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357. John Hilmon Taylor
John Hilmon Taylor (Uncle Hilmon) was the oldest of the three Taylorsons. He and his wife Blanche (Aunt Blanche) moved from Jacinto toMalvern in 1927 and started a "truck" farm on the outskirts of town. Theyexpanded the farm to 17 acres and the family made a living sellingproduce from a truck to residents of Malvern. The entire family wereactive members of the First Assembly of God Church.
The Taylor home place is now the site of the Hot Spring County Hospital.Both Hilmon and Blanche Taylor are buried in the Oak Grove Cemetery,Malvern, Arkansas.
Blanche Ewing and her parents moved from Texas to Jacinto, DallasCounty, Arkansas in 1915. She
and Hilmon Taylor were married on 15 October 1916 by the Rev. John Glass.
While a student at Monticello Normal School, Martha Taylor (Aunt Mattie)secretly married the Reverend Lemuel Dedman, a Methodist minister.
John Lemuel Dedman ( Uncle Lem) was a Methodist minister who became adistrict superintendent of the Arkansas division of the MethodistChurch. He lived in Camden in his later years.
Clarissia was called "Giggie" by the Taylor family - Aunt Giggie to theyounger generations. As a young girl she attended the Monticello NormalSchool, now the University of Arkansas at Monticello, but at that time apreparatory school for teachers.
How she met her future husband, Ross Jones, is unclear. One story isthat Ross was a hired hand on her father's farm. As the story goes, herfather objected to the wedding on the grounds that she was marryingbeneath her class and could do much better than Ross. The other is thatshe met him through Ross' sister, Ida Jones, who was then a telephoneoperator in Fordyce and roomed at Kate Cabler's boarding house. KateCabler was Clarissia's aunt and the mother of Cleveland Cabler. Which ,if either, is true, we do not know. Ross and Clarissia lived in PineBluff initially and then in Hanesville, Louisiana. But it was not longbefore they settled on the Jones family farm at Kingsland in ClevelandCounty, Arkansas.
In 1935 she left Ross in Kingsland and, with her three young children,moved in with a friend, Miss Dora, on her small farm near Ironton, acommunity South of Little Rock. She found work with the Works ProgressAdministration (WPA) in Little Rock teaching better home-making to poorpeople. After a year with Miss Dora she and the children moved into anapartment in a large white, frame house at Fifth and Ferry Streets neardowntown Little Rock.
Later, with proceeds from the1936 divorce settlement with Ross and advicefrom her cousin, Cleveland Cabler, she paid $100 for an acre of land onArch Street Pike about four miles South of town. And for $200 more shehad carpenters build the four room house where the family lived until1944. There was no electricity, telephone or running water at first.But after several years, first electricity and then telephone servicecame. The family never had indoor plumbing while they lived there. Withher WPA salary of $30-45 per month and a small subsistence farmingoperation, she raised the three children in such a way that they neverfelt poor or deprived. Clarissia continued working for the WPA untillate l944 when, with Evelyn married and Conrad in the Army, she andNorvill moved to Malvern to be near two of her brothers. Norvill wentto Washington in 1945 and she then moved to a small farm near Sheridan tobe near her mother and her youngest brother, Curt. Several years latershe moved to 3518 West 13th Street in Little Rock where she lived untilgoing into the Good Shepherd retirement home.
Ross Jones was handsome, red-headed and freckle faced, the stereotypicalpicture of a Southern boy grown into manhood. According to his Armydischarge he was 5' 10 1/2", had grey eyes and a fair complexion. Hegrew up on his father's farm but soon set out to be something other thana farmer. After attending a business school in nearby Pine Bluff, wherehe lived with his sisters Ida and Rose at 825 Texas Street, he became abookkeeper. He had beautiful handwriting and one of his pastimes waswriting poetry. Many of his poems have survived the years including onethat he wrote in California for his young son, Norvill, after Ross andClarissia had divorced.
At Pine Bluff on October 5, 1917, he enlisted in the air branch of theArmy and served in France with the 1101st Aero Squadron. He remained inFrance after the war ended and while there attended the Army's "AmericanE. F. University" in Beaune, Cote D'Or where he completed several coursesin agriculture. He returned to the United States in July 1919 and washonorably discharged as a private first class at Camp Pike, Arkansas onJuly 18, 1919.
After Ross and Clarissia married, they soon settled on the Jones farmoutside of Kingsland in Cleveland County. The home place was back in thepines, reached by an old wagon road that came off the gravel road thatled to Kingsland a mile or so away. Beda, Ross' mother, was stillliving there at that time. Their house was a typical Southern "dog-trot"with an open breezeway down the middle that their hound dog "Limber"could - and did - trot through. It was made of rough, unpainted pineprobably cut at a local sawmill from trees that grew on the farm.
