barrel stave mills. At the time of my birth in February of 1928, they lived in an abandoned homesteaders log house built by the Isaac Freeman family, next to Tarlton Cemetery on Highway 123 three miles north of Lurton community.

Moving every few months, we lived in sawmill camps near Fallsville, Red Star, Boxley, Deer, Moore, Pelsor, Richland, Russellville, and back to Lurton in between. Sometimes living in an old house or vacant store building, even in tents with dirt floors. Nineteen thirties were hard times for young families starting out. When my sister Phyllis was born we were living at Fallsville, so we came to my aunt's house at Lurton for Dr. Sexton to deliver the baby. We moved to Russellville a short time in 1934 where my sister Patsy was born and Daddy walked four miles each way to a stave mill and waited to be hired. At times only for an hour or two, with no lunch and many times, no work. In depression years of 1929 to 1938, we moved around Newton County and between stave mill jobs, we lived in Grandpa Woodard's little house beside the Woodard Pond.

Still the heart of the depression and no work for Dad, off he went to work in a mill camp in the woods near Summersville, Missouri. When the mill timber was cut out in Missouri, we sent our bedroom set back to Grandpa's little house and rode the train to live with Aunt Dorothy and Uncle Coleman (Mothers sister married Daddy's brother) at the stave mill camp near Hot Spot, KY. On the train, little sister Phyllis threw up out the open window when the train was going. A lady on the train gave Mother some red hots (candies) for Phyllis to eat, first time we had red hot candies. I am in second grade this year and my cousin Lloyd Haynes and I have another new experience as we walk twice each day across the railroad bridge to a country school.

Moving again in 1937 to Harrison, we lived in a shotgun house in the Eagle Heights section. Listening to our neighbors radios, we heard about Hitler and the Germans. It sounded like war coming. Folks were nervous about any German person. Because he was German, one neighbor father couldn't get a job. Their family's food gone, Mother shared fresh milk and vegetables from Grandma Woodard's garden when she could. When my sisters and I ate something outside, their children asked us for a bite of food. Their mother died while we lived there and Mother always thought the cause was starvation. We lived next to the cemetery and as her funeral passed our house, Mother watched from the window and cried. This was before the days of welfare. With no family or friends to help as we did, they had no place to turn.

In 1938, we moved back to Lurton for the last time where Mother and Daddy bought a little unpainted house on five acres from Johnny White, next the Lurton school house. The twins, Carrol and Errol, Jr. were born soon after we moved in to our little three room unpainted house. Mother dressed all of us with handed down dresses Grandma Haynes sent us from city cousins in Little Rock. Feed sacks began to have pretty prints by then and she made dresses. She liked pretty things so she made curtains from the feed sacks, decorated with fancy stitches and lace she crocheted. Making quilts from leftover scraps for the beds and crocheted doilies on the dresser.

My dad was a big man, and strong. Some remember how he carried home groceries on payday from Thompson's Lurton General Store. Loading a 100 pound sack of feed to his shoulder, he sat on the store step while someone loaded a 50 pound sack of flour on top of that, then a 25 pound sack of meal. Sometimes he had them load a 5 pound sack of salt on top of this. The Lurton General Store porch sitters and spitters went out in the road and watched Dad as he walked the half mile to our house, making bets if he would make it all the way home with his load on his shoulders.

Mother cooked for a bunch of folks many Sundays. Her homemade rolls, cream pies, squirrel and dumplings are still memorable. With little meat except chickens and whatever Dad killed in the woods, pork tenderloin was a treat once a year at hog killing time. Each morning of our lives, we had biscuits and flour gravy for breakfast and dinner and supper cornbread, pintos and fried potatoes and onion, along with whatever she had in the garden or canned. Bananas, light bread and potted meat was a treat. Eating was our biggest form of entertainment, then as it is now. My sister Carrol told me this week, "Our All American diet is killing us all." She's right but, hey, we can't blame it on the pintos, maybe the mountain fat back we learned to like. Enjoy!

