“Carousel horses are not just made of wood, they are painted with memories.” Bette Largent
The Herschell-Spillman Carousel, aka The Over-the-Jumps Carousel has been at the Little Rock Zoo since 2007.
It was first exhibited at the 1924 Arkansas State Fair and it is believed to be the last operating “Over-The-Jumps” type of carousel in the world.
More information on this historic carousel can be found on the zoo’s website:
https://www.littlerockzoo.com/visit/over-the-jumps-carousel/
What is the connection between Elvis and this Esso station in Carlisle, Arkansas?
In 1955, Elvis and several band members were heading on Hwy. 70 toward Little Rock.
At this intersection of Hwy. 70 and Hwy. 13 in Carlisle, while driving at a high rate of speed, Elvis broadsided a dump truck and sent his Cadillac into a ditch across the highway from this station. Nobody was injured, the Caddy was still drivable but the gas tank on the dump truck was punctured. Elvis was fined $25 for the damage to the dump truck.
The E. F. Utley house was built between 1914 and 1922 in Cabot, Lonoke, Arkansas and was listed on the National Register of Historic Places in 1998.
Dr. F. E. Utley (Francis Edwin Utley) who was born 10 Feb 1881 in Greenbrier, Faulkner County, Arkansas to Francis David Utley and Amanda Melvina Snow. Dr. Utley married Rosa Lee Ray on 29 Dec 1901 in Hardinville, Faulkner County, Arkansas. He died in the house on 25 Oct 1952 and was buried at Mt Carmel Cemetery in Cabot.
(Note: listed on the 1940 US Federal Census twice. Once at home with the family and the other as a TB patient at the Arkansas State Tuberculous Sanitarium near Booneville in Logan County.)
Rosa Lee Ray was born 27 August 1881 in Arkansas and died 1 Dec 1955 in Pulaski County, Arkansas. She is buried next to her husband.
The Utley’s had three children; Arlis Dee Utley, Geneva Pauline Utley and Francis Edward Utley, Jr.
Fanny Susanne (1895-1981), John Newton (1892-1954), and William Vincent Roberts (1898-1994) with baby sister Clara Elizabeth Brown (1903-1988).
The youngest three children of David D Roberts and Laura Belle Gentry Roberts. Their father died about 1899 in Oklahoma (?) and the mother remarried in 1902 to William J Brown. A year later Clara was born.
Border disputes in this area of the world meant your ancestors country of origin could change every few years. It makes it hard to know which nationality your ancestors actually were. For example, my great great grandmother is listed as being from Germany (1900, 1910), Prussia (1880) and France (1870, 1920) on US Federal census records. It all depended on the which country was controlling the area she was from the year the census was taken.
Prussia, German, or France? Where was she from?
The tragic accidental death of David C Whitney at the age of 51. He was survived by wife, Elizabeth, and children, Ada, Charles, and Emmett.
The first article had most of his personal information wrong. C L Whitney was the name of his son who just happened to work for the railroad too.
In a strange coincidence Elizabeth’s brother, Alexander, would be killed in the same way 20 years later.
There’s not a picture of all of them together and, sadly, I only remember meeting one of the, Uncle David. Here’s a list of all my aunts and uncles. Siblings of Philip Lloyd Whitney, 1934-1996.
Emmett Leroy “Bob” Whitney Jr., 1913-1996
Anna Marie Whitney Uselton Altmeyer, 1915-1965
David Wayne Whitney, 1921-1994
Paul Jean Whitney, 1922-1945
Dale Keith Whitney, 1925-1937
Joseph Dean Whitney, 1931-1937
My grandmother abandoned her four little girls after the death of her first husband, Arthur Huff, and I don’t have much information on them. Three were adopted out in Nebraska around 1920. One, Winifred, supposedly died in the flu pandemic of 1918.
I did find two of the girls but unfortunately they had passed before I found them. The girls were named Berniece, Pauline, Gladys and Winifred before adoption. Only Berniece kept her given name. I’m not sure which girls are Pauline or Gladys.
