BIOGRAPHIES

BIOGRAPHIES

Boone County, Arkansas Genealogy Trails

HESTER LEE LAFFERTY AUSTIN

Written by Juanita Austin Heilman

Contributed by Bob Austin and Mary Lafferty Wilson

Hester Lee Lafferty was born 01 February 1901 in LaCrosse, Izard County, Arkansas to Frank and Julia Ward Lafferty. Hester died 30 August 1993 in Harrison, Arkansas and was buried 03 September 1993 in Keesee Cemetery, Lead Hill, Arkansas. She married Allie Eugene Austin 20 March 1920 in Lead Hill. He was born 01 September 1894 in Lead Hill. Allie died 31 January 1990 in Harrison and was buried in Keesee Cemetery, Lead Hill.
This is the way my mother told me about her life with the Bolingers and why she went to live with them. Hester's daughter wrote this to one of Dr. and Mrs. Bolinger's grandchildren.
My mother, Hester Lafferty, was six years old when her father died, leaving my Grandmother Lafferty with five children, at home. All boys except my mother.
My Grandmother struggled to support them. My mother said Grandmother Lafferty would warm coffee grounds over and over-- She'd only have one biscuit and one cup of coffee all day leaving the food for the five children. (I still shed tears every time I think of this) I don't know if she ate anything at the evening meal (I assume she did).
My grandmother was forced to work to support the family. She did laundry for various families--all day long. Before she'd do laundry, she'd go to the school house, sweep the floors and build the fires in the winter time.
This is when your Grandmother (Mrs Bolinger) asked my Grandmother (Julia Lafferty), if she'd let my mother live with them. Mrs. Bolinger said Hester wouldn't have so far to go to school and she'd be a lot of company to "Johnny." I'm sure that it was out of the kindness of their heart. My Grandmother didn't want her to go and although my mom was only six, she let her make the decision, one my Grandmother later regretted and would beg my mother to come back home. This may have been a few years later.
My Mom lived with the Bolingers for 13 years. During this time they treated her like one of the family. She did do her share of the work. For one thing she'd leave school 15 minutes early, at noon, to fix lunch.
My mother was three years older than your dad. She said when she first went there they'd play paper dolls for hours. When they got older, they'd take turns deciding what they'd do for the day. Your Dad treated her as an equal. My mother said he never once said it was his home, his parents etc. But treated her as if it was her home as much as his. If the older Bolinger children were home, they must have married shortly after my mom went there. It seems as if Nettie was-- but much older. I only remember my mother talking about Maude, May, Nettie and John. She never said much about Maude, said May was married to Will Oregon an Attorney, and they lived in Corpus Christi, Texas. She said one time while at Bolingers, a little girl of theirs died. She said they had a girl named Alyene. She said Nettie lived in Springfield, it seems that she had three boys. (My mother saw her, in later years) According to my mother, the Bolingers were good, refined people, never saying a cross word to one another, and never even used slang words. My mother always laughed when she'd tell about your Dad saying "heck" one time. He begged my mom to not tell your Grandmother, saying he'd never say it again, and if my Mom wouldn't tell, he'd let her decide for a whole week, what they'd do.
My mother's account of Dr. John Bolinger were similar, and many of the same as your Dad wrote in the Article--Vol. 34 Aug. 1986, in the Ozark Mountaineer. She often told how Mrs. Bolinger would warm bricks to put at his feet in the buggy, in the winter time, and she'd always have something hot for him to eat or drink, when he'd get home from a call. She said the Dr. never refused to go out, even when he knew, or thought he knew he wouldn't get paid.
I've heard my Aunt (my Dad's sister) tell that one of their sisters died in childbirth, that Dr. Bolinger cried. He had told her to not have any more children.
When I was growing up, and we'd have company my mother always used a white Tablecloth. She never failed to say, "when I lived with the Bolingers, we ate our evening meal off a white table cloth every day."
I remember your Grandmother's picture hung in our living room, as long as I was home. In fact a few years ago, I told my mother I'd like to have it someday. She was so pleased, she asked me to take it when I went home. She said she'd looked at it many times and wondered it would get tossed out after she was gone.
My mother lived with the Bolingers until she married in 1920. My parents left Lead Hill, for a short time and I think it was about the time the Bolingers left Lead Hill, your Dad would have been around 16 or 17.
I only remember being at your Grandparents one time, and it is very sketchy. I remember playing on a woodpile with my older brother and sister and remember Netti coming over to see my Mom. When I was a little older, my mother would go to Springfield, (MO) every once in a while and spend the night with them. I believe the last time she went was in 1936.
My Dad was one of the pallbearers at Dr. John Bolinger's funeral in 1937. After I left home, your Dad came by my parents house to see my mom, but my parents weren't home.
While living with the Bolingers my mom kept a close relationship with her own family, and still did as long as any of my uncles lived. I was around four years old when my Grandmother Lafferty died, the Grandmother I knew lived in a nice house and things were different for her then. One of my Uncles was killed in World War I, she bought a house with the money she had gotten from his insurance. Then too, my other Uncles had left home.
On Feb. 1 my mom was 90 years old, has lived in a retirement home in Harrison Arkansas for 5 years. The last two years her memory is bad, she lives in the past most of the time, and she thinks her mother is still living. When I visit her and they serve her, her meals. She always asks me, "Will my Mother have enough to eat?". My heart aches for her, as I know she is remembering a mother that had only one biscuit and a cup of coffee for the day. This is the time, the good hearted Bolingers took a little six year old girl, with black hair and blue eyes home to live with them---Hester, My mother. Note: Robert Austin writes about his mother Hester. "There was ten of us children and Mother was a hard worker and a very caring mother. Her greatest concern was to see that her children were well taken care of and she loved her church very much, she was always found faithful to it."