When Nathan Henry Jones settled in Kingsland, it was a thriving communityof many stores, hotels and even a newspaper. By the time of Ross andClarissia's marriage, it was in terminal decline. Eight miles fromKingsland was the town of Fordyce, county seat of Dallas County. It isknown to gamblers far and wide for the crap shooter's prayer: "Four diceon the Cottonbelt!", based on the then Cottonbelt Belt Railroad that ranthrough both towns. Kingsland's only claim to fame is that it is thebirthplace of Johnny Cash.
For reasons unknown to their children, the marriage of Ross and Clarissiadid not last and they were divorced on October 12, 1936 by a chancerycourt decree of Cleveland County (with Ross as plaintiff). Afterselling the farm for $500, he left for California where he worked as aclerk in a San Francisco hotel and, after WWII broke out, in theshipyards.
After the war, he went to El Paso, Texas where his sister, Ida, lived.In 1946, Ross came back to Arkansas to visit Conrad and, while there,he and Clarissia re-married. But it failed again. Within a few monthshe left to re-join his sister, Ida, in El Paso where he died on March 3,1948.
Delma Joe Daniel and Clarissia Taylor Jones were childhood friends inDallas County, Arkansas. He was in World War I and moved to Californiaas a young man where he worked in the oil fields at Long Beach. Afterthe death of his first wife, he married Clarissia in California and theymoved to her home at 3518 West 13th Street in Little Rock, Arkansas.They are buried together in the Forest Hills Cemetery, Saline CountyArkansas.
360. George Evans Taylor
George Evans Taylor was "Uncle Evans", a friendly, warm man who had akeen sense of humor and knew how to tell a lively story. One of his bestwas about the time when he bought a mule that had not been broken.Getting the mule to his farm several miles outside Malvern proved to be areal challenge. While his son, Evans, Junior, slowly drove their ModelA Ford toward home , Uncle Evans held his arm out the car window andtried to lead the balky mule by a rope and halter. The mule had otherideas and finally took off through the woods pulling Evans behind him.Both the mule and Uncle Evans survived.
His family nickname was "Slick", given to him by his sister, Clarissia,from an incident that happened while they were children. Having beensent outside to get a load of wood for the cook stove, Evans slid down inthe muddy yard and came back looking a mess. Clarissia, poking fun athim, said that "Slick" should be his nickname - and so it was.
During World War I, John Wesley Taylor bought a used chain driven truckwhich had many chain related problems. He later traded it in on a Metztouring car, another chain driven vehicle. In order to keep the car inoperation, out of necessity Evans became a mechanic. Soon afterwards hisfather died of cancer and, sure enough, the car broke down with Evansdriving his girlfriend - later his wife - to the funeral. They nevermade it in time for the service.
Evans Taylor and his wife, Gladys, are buried in the Cooper Cemetery nearMalvern, Arkansas.
363. Curtis Hughes Taylor
Curtis Hughes Taylor (Uncle Curt) was named for Rev. T. F. Hughes, one ofhis mother's favorite Methodist preachers. When Curt was a young boy theRev. Hughes gave him as a gift a framed photo of George Willis Green, hisgrandfather, and his third wife, Mary. This photo was given to Clarissiaby her mother, Cattie, and Norvill now has it.
Curt was only six when his father died. He was raised by his mother andhis brother, Evans, who took over running the farm after the death of hisfather. Curt was the last son to remain on the old Taylor home place inthe Jacinto community. There he farmed, looked after his mother'swelfare and started to raise a family. He stayed in Jacinto untilshortly after the end of WWII when he moved his family and his motherto a farm between Sheridan and Little Rock. Sometime after the death ofhis mother in 1948, he moved to Little Rock. For several years he workedas a butcher at a Model market near McArthur Park and, afterwards, as acarpenter. His family lived in the Geyer Springs community South ofLittle Rock.
He was a kind and gentle man, a real salt-of-the-earth type. He was verygood to his older sister Clarissia, caring for her more like a son than abrother. Like most Southern men who moved off the farn to a suburbanlife, he remained an avid hunter, fisherman and gardener. Their freezerwas always full of good things to eat.
Tragically, Curt died at the relatively young age of 72 of stomachcancer, the same affliction that killed his father.
Augustine Louise House Taylor was born in Hope, Hempstead County Arkansasto Winfield Johnson and Amanda Carlee Kay House. She was called "Sug" -for sugar - by relatives. An excellent cook of Southern food, it wasalways a treat to have a meal at their home.