Elizabeth and Bill McMillan - Collection of items to be shared



Henry William McMillan



Elizabeth Daniel

Blog "Comments"

Come on.  Give it a try. You can do it. I know you can!

Test your abilities here!  Unless you have a google gmail account (user name and password) the easiest way is to sign in as "anonymous" but include your name so we know it's you!

Papa Taylor and Mary Francis Taylor's Grave Marker at Sardis

Gaylord Texan Resort for Your Reservations - Link below

Our block of 25 rooms at the $129 rate good to October 10th

Gaylord Texan Resort - RESERVATIONS LINK

Our special rate is $129 plus a $15 "resort fee" for all kinds of Gaylord ammenities.  The Gaylord will group our 25 room block together before the event.

We also have two Delux suites for conversations that go on late Saturday night.  Our meeting room is available to us until 11:00 pm Saturday.

As for the costs of the big banquet Saturday evening, we are soliciting people to help underwrite this "main event."  If you want in on this, be in contact with Jerry by email or phone 214-673-3554.  We don't want the 5th Generation families to feel like the cost our Gaylord Texan Reunion would keep them from attending.  For most of the 5G'ers, it is a simple "no brainer" when faced with the cost of a family reunion with people they don't know and probably will never see again OR  fixing the car or getting the air conditioner repaired! The 3Gs and 4Gs have all been there!

We are having amazingly complete interest in our Taylor Reunion!  We have a block of 25 rooms 30 rooms now and can expand it if needed until October 10th.  Our rates are good for 3 days before and after November 13th.

Mrs. William Arthur Vestal on the 2008 Thanksgiving celebration of her 85th birthday. (Rowland and Dodie and Daphna Ann all knew her when she was Maribeth Evans.)

Maribeth is surrounded by children Jan Hegi, Beth Burkhalter & Jerry Vestal and THE CLAN.

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Many of you have similar group pictures. Email them to me with comments you want included.

Carol Cole shares these pictures of her mother and grandparents Cole and Daniel.

William Arthur "Billy" Vestal & Mary Elizabeth "Maribeth" marry at First Methodist Church, Arkadelphia - Dec 27, 1942

Many Taylors involved in wedding party.  Best man: Jack Vestal; Groomsmen: Roland and John Pattillo; Junior Bridesmaid: Daphna Ann Daniel; Soloist: Mrs. H. W. Elizabeth McMillan.  On page one of wedding guest signing in: Dorothy Taylor, Mr. and Mrs. H. W. McMillan, Daphna Ann (age 5 or 6?)

The DNA Treads weaving the Papa Taylor "Reunion cloth" is being imported from . . . .

Atlanta, Georgia - Kim Goodloe Rochow

Denver, Colorado - Dapha Ann Daniel Warner
Nashville, Tennessee - David McMillan
Staunton, Virginia - John Porter Gammill
Waco, Texas - Rowland Pattillo and Spike, et al
Hot Springs, Arkansas - Jill (Toney) McMillan, Laura Pennington
Dallas, Texas - Thread scraps like Maribeth (Bill) Vestal, Jerry Vestal, Jan Vestal Hegi, John Vestal, and lots of et als.
Arkadelphia, Arkansas - Martha Jean Taylor DeLaughter samples like Susan Young and Gail Pennington
Greensboro, North Carolina - artistic mammory dye from Carol Cole.
Little Rock, Arkansas - Pattern material through Jane Daniel Cole like Elisa Cole  and Ashley Ross II, possibly Ashley Ross III with his et als.
New Orleans, Louisiana - More Cole material in Susan Cole Noble.
Lubbock, Texas - Elizabeth Taylor Vestal Burkhalter and sample case.
El Dorado, Arkansas - Dodie (Jack) Vestal
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Ever wishing for DNA dye from other cities like:
Birmingham, Alabama - Caroline Vestal Ponsford
San Antonio, Texas - Caroline Taylor Merritt
Los Angeles, California - Daniel Ross
Sparkman, Cave Springs, Jacksonville, Conway & others in Arkansas
San Antonio, Amarillo and Austin, Texas
Atlanta, Nashville, Arkadelphia, Jackson, MS, Kansas City - others leading on to others :-))

Unofficial Picture of Papa Taylor Descendents (random updates)

Anyone is urged to re-copy this in a more readable format. John Vestal says my handwriting is as poor as his!

Click to enlarge. Clicking again makes it really big!

Notice! No further updates. Run out of room! See the reunion worksheet for other details.

Arkadelphia, Arkansas: Home. By David W. McMillan.

Arkadelphia, Arkansas: Home

                                                                                September 2010

            To me Arkadelphia is the family’s home. This is the place where most of Poppa Taylor and Mary Francis’ children lived. Though I don’t know, it appears to me that Horace took over things in Sparkman after Poppa Taylor’s death and prospects in Sparkman were not the best for the Taylor women. Perhaps someone who knew Sparkman can tell the story of that place and how it was dear to them.