JULIA WARD LAFFERTY

Written by John Robert Austin, grandson of Julia and Frank Lafferty

Contributed by Mary Lafferty Wilson

Julia Ward was born in January 1871 in Arkansas. She died 01 September 1928 in Lead Hill, Boone County, Arkansas, and was buried 03 September 1928 in Lead Hill Cemetery, Lead Hill, Arkansas. She married 20 March 1887 in Stone County, Arkansas to James Frank Lafferty, who was born April 1863 in Izard County, Arkansas. Frank died in 1906 in Lead Hill, Boone County, Arkansas and was buried in Enon Cemetery, Lead Hill.
On a hot mid-August day in the year of the 1901 drought, Frank Lafferty with his wife Julia (Ward) Lafferty left LaCrosse, Izard County, Arkansas by way of wagon-drawn by horses or mules owned and driven by Bob or Pete Wilkerson. Their children at the time were Fannie, Robert Lee, Emmett Lee, and Hester Lee. (If this is the correct year Hester was only six months old as she was born the lst day of February 1901.) They left behind two daughters, Edith was the name of one of them. They had died at a very young age.
Mr. Wilkerson told Emmett in the early 30's that he never thought that he (Emmett) could complete the trip because of a very high fever. (Don't know what kind of fever.) When arriving at Lead Hill they moved into a house owned by the Penix family. Frank after arriving at Lead Hill worked at a cotton gin and also at a flour and feed mill, probably owned by the Milum family. Frank was probably a miller by trade since there was a Lafferty mill on Lafferty Creek in Izard County. He was also a blacksmith and a boatman. Their move could have been made because Julia's folks were living at Lead Hill at the time. Julia's mother and three sisters are buried in and near Lead Hill.
After a short time at Lead Hill they moved to Kenner, Boone County, Arkansas, where a railroad was being built. Frank set up his blacksmith shop as the work on the railroad was done by hand using horse drawn slips to build and shape the railroad bed in order to lay the ties and rail. After the railroad was completed, they moved back to Lead Hill where he may have worked in the blacksmith shop for a while.
They moved to the Blackwell farm in 1904 or 1905. (This is near Monark, Marion county, Arkansas.) After starting to farm Frank made one crop and had begun another when he died on this farm in 1906. He died apparently of a fever caused from drinking contaminated water from a large spring on this farm. Beavers were living in a cave out of which the spring was flowing. Robert Lee "Bus" was old enough at this time to help out with the farm work, such as driving the teams of mules and oxen for plowing.
After Frank's death times were very hard and the only work that Julia could find was doing washings and fire building for the school.
Frank and Julia's children that came with them from Izard County and those born in Lead Hill area were: Fannie Ethel, Robert Lee, Emmett Lee, Hester, Alle Lee and Noel Lee. After Frank's death Julia struggled to support her five children. The only work she could find was taking in laundry and starting the fire in the wood heater each morning for the school children. During the winter each morning she would get up and go to the school to sweep the floors and build the fire in the potbelly stove. She would only have a cup of coffee and a biscuit all day so her children could have the food there was. During the day she would do laundry for other people.
After her children was grown things were better for her. She used the insurance money collected from her son, Robert Lee, being killed in World War I, to buy a house where she lived out her remaining years. She was buried in Lead Hill Cemetery. Her body was later moved in 1950s and Julia now is buried in the Northwest corner of the Milum Cemetery. Tombstone gives the date of 1865 as her birth year.