In the early thirties, with no electricity on the mountain, I C Sutton put in a Delco for lighting his big white house in Lurton. He later ran wires from there to the Lurton School house so we could have school programs and community meetings. Silent Movies were shown by the Spitler Brothers who came from Russellville in an old T Model truck once a week at the school house, shown in black and white with the dialogue printed in script to read on the bottom of the film. With a white sheet draped over the blackboard, the Spitler Brothers set up their projector in back of the room, beaming a picture to the sheet. We watched the older young people when lights came on as they changed their reels of film and if their boyfriend had his arm around the girls, he moved it fast when the film got to the end. Mostly we sat on backs of the two seater desks with our feet in the seats and watched the scenes around us and on film. Little kids sat on the front row and the favorite actor was Buster Keaton and the Keystone Cops. They took up 5 cents for kids and 10 cents for adults at first. When the show went to "talkies" it went up to 10 cents and 25 cents. Popular all over the mountain, folks came in truck loads from Bass, Mt. Judea and Jasper. On summer nights with the schoolhouse windows open, the men stood outside leaning on their cars watching the show when the house was full.

At Lurton, since our house was next door to the Schoolhouse, our early life was lived around all functions going on there. From our front porch, we saw every thing going there and most everything had admission of some sort. Florence Handyside and Helen Leavie of Moody Bible Institute in Chicago, started our first school house Sunday School. Mother laughed when my little four year brother came running in and asked for a nickel to pay his way in to Sunday School.

Another day, we saw an old truck drive in the schoolyard. Pots and pans hanging all over, it came clanging into the school yard. Looking strange to us, with it's bright colors and signs. We watched as they opened up the tent sides on the truck and hung up a sign that said, "Gypsy Medicine Show - Dancing and Singing, Fortune Telling." Neighbors came to see what it was all about and my little sister Phyllis began crying and holding to Mothers skirts, when a dark man with long black hair and cloak looked at her. Mother traded them a chicken for us to see their Gypsy show. Living close by, our chickens sometimes visited the schoolyard, and Mother was nervous about all her other chickens until they drove away.

Lurton Schoolhouse was the polling place for voting in local and national hot political races. Everyone already knew who was a Republican and Democrat. You were born one or the other. Even as a little kid, we knew what kind we were and had bloody nose fights over this thing on the school bus. Your friends turned on you when we got near election time, choosing up sides in a hurry. So much for election day on the mountain in the thirties.

Picnics at Lurton are legend in Newton County. With a wood floored dance platform built high off the ground and live string music, men paid ten cents a dance. Moonshine flowing and fights breaking out , usually the same people continued their feud from one picnic to the next...we children were not allowed on the picnic ground alone. Dad went with us and let us ride the swings, or Mother the airplane rides at the Freeman field when Mr. Sutton rented a plane for rides. Doyne Heffley tells me about riding the airplane with his cousin Custer Heffley. He said he was scared to death when Custer told the pilot, "Turn us a flip!" Doyne said, "I begged him not to do that till he got me down."

Most mountain families played string music and everyone sang at musicals in the homes. Families took turns hosting dances. In our small houses, the men carried all the furniture out in the yard and with the musicians in one corner, danced in every room. We remember great fun with the dances and musicals in homes and things were usually quiet. Some of you remember dances at the Ricketts, Smiths, Bickners, Daniels, Dad Tuckers, Alton Thompsons, and others around Lurton. Music was furnished by Luther and Bea Merriman, Crease and Andrew Smith, Ernest and Margaret Daniel, Charlie Rosamond and Athel Heffley on the fiddle, and many others.

About this time, President Roosevelt came up with some projects for the mountain folks, from WPA to CCCs. Finally had us making mattresses at the school house. Truck loads of cotton unloaded in the school yard, and yards of ticking and cording. Each day the neighbors drew lots for who was to get the next mattress and everyone worked on all of the mattresses. White bales of cotton spread out all over the school yard, sunning, ready to be sunned and stitched into mattresses with big giant needles, it looked for the world like a summer snow storm. The first and only mattresses cotton most of us ever had. We had feather beds and straw mattresses before this time. People came came out of the backwoods and met in schoolyards... to make each a mattress, much like a quilting party we had good time, men and women alike, working and visiting.