In my novel I describe Arkadelphia this way:

            The Caddo River joins the Ouachita River right outside of town. The Ozark Mountains dwindle down to rolling hills in southwest Arkansas. At Arkadelphia the last of those hills roll into flat land at the Ouachita River. Arkadelphia has the green beauty of the Ozark hills and bluffs and it has the good rich farm land of the Ouachita River delta. The hills west of town grow tall strong pine and red oak timber. Arkadelphia is home to an active logging industry. There are fine farms along the river and east. Flooding can be a problem southeast of town but Arkadelphia itself is built on a bluff that looks down on the river above the Ouachita River and the Missouri Pacific Railroad line from Chicago to Dallas.

John Allen Adams did a much better job in his description of the Ouachita River:

On a summer day just a stone’s throw upstream from the Caddo Street Bridge a fat brown moccasin slides silently from a low hanging willow branch into the current and sinuously swims down stream angling toward the shore until it hits a patch of slack water where it parts floating willow cotton sending it tumbling and spreading like smoke before it disappears into the shadow of a grassy overhang. Three turtles sunning nearly in single file on a bone-white fallen cottonwood take no notice of the snake.  On a leafless twig at the tip of the tree now only two feet above the water a dragonfly with multiple river images in his compound eyes is poised on point while a squadron of his brothers fly above him, alternately darting from side to side then holding still in air while below them a bluegill with orange belly and blue-tipped “ears” hovers above a platter-sized patch of bright burnished stones on the river bottom diligently guarding the eggs resting there.

Several under yards further upstream high atop De Soto Bluff, sweet gum and hickory stand on tiptoe where the river has eaten away at the cliff and exposed their roots to the air and hardened them into elaborate bracings and cage-like scaffolds as they struggle to hold their purchase in the red dirt and so keep from plummeting in the river and joining the trees fallen from earlier seasons. Below them and up and down the water’s edge other trees stand like soldiers marching into battle, the front rank already lying strewn along the bank, casualties of earlier spring torrents, many in the following tier wounded and headed for the ground in a slow fall while the upright ranks behind stoically wait their turn to contend with the implacable Ouachita.

And so the river runs as it has for centuries, for mellenia, since long before red or white men followed its course seeking game and fertile spots of ground to plant their seed.

            As I think of Arkadelphia, I too see trees, giant pin oaks, hovering over the streets all over town, especially providing the sanctuary of cool shade and soft filtered light to 210 N. 5^th Street, my home and Aunt Margie’s driveway across the street. Sanctuary is the word, isn’t it? The tops of the oak trees on each side of the street met in the air some 100 feet over the center of the street. These trees created a gentle cathedral ceiling all the way down 5^th Street to Ouachita and the white columns of Cone-bottom dormitory.

            The color I see, as one I imagine Arkadelphia is green. Green above in the trees and below in the St. Augustine or bermuda grass. In between were splashes of pink azaleas and pink and white crepe myrtle. In my mind the image of the crepe myrtle merges into watermelon red and that moves into orange day lilies.

            My mother planted her garden so that all year around, except for a period deep in the winter, there were flowers in our yard that she might use to provide for flowers every Sunday at Church. Camellias and gardenias played important roles in this project. Then in the Spring daffodils, tulips and dogwoods were the centerpieces of her arrangements. But green was the taken for granted frame for the plentiful flowers.

            I remember my parents talking about spending summers in the swimming hole in the Ouachita River just above the Caddo Street Bridge. Apparently the river was the setting of a great deal of mischief. Jane once confessed that she went skinny-dipping with Dolly Winburn in the river. My father used to challenge Martha Thomas, one of mother’s good friends, to a race across the river and back. John T. often told of his struggle to row a boat up the river against the current. He would fight the current for what seemed forever to him for the purchase of a quarter-mile upstream.

            My father dreamed that he could one day make Arkadelphia into a major metropolis by politicking the Army Corps of Engineers to dredge and maintain a river channel up from Camden to Arkadelphia. But river transport was succeeded by rail and now by interstate roads and Arkadelphia is on a major interstate and the population has remained at around 10,000 people for sixty plus years.

            My father’s dreams for the Ouachita came in part from the Charlie Richardson painting that he had of a river scene at what is called beaver’s nose. This is the southeastern corner formed by the intersection of the Caddo and the Ouachita. As I write this, I am looking at the painting. The river flows in the foreground. The bank slopes gently down some ten feet above the river making an excellent landing for a small canoe or paddle boat. Above the bank is a forest mix of pine, oak, hickory and maple trees. In the background is a wooden picket fence.

