On a bright Monday morning in early October of 1996, my sisters Patsy Haynes Coonts from Independence, Mo, and Carrol Haynes Heffley from Little Rock and myself, Colleen Haynes Rongey from New Orleans met at our cousin Lois Daniels home at Lurton. Other cousins Joan and Richard Daniels and Mary Alford and her mother Ida Dean from Harrison, joined us for our trip across the mountain to Snowball in Searcy County. Armed with cameras, chigger and ticks off, boots on for the snakes and a picnic lunch we set out to Harrison to begin the circle around the road to Snowball, Witts Springs and Richland.

Plans are to visit Searcy County cemeteries McMahan, Hall, Witts Springs and Hendrix Cemeteries. We met Cousin Mary Alford in Harrison and traveled in two pickup trucks down Highway 65, turning at the sign for Snowball. In Snowball, we drove to the home of our eighty-seven year old Woodard Cousin Belford Hendrix and he rode with us as our guide/family storyteller. Born and raised at Snowball, he has seen changes in his lifetime, he says, from horse and oxen days of quot;arn tardquot; (iron tired) wagons to jet airplanes that fly over his farm.

About four years ago, Snowball's last general store was closed. Buildings are standing in the little town, boarded up. A mute message that we came just in time.

The McMahan Cemetery is up on a hill in the center of farm pasture, fenced and mowed, with trees around the back side and a view of the evening sunset. Near the left, back side of McMahan, we found the Woodard grave stones. Cousin Zella Drewry Ruff, now of Harrison, daughter of Luvena Woodard Drewry, said she always decorated twenty seven graves but does not know the order of names. At this time, we believed some of these to be Isham Davis Woodard and his wife Rebecca Webb Woodard and their son, William M.Woodard and his wife Susannah J. Woodard. Since this article was written in 1996, a cousin in Gentry, Arkansas sent a photo via email to a cousin in Kansas City of ggrandfather Isham Davis Woodard and his wife's stone found in Springtown Cemetery in Benton County. This find opens up a new world for the Isham Davis Woodard descendants, now that we have found GRANDPA. In fact, this is how I decided to write this page, through the cousin denis in kansas city and his help.

Seventeen Woodard graves are unmarked with a fieldstone rock as was the custom of the early days. Ten marked gravestones include Benjamin Franklin Woodard (1846-1932) his wife Azuba Woodard (1856-1926), their children Florencenbsp;(May 1902-Nov 1902), Linda J.(Aug 1889-Aug1890), Johnnie W. (Aug 1882-Aug l883) Luvena Woodard Drewry (July 1908-July 1939) Alford Woodard (1885-1916), Buster Woodard 1909-1924), Ralph,(1907-1908) Mounterville Woodard, Pvt, Co D, 11 GA Inf. Conf.States Army (1832-1875), his wife Elizabeth Ann Martin. They married 24 December, 1848 in Tennessee. She was purported to be half Cherokee.

The Hall Cemetery is down another forest service road. Here, five Woodard family members are buried in unmarked graves. Monroe Woodard, a child of Will and Martha Woodard, Renee Thomas, 19 year old step-daughter of Will Woodard and her seven year old son who died of whooping cough along with two unknown family graves. We noticed some fieldstone rock markers piled up around trees and were told that someone hired a local "hippie group" to clean off the cemetery a few years ago. They came in with a bush-hog and "cleaned it off." Many stones are still piled around the trees.

At Witts Springs Cemetery with its tall iron gate of painted purple grapes and green leaves, we found graves of Dorsey Woodard, a WW 1 veteran. The gravestones of Gertrude Woodard.

Hendrix, eldest daughter of Will and Martha Taylor Woodard, mother of Belford and Ida, and grandmother of Mary Alford, our host is on the far left. Other Woodard girls married local men.

Spreading a tailgate picnic lunch, we sat to enjoy the perfect fall day of warm sunshine and breezes when a pet deer trotted nonchalantly up to share our bread and cheese. Down the road came his "parents" riding up on a four wheeler to entice him to come home. The last time we saw them all. they went out of sight pushing the vehicle and begging him to come home.

Crossing back and forth across Richland Creek several times, we passed Point Peter Mountain, Granny's Creek and other creeks to the home of Junior (Son) Hendrix, uncle of Mary Alford. The Hendrix Cemetery is on his farm near where Will Woodard, Grandpa Ephraim Woodard's brother, was killed by a mob in 1900. Will Woodard is buried in this cemetery in a marked grave.

Following Cousin Mary Alford's truck, she led the way back up the mountain through the forest and we drove along a narrow road to Eula where we saw the log house she was born in. Having only two rooms, her mother Ida told us they raised nine children in that house and that at times another family stayed for a weeks visit.