GEORGE F. MCKINNEY

Source: Reminiscent History of the Ozark Region, Published by Goodspeed Brothers, Chicago, 1894.

GEORGE F. MCKINNEY. No State in the Union gives greater encouragement to a man who desires to devote himself to agriculture than does Arkansas. Its resources are almost inexhaustible, and its climate is adapted to the cultivation of varied crops. Among the prominent and enterprising farmers of Boone County is George F. McKinney, who owes his nativity to Franklin County, this State, his birth having occurred on the 28th of January, 1843. His parents were John A. and Lucetta (Fleeman) McKinney, the former of whom was born in Alabama in 1800, a son of George McKinney, who was one of the very early residents of Arkansas, and who lived and died in Franklin County, leaving a large family. John A. McKinney was the eldest but one of his father's family, and was but a boy at the time he came to Arkansas. He grew up in Franklin County, became a well-to-do planter, and after the death of his first wife, the mother of George F. McKinney, he married a Miss Bourland, and by her became the father of five children: William, who is living in Washington County, Arkansas, and was a soldier in the Civil War; Lavinia, who lives in Franklin County, Arkansas; Charles, who resides in Ozark, Arkansas; Belinda, wife of R. Lesley, resides in Franklin County, and Sterling, who is living in Harrison, Arkansas Mr. McKinney became a member of the Northwest Fifteenth Arkansas Regiment, C. S. A., and had been in the service but a short time when he was killed at the battle of Elkhorn. He and his family were members of the Cumberland Presbyterian Church. George F. McKinney was educated in the common schools, and although but a boy when the Civil War broke out he enlisted in the first company that left Franklin County, and took part in the battles of Elkhorn, Corinth, Iuka, Port Gibson, Baker's Creek, Vicksburg and others. He was wounded at Mark's Mill, Arkansas, by a gun shot, which unfitted him for duty for a time, but aside from this was always at his post. After the war closed he returned to his native county, and was engaged in mercantile pursuits until 1874, when he bought and located on the farm where he now resides, which farm consists of 350 acres of fertile land. The place is well improved, with a good residence and other buildings, and 250 acres are under cultivation. He has given considerable attention to stockraising, and has found this a profitable branch of agriculture. He is one of the county's most substantial men, is very public-spirited, a Democrat in politics, and is a member of Bellefonte Lodge of the A. F. & A. M. He was married in Franklin County to Miss Sarah F. Webb, a daughter of P. F. Webb, of Ozark, Arkansas, who came to this State from Tennessee, dying here in 1885. Mrs. McKinney was born in Franklin County, Arkansas, and has borne her husband the following children: Etta, wife of William H. McMillan; Ida, wife of William Bower, of Harrison; John A., who is a successful school teacher; Lloyd, who is the wife of . W.D. Chauncy, of Franklin County; Garland, Nellie, Jean, Charlie (a girl), William, George and Joe. Mr. and Mrs. McKinney are members of the Cumberland Presbyterian Church, and he is an elder in the same.

Return to Boone County Index