03-15-2019 Visiting My Cousin Rita in Palestine, Arkansas

Current Location: Peregrine Pines Campground, USAir Force Academy, Colorado Springs, Colorado

Overcast and chilly at 48 Degrees F

We were lucky that the weather was with us when we arrived in Palestine for two days visiting my cousin Rita and her husband Johnny.  The sun was shining, and in spite of the chilly nights, the days were warm enough for shirtsleeves and we enjoyed our time exploring the local roads and cemeteries.

There is some background here that can get a bit daunting, so I’ll simply summarize a bit.  My own mother passed in 1952, I didn’t know my father, so he wasn’t a source of information for me about my family background.  My grandmother was incredibly secretive and refused to even tell my mother who her father was.  All I knew was that she was born in Palestine Arkansas in 1924.  My grandmother died with her stories untold.  Later in life, I found my father and he said there was a name, “Hurt”, that was probably my mother’s father.

Enter Ancestry and DNA testing.  A few months ago, my DNA came up with a very high probability match with Rita Hurt Jayroe.  I WAS a Hurt! I wrote a tentative note to Rita, and in spite of the sketchy background, was welcomed with open arms and tons of stories about the Hurt family. 

Her father and my grandfather William Isham Hurt were brothers.  There is no record of my mother’s birth, but amazingly for the time, my grandmother has two photos of a man holding my mother when she was weeks old.  I showed that photo to Rita, and she said, sure enough, that was her Uncle Isham.  What a world!

We talked for a long time on the phone, sharing stories and laughs, and Rita and her husband Johnny, with such open hearts, offered a place for us to park our motorhome if we ever were to pass by Arkansas.  Sure enough, with our trip plans including a return along I-40, I asked if it was a good time for us to visit.

Rita’s Uncle Isham, my grandfather, William Isham Hurt, holding my mother as a baby

What a delight it was to step into the roots of Rita and her family.  We arrived mid afternoon, and were directed into the big barn with a cement floor and electric hookups.  It was nice to have the view out the front and yet have shelter for the predicted freezing nights to come.

Mattie had a playmate for a couple of days while we visited.

Rita welcome us with open arms, and then we walked around the property a bit, hearing more stories of the Hurt Family.  In the photo below, you can see a small white house, located across the street from the house that Rita and Johnny live in now and that they built over 40 years ago. 

Rita was born in that little white house on their property across the road from where they live now

  Rita and Johnny built this home more than 40 years ago

Rita and Johnny have been married for more than 50 years, and Johnny also has very deep roots in Palestine.  During the afternoon, before Johnny returned from work, Rita shared movies of her father and uncles, including Uncle Isham, my grandfather, on the right in the photo below that I took from the projection on the television.

I also saw portraits of my great grandparents and other family treasures that have been part of the Hurt family.

Later that evening, we rode with Rita into Palestine for an supper at a little cafe called the Crazy Donkey Grill.  The place was packed on that Friday night, and the food was good.  Quite different from our western version of Mexican food but still tasty. The restaurant has been open only a year or so, and has a map of the United States with pins marking where people are from.  Our two pins were the only ones from Oregon!

Johnny joined us as we finished up our supper.  We had the farmer discussion about this being being “supper” and the big meal at noon was “dinner”.  Johnny told us lots of stories about farming in this part of Arkansas, one of the biggest rice growing areas in the country.  I had no clue that rice was grown in Arkansas. Johnny was as kind and friendly as Rita, and wanted to be sure that we were comfortable.

Rita loves her flowers, and we could see how pretty everything would be as spring progresses

We retired to our cozy nook in the shop, and the next morning Johnny insisted on making breakfast for all of us in the house.  The day was cool but beautifully sunny and we had plans to travel to Forrest City (the nearby county seat) for lunch at another restaurant that is a favorite of theirs, the Ole Sawmill Cafe.  There we were treated to some traditional Southern cooking at a buffet that included Southern Fried Chicken and fried okra.  Yummy stuff.  They had plans to take us out to dinner, but we said, please, no more food! 

The rest of the afternoon we visited the cemetery in Forrest City where my grandfather was buried, and then later we wandered around the cemetery in Palestine where Johnny had been in charge for several years so he knew where a lot of the gravestones were located.  There we found the headstones for my great grandparents and many other members of the Hurt family. 

Tina “Tiny” Cooper Taggart, my great grandmother.  All I will ever know of her

We thought perhaps we might find my grandmother’s mother Tina somewhere in that cemetery but had no luck.  What we did find was a record of her death in 1931 in Little Rock.  There are so many stories that died with my grandmother that will never be known.

The no more food suggestion didn’t work very well, because after a short late afternoon nap we walked back over to the house to discover that Rita and Johnny has ordered ribs and fixin’s for supper!  Good thing I don’t live in the South.  Good stuff.

It was a wonderful visit, and Rita and I spent a bit of time going over the family tree that she has worked on for some time now, with roots going back to the 15th century.  I always thought I had no extended family, and now look, I have cousins!  I am so glad that Rita was willing to answer my tentative note, and that we had a chance to meet and share stories about our children, our lives, our history.

For someone like me, who has lived in so many places throughout my life, it was fascinating to meet Rita who has lived only right there in the vicinity of Palestine Arkansas for her entire life. I once made a google map of all the houses I lived in from 1945 until now.  Here is the link to that map.

It is good to have some roots. It is also interesting to discover that my somewhat strange connections to the South and how I feel when I am there actually have some basis.  My family roots on this side are in the South.  In Arkansas, in Tennessee, with preachers and Civil War soldiers, and sheriffs, and farmers. Those roots go all the way back to Virginia, and then England and Scotland and Ireland. 

It seems that many people I have talked to lately are discovering so many hidden stories in their families, truths that have long been hidden revealed. As Rita said, all of Isham’s legitimate grandchildren might not be so welcoming, and she is going to take her time letting them know about me.  No matter, this connection that we have made is enough to fill in some of the blanks that have been part of my life story for 70 plus years. 

The wonders of DNA.  Who knows where it will lead for so many of us seeking answers to our stories.