In the 1800s, Woodard relatives walked across this mountain on foot, on horseback and in wagons from our Grandpa Ephraim Woodard's homestead at Tarlton in Newton County to his grandfather Isham Davis and his father, William Woodard's place at Snowball. Our 87 year old cousin, Belford Hendrix, who lived back then. told us of a man who lived near the foot of this mountain and rented his team to travelers as they pulled the quot;arn tardquot;( iron tired) wagons up the steep mountain. How much did he charge to pull you up the mountain? "Fifteen cents if you had it, nothin' if you didn't." Rough and steep, we could see how it must have been in a wagon.

The next day we went down the mountain to Bass and explored Cave Creek in Newton and Searcy County. The Little Rosamond Cemetery is on the right side of the road in the woods about three miles from the Tarlton Y. Here, we saw graves of Samuel E Rosamond (1888-1960). My mother Iva Woodard's sister, Dullie Woodard, married Ed Rosamond. One set of our Woodard first cousins are of the Rosamond family. In the early twenties for a short time, Sam was married to another sister, Nellie Woodard. The first Rosamond's in Newton County, Nonimus N.Rosamond (1853-1908) and Rosie A. Rosamond (1859-1925) were parents of Ed, Fred, and Sam. Nonimus Rosamond was killed on New Years Day 1908 and his wife Rosa had her arm shot off in the same attack at their home near Lurton. Nonimus owned the sawmill at Lurton and the twins Ed and Fred, young teenagers, took over the operation of the mill after their fathers death. Fred later married Flora Overturff whose mother was killed in the same attack.

At Bass, we stopped by Colleen Martin Tennison's front yard. Colleen is the daughter of Odle Tennison who owned property across by Cave Creek we believed to be our Grandpa Woodard's first homestead in Newton County. Around 1900, the Ephraim Woodard family homesteaded on the mountain at Lurton. Anyone who may know the location of his farm, we'd like to hear from you. Colleen brought out her new Cemetery book by the Haddocks to help find Woodard and Ketcherside graves.

McCutcheon Cemetery is up the hill from Cave Creek. A large, fenced and well kept cemetery, most of the graves were marked. We photographed stones of Ephraim Woodard's first wife, Rosalie Dickey Woodard (d1890) and their two young sons, Grant and Johnnie buried in next to Charlie Woodard (1893-1894), infant son of Ephraim and Martha Ketcherside Woodard.

Not finding Grandpa James Hosey Ketcherside's name in the cemetery book, we decided he may be buried on top of the mountain near Iceledo. This cemetery has never been charted in any cemetery book . Grandma Woodard's sister, Belle Ketcherside married Henry Hill and the Ketcherside cousins, the Hills of Harrison, need to direct us to this one on another day. My sister, Carrol Heffley said she remembers visiting them at Iceledo when she was a child.

"It seemed like we walked miles straight up a mountain." She called it Billy Goat Hill.

In Mt.Judea, we stopped for a hamburger at Herb's cafe. The old part of the road from Judea up to Sam's Throne is the same crooked and steep mountain road that Doctor Sexton drove in his Model T to deliver Iva Woodard and Errol Haynes' first baby in 1928. Creeping through the worst snowstorm of the century, he always said he slipped and slid the ten mile trip to an old log house on the Woodard home place. Now the year 1996, I'm the baby Dr.Sexton helped bring the world that day. As we slowly pulled our way up the rocky road, I thought... this must be what is meant to come full circle for sure. Almost but not quite....I hope...I want to do this again, in the spring.

Topping the mountain near Lurton, we stopped to take pictures of the famous Sam's Throne, a mountain named for Sam Davis, great-grandfather of my sister Carrol's husband, EL Heffley. This stretch of Highway 123 is now being hard surfaced. Two years in the working so far, following a road bed originally layed out in the 1800's by another ancestor of EL Heffley, Barnett Cheatham. Rebuilt again in 1925 as State 123, this road will one day be known as another Newton County Scenic Drive.

Along the way, one truck of cousins had stopped along the road when they saw a tree covered in wild grapes. Possum Grapes. They carried them home and for two nights, my husband, Paul Rongey picked grapes off the stems for Cousin Lois Daniel to make jelly. In New Orleans this past week, Paul got a package from Lois. Two jars of the best Possum Grape jelly you ever tasted. He took one jar to McDonalds for his Breakfast Group of Retired Cronies to taste that day. They gave him orders: quot;Don't take this home, someone will eat our jelly.quot; So each morning, he digs around underneath his car seat for his Possum Grape Jelly for their McDonald biscuits. Thank you, Lois, for sharing.

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