On September 23, 1940 life in Newton County changed forever. Our coal oil lamps were put on the shelf for emergencies as the electricity was turned on at Lurton!nbsp; Our three room house, back porch and front porch each had its drop cord in place, with a bare light bulb hanging down in the center. From coal oil lamplight to the bright electric light, what an experience. An electric iron was ready to plug in, a radio in the front room, with a wringer washer sitting on the front porch, we are ready. Down the road in Lurton town proper, Charlie and Ora Sutton had a baby boy named Lloyd on this day, and Granny Crawford had her birthday celebration at the Lurton Hotel where she lives with the Harry and Josie Tatro family. Next to the hotel, Mitchell Smith's Garage has a dance floor and a juke box with Bob Wills and The Texas Playboys records of "Steel Guitar Rag and San Antonio Rose" ready for dancing.

On the electric radio, the world outside the mountain came into our front room. Names like Hitler and Mussolini became household words as we heard Gabriel Heater talk about them on the news. Mother listened to Ma Perkins as she ironed and Dad never missed the world champion prize fights and major league ball games. Each night, all of us sat glued to the radio as we heard the squeaking door of Inner Sanctum, and "Henry, Henry Aldrich" with his teen age voice cracking as he answered, "Coming, Mother". Fanny Brice as Baby Snooks with her troubles and "Jack Armstrong, the All American Boy" made us dream about eating Wheaties. Saturday night came alive for us at the Grand Ole Opery with the Solemn Old Judge George D. Hay, Minnie Pearl, and Little Jimmy Dickens' "Take a cold tater and wait." Now these are folks we can relate to. Finally,we have a radio of our own as until this time we went to Aunt Nellie Daniels' house and she listened to news and her favorites, then turned the radio off to save batteries. We loved our radio and groaned when we missed our favorite shows as President Roosevelt came on with his Fireside Chats. All seven of us sat as near the radio as we could, listening to the voices of George and Gracie and Fibber McGehee and Molly's closet falling in.

December 7, 1941 life changed again...Pearl Harbor! From this time until the war was over, the Iva and Errol Haynes family scattered as did most other mountain families. With news of Pearl Harbor, we ran for the geography book to see where Pearl Harbor was. Fear of that day turned to tears very soon as we said goodbye to Frank Bickner, Harry Sutton, Ernest Daniel, Elmer Gregory, Bill Bristow, Cecil Oliver, the Davis twins, and other neighbor boys and cousins on both sides of the family. Later, with even more sadness as we received word via the US Mail that Frank Bickner was lost in action over the Mediterranean Sea. Frank Bickner was never found. Elmer Gregory was a prisoner of war in Germany. While he was a prisoner, neighbors helped when a tornado lifted the Gregory house off the foundation. They sat it back up for his wife Myrtle Gregory and the children. Elmer Gregory was later released from a German prison and, thank the Lord, we still see him at the Tarleton Cemetery on Decoration Day. (Since this article was written in 1995, Elmer Gregory has died and is buried in Tarlton Cemetery.)

More goodbye tears for Lurton folks began early in 1942 when neighbors began to leave the mountain for work in the defense factories of California. Berry Heffley, Ben Hankins and others cleaned up cattle trucks to haul loads of people to California. Hauling truck loads of people each way, entire families moved back and forth as they worked for a time in California fruit fields and factories, then back to the mountain to attend school or see about their farm. By war's end many bought larger farms and paid for cattle and equipment. As for Mother and Daddy, they paid for their little place and repaired and remodeled the house. Never did get it painted, nor did we ever get inside water. We drew water from the well had had WPA workers built us a new outhouse. A one holer. (They did not vote Democrat that year.)

Dad worked in California for short periods back and forth in the forties. In the summer of 1944, school was out at Deer and I was sixteen years old, Mother sent me to Oakland, CA on the Greyhound bus to live where Dad was living and help find a place for the rest of the family to move. At the time Dad worked in a barrel factory in Oakland and along with about twelve other men from Newton County boarded with Anna Mae and Eldrich Davis from Vendor.

Soon I decided I didn't want to live in California. I missed mountain life, never once looking for a place to live as I promised Mother. Enjoying the summer of '44, and being 16 years old, I went with friends I met at work in the defense factory to the USO to visit and dance with young service men, (For the war effort, you know) but couldn't wait to get back to Newton County and my life there. At summer's end, Daddy came in one day and said, "Sis, I've agreed to help drive Berry Heffley's truck home to Newton County and it's time for you to go home and go back to school. You can ride the bus or ride with us on the truck."

