Father: Columbus Washington CAIN
Mother: Ora Ellen WRIGHT
_____________________________
_Alonso Jackson CAIN ___|
| |_____________________________
_Columbus Washington CAIN _|
| | _____________________________
| |_Sara LADD _____________|
| |_____________________________
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|--Gayle Wright CAIN
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| _Franklin Pierce WRIGHT _____+
| _Charles Gaylon WRIGHT _|
| | |_Martha Jane THOMPSON _______+
|_Ora Ellen WRIGHT _________|
| _Newton Jasper BARBEE _______
|_Jimmie Minnie BARBEE __|
|_Manorva Clementine COLLIER _
Notes:
Escaped the cotton fields of Woodruff County and ran off to the steel mills of Chicago at an young age. Eventually returned in her retirement years, to find that the Arkansas of her youth had largely vanished. An excellent story teller, and a primary Wright source for me. We exchanged email for about a year before we met in Arkansas. My host and guide for my 1999 research trip. She drove me all over the country side, over several dirt (or sand) roads with pot holes that could have swallowed even the large family car that we were in. She would point out empty site after empty site in those large, plowed-over fields where homes use to be and families lived their whole life, and she could tell me a story about each one. The land was like an encylopedia to be read from for her.
| From an email message sent 14 September 1998, during a visit with Ollie Wright Cain in McCrory: | ||
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* Aunt Ollie do you remember Aunt
Sack? Oh yes I do, When my papa's strawberries got ripe he always fixed a special basket of berries for Sack. I would go with him to take them to her. But her daughter never allowed us to sit in the living room, that was for special company and she didn't want it messed up. She says she loved Aunt Sack and her Papa did too. * Do you remember where she lived? Yes just north of the old brick school [we are driving past where the old school stood]. She said about here, that is all we could see since the house was gone. * Do you know why they called her Sack? No I never knew, never thought about it. She was always Sack to Papa. He never called her Sally Sack, just Sack. While she is saying this I am wondering if he was unable to say Sarah when he was young and said Sack and the name stuck. This is only my thoughts. In the south it is a common thing to have a NICKNAME. When I was about three years my Dad started calling me Windy because I talked so much. I never heard him call me any other name. You know the old school was on the corner of Third and Jackson and faced Jackson, the back side faced Seamen St. I remember the school, I attended school there after the second grade. It was demolished in the late fifties. It was the second building from the corner, The corner building was a gym with class rooms in the upstairs... I drove to Deview and around to the old church, she showed me on the west side of the church they had big church picnics. Across the road on the north side was where the business area was. Ernie was at Uncle Henry's, it was her turn to parent sit for the week end. Henry looked good and was very alert. * After a while I ask Ernie if she knew where E. A. Wright lived and raised his family. No I don't, never thought to ask. Aunt Ollie didn't know either. * Ernie ask her Dad if he knew. Yes, I do know. He owned two hundred acres of ground where Luther Reeves lived. And it was sold to Doctor Morris. ...I was shocked, I never knew that and I don't think anyone else did. Mom never mentioned it. We all lived and most died within five miles of each other only at different times. I wasn't able to learn if he sold the land in old age or if the estate sold it. This is where Franklin P and Sack lived. * Uncle Henry how did your father come about owning this farm? Well I tell You, his first wife inherited it from her daddy [she was my grandfather's mother -- Henry and Ollie are by the second wife]. Then he went on to say that his Papa was nearly a wealthy man. He owned a cotton gin and a saw mill near the old Beards cemetery and school [where the snakes are]. He said his Papa did business on the credit. Times got tough and the people couldn't pay him so he had to sell the gin. It was moved to Deview after it was sold. He said the saw mill and cotton gin were both operated from the same engine. * Uncle Henry did your Papa ever talk about coming to Arkansas from North Carolina? Yes he said he was 14 when they came in a wagon and stayed about two years in Tennessee. He said the place in Tennessee but I didn't understand him... * Uncle Henry did your Papa say how they crossed the Mississippi River? Yes he did, they had to wait until the river was low [don't know how long the wait was or if they got there at the right time]. They swam the horses and cattle across and floated the people and wagons across on flat boats. They used long poles to steer the boats. I would love to know if only their family made the move or if other families came with them. * Uncle Henry how come they moved to Arkansas? Papa said they heard of good farm land that was cheap to buy. * Uncle Henry do you know what E.A. died from? No I never heard. We thought Papa [he is talking about Franklin P. now] died from stomach cancer, it was never diagnosed. Aunt Ollie perks up and said she always thought he had cancer of the colon. After he became ill she remembered hearing her Mother say, Mr. Wright did you use your medicine yet. He would say no and head for the barn. The barn was a private place and she figured he had to use medicine for his bowels. They never talked about such things as that then. Ollie said her mother always addressed her papa as Mr. Wright [Franklin P.] You are right about the Wrights, they were the majority in the Beards community. There is a lot of people in the McCrory area that we are related to. Just about every one ties into the Wrights, that is all the old families... I was exhausted by the time I got home. I left Henry's and drove south to that road... and drove past the E. A. Wright farm -- turned left at the dead end and drove to route 64 through Possum Creek... the Possum Creek road continues about a mile or so south and dead ends, the farm on the north east corner was my grandpa Gaylon's. We lived there when I started to school. My sister Charlotte and I walked two miles to school, she is five years older than me. She loved to fight and would whip every boy on the road to and from school. January of the same year we moved to Possum Creek, we lived 1/4 mile west on the road that the club house is on. Our house and the Crossett house and the club house are the only houses left at Possum Creek... As for the Crossett family... You know the old house [I had taken a picture of it in 1997] burned a few weeks ago. I sure hated to see it go... When I drive through the country it is like the past jumps out. I can see all the houses and churches and school houses and some time I can see the people in the yards. I guess I sound crazy but it is all there. Now there is no woods, people, nothing but memories. Drive on down the road and there they all are together in one of the three cemeteries. I don't take that drive very often, I always feel so washed out after going through the country and am blue for a couple of days. I always like to take the drive alone. It seems I am the only one that it affects. Maybe because I'm the only one that left the area from my family. They had to deal with the deaths when it happened. I come home and it all hits me at once. I use to go to the cemetery once in awhile when I came home for a visit. I was always shocked, to see a name and date on the tombstone and not know the person had died. That is the worse part of living in a community where you know everyone all your life... |
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This page created on 04/23/00 01:33:20 . Updated 09/07/00 21:30.