Berniece Lorraine Rickard Grosvenor, 1912-2002
Winifred Huff, 1914-1918
Rosemary,
Elizabeth Ann “Bette” Brown Smith, 1918-2003
“Preserve your memories, keep them well, what you forget you can never retell.”
Louisa May Alcott
Emmett Leroy Whitney was a piano man from an early age. At age 15, he was already advertising as a music teacher in the East St Louis, Illinois City Directory (1906).
Emmett liked to play the piano in a ragtime music style that was popularized in the late 1890’s but he could also perform the classics with style and grace.
He wrote, performed and recorded music across the United States. He was comfortable playing in churches, theater productions and saloons. Also he tuned and repaired piano’s when not performing.
In the late 1940’s, and throughout the 50’s, he was the music director of Rose Hill Church Of the Nazarene in Little Rock.
Emmett Leroy Whitney was born in 1891 to David C. and Elisabeth Ann (Linder) Whitney in Ramsey, Illinois.
He married in 1911 to Carrie Isabel Montgomery and they had two children, Emmett Leroy “Bob” Whitney, Jr and Anna Marie Whitney
Emmett married around 1920 to Fanny Susann (Roberts) Huff and they had five boys, David Wayne Whitney, Paul Jean Whitney, Dale Keith Whitney, Joseph Dean Whitney and Philip Lloyd Whitney.
During his time at Rose Hill, he married for a third time to Viola Smith. They had no children. Emmett and Viola retired to Chetopa, Kansas in 1964. Unfortunately, both died there in 1965.
“Preserve your memories, keep them well, what you forget you can never retell.” – Louisa May Alcott
Write them down, take photos, do anything you can to remember. Memories do fade. Things are forgotten. Time and family slips away.
“Rosa Adeline Kaufman, aged 81 of 7200 Gable Drive, widow of Edward Robert Kaufman, died Monday. Born in Little Rock, she was a daughter of J. D. and Delilah Williford Henslee and was a retired grocer and member of Tatum Street Baptist Church. Survivors are two sons, Thomas David Kaufman of Little Rock and James Estes Kaufman of Atlanta, Ga.; three daughters, Lucille McAllester, Nettie Mae Mann and Nancy Arlene Davis of Little Rock, 21 grandchildren, 32 great-grandchildren and four great-great-grandchildren. Funeral will be at 11 a.m. Wednesday in Griffin Leggett Healey and Roth by Rev. Lloyd Goodman. Burial will be in Pine Crest memorial Park.”
Arkansas gazette January 11, 1983
A PERSONAL REFLECTION OF LOVE
Grandma Kaufman always had a smile and could make me laugh at her stories. I can still smell her rolls baking in the oven. Oh how I would give anything if I had her roll recipe.
We had moved into the same neighborhood where Grandpa and Grandma Kaufman lived and one day, on the way home from the bus stop, I dropped in for a visit. Grandpa and Grandma were out in the yard working and she was clearing out from under a huge wisteria bush that was in a corner. She had seen me coming and grabbed a couple of peaches from the tree and we sat down underneath the wisteria canopy she had just created and ate our peaches. We talked until it was almost dark about this and that and I can’t even remember what we talked about. Around dinner time Grandpa came out from the shed and demanded dinner. Grandma just fussed back at him telling him that the girls were a talkin’ and she’d get dinner done when she got it done.
Those two always fussed and fumed at each other but you always knew they really loved each other. One day we stopped by to visit Grandma after Grandpa had died and she was sitting on the couch working on a quilt. She looked sad so I leaned over and asked her how she was doing and she simply replied, “I miss him.”
from: Laurie Skillern, Kaufman GAZETTE, July 2000, EDITED
Beat eggs. Add sugar, oil and vanilla. Mix dry ingredients together and add to egg mixture, alternately with milk. Add raisins. Pour into greased oblong pan and sprinkle with brown sugar that has been mixed with cinnamon. Dot with butter. Bake at 400 F for 30 minutes.
Photographs and Memories 