I tied my hair up in a bandana, put on a hat and rode home to Lurton on Berry Heffley's cattle truck. Bouncing along, looking out through tall wood sides and sitting under a tarp to keep out rain and sun we drove night and day for seven days. Hot desert days and cold desert nights, a problem sleeping and eating, chili and hamburgers looked good to us in the few "rest stops" on Route 66. Some of you were on that truck or on another trip to California. Berry Heffley made many trips from 1941 through 1946. E L Heffley was ten years old at the time, and he made the trip with us along with his parents, Viola and Elmer Heffley. My sister Carrol later married E L Heffley and EL and I talk about our days on that truck ride from California and how hot, cold and sleepy we were.

Before he went to California to work my dad drove a road grader for Arkansas Highway Department, as Number Seven Highway had recently been rebuilt. He later worked on WPA projects in Newton County . Mother placed us with relatives and went to work at Lockheed Aircraft in Burbank, California for a few months in 1943. They both worked for Sutton Handle factory until it moved to Harrison in 1951. With no more work at Lurton, mother finally moved the family to Kansas City where she worked in a factory where she lived only two months when she died in July of 1951, at age 46 of stroke. Dad died ten years later of a heart attack in 1960 at 56 years old. Both are buried at Tarlton Cemetery at Lurton.

It's now 1998. We Haynes "children" from Lurton live all around the United States. One in New Orleans, one in Los Angeles area, two in Kansas City area and one in Little Rock . We get together at the Woodard family reunion each year on Tarlton Cemetery Decoration Day, fourth Sunday in May at the Ernest Daniel Memorial Park near the Woodard pond on the old Ephraim Woodard place at Lurton.

Errol and Iva Haynes had five children, and 12 grandchildren.

Children and grandchildren are:

1. Colleen Haynes, Born February 5, 1928 in an old log house at Lurton. Married Paul Rongey October 15, 1949 at Fort Smith, Arkansas. Now living in New Orleans, LA, they have 4 sons, Mike, John, Robert, Scott Rongey, 7 grandsons, 1 granddaughter, Daniel, Joshua, Jessica, Adam, Matthew, Michael, Jacob, Ben Rongey.

2. Phyllis Haynes, Born November 9,1930 at Lurton, Married Lynn Dennis, California, 1952. Lynn Died 1992 Phyllis lives in Redondo Beach, CA. and has 1 son, and 2 daughters, Jeffrey, Janet, Jeanna Dennis, 3 grandsons, 1 granddaughter, Jason, Courtney, Steven, David.

3. Patsy Haynes, Born February 8, 1934 in Russellville, Married Fred Coonts, 1952, Jasper. Pat and Fred Live in Independence, MO. They have three sons, Gary, Jerry and John Coonts3 granddaughters, Taylor, Emily and Jennifer Coonts, and 1 grandson, Jeremy Tyler Coonts.

4. Carrol Haynes, Born April 8, 1938 at Lurton, AR (Errol is her twin) Married EL Heffley, 1954 Lurton . They have 1 son, Mark David Heffley. They live in Little Rock, AR.

5. Errol (Buddy) Haynes, Born April 8, 1938 at Lurton, Married Wilma and live in Independence, Mo. They have 1 daughter, Alicia Haynes. (Errol and Carrol are twins)

Patsy Haynes Coonts died in Kansas City, Missouri in 1998 and is buried in Tarlton Cemetery. Phyllis Haynes Dennis died in Los Angeles, California in 2000 and is buried in Tarlton Cemetery.

You can visit Tarlton Cemetery and see our Haynes Bench...This is the only seat in the Cemetery and when all the Haynes children made our annual migration to Lurton in 1997...we went over and purchased our stones and had them set in Tarlton Cemetery next to our parents...Not wanting to view my own stone for awhile, I bought a concrete cemetery bench and had it engraved "Dedicated to the Haynes Family" and had it placed beside them all...Now, you can look out over Tarlton Cemetery and see a lone bench sitting there, inviting you to sit down and rest a spell and visit one more time with the Haynes Family of Lurton.