            De Soto Bluff is downstream just on the edge of what in 1960 was Arkadelphia’s city limits. This was and is Arkadelphia’s most scenic spot, a must picnic spot for all young lovers. From the top of the bluff you can see for miles over verdant forests, to the south and east across the river the land is flat, north and west the hills roll into the Hotsprings mountains. Jack Mountain, some ten miles north, is clearly visible. The river’s ribbon winds softly below, south and east to Arkadelphia and Camden and northwest to Malvern and Hotsprings.

            Standing on the bluff looking out one imagines being an Indian looking for bears, and deer, or Hernando De Soto looking out over the land drawing a map of his discoveries or an eagle flying high over the earth or an ant following a trail from under the red clay and gravel to a persimmon that has fallen from a tree.

            In the fall the countryside around Arkadelphia mergers from greens to oranges, reds and shades of brown. I wish I knew the name of that scrub tree that was everywhere along any road. It turned bright red during fall.

            I haven’t mentioned the kudzu in the ravines. It seemed to grow a foot a day in my Grandmother McMillan’s ravine. We would run down to the creek behind on a path, kudzu vines beneath our feet and kudzu leaves on either side, not noticing the screams of the cicadas that seemed to be part of the landscape. The kudzu grew over the small trees and formed a cave or a tent for us to use as a pretend wigwam or a place in which to take cover in a short summer shower.

            The topography of the land and the prolific vegetation was only part of Arkadelphia’s blessings. Arkadelphia was the Athens of Arkansas. As early as 1851 Arkadelphia was an educational center in Arkansas. At that time the town had only 250 residents and Rev. Samuel Stevenson founded the Arkadelphia Institute.  A Baptist minister, Rev. Hauke, lobbied the state legislature to create the Arkansas Institute for the Blind.

            The Civil War ended support for higher education all over the South, but in 1886 Dr. J.W. Conger established Ouachita Baptist College. In 1890 across the ravine and 10^th street Arkadelphia Methodist College was established. These colleges became the educational foundation for most of our families.

            As I think about college at the time my parents were students, there was not as much information to learn. Latin was an important subject. Japanese was not part of the curriculum. Perhaps the subject that required more of its students than any other was music. Ouachita’s and Henderson’s music department contained perhaps the largest segment of the faculty.

            The colleges’ music emphasis along with churches and the community’s general interest in music created many social settings around music in Arkadelphia. There were recitals and visiting musical acts coming to Arkadelphia to perform on campus. Citizens of Arkadelphia had opportunities to be exposed to art, talent and ideas of the day that citizens of Sparkman, Camden, Hope, Prescott or Hotsprings did not.

            I went along with my mother to musical performances and plays at Ouachita and Henderson auditoriums. Then there were activities at all of the local churches.

            The colleges and the high school had baseball, football and basketball games. There were track meets, and tennis matches. John T. was a member of Ouachita’s marching band. My father played on the tennis and baseball teams at Ouachita.

            Because of the Colleges there was a greater tolerance and openness in Arkadelphia. Though racism was clearly present there, it was not like Amity where there were signs telling negroes to be gone from town by dark.

            I have always been proud that my mother was valedictorian of her Arkadelphia High School and Ouachita College graduating classes. But one day when I looked at her year books, I saw that her graduating class at both schools was much smaller than I imagined. On the McMillan side of my family two great aunts and two aunts were teachers at Ouachita. My grandfather David McMillan was on the board. I think my kin the Williams and the McMillan families may have had something to do with the founding of Ouachita. John T. was on its board from many years. My father received an honorary doctorate from Ouachita for his many years of service to the school. A.J. Vestal was a significant contributor to the school.

            In the 1950’s and 60’s when I was growing up in Arkadelphia the Caddo and the Ouachita River were not social scenes. The summer social scene had shifted to the Arkadelphia Country Club swimming pool. My mother could drop us off there and leave us for hours. When she returned she would pick up tired children, well exercised, ready for supper, a game of kick-the-can and the bed by 9:00 P.M.

            The two colleges were great settings for riding bikes, exploring and making mischief. I especially loved the ravine behind my Grandmother McMillan’s house. The ravine merged into the ravine that separated Ouachita from Henderson.

            As I remember it, the small creek that ran through the ravine was once a clear, pure stream that became a polluted mess later. In that ravine my cousins and I played cowboys and indians, Tarzan and Jane. We would swing across the creek on grape vines. We smoked grape vine cigarettes and we imagined finding lions and tigers among the giant pine trees there.

            Jerry Vestal remembers a time when we walked on the bridge over the ravine behind the Ouachita gym in order to explode cherry bombs. We would stand on the bridge, light the cherry bomb, hold it until its fuse was burned near the bottom and let it go so that they would explode before it hit the ground, creating huge reverberating echoes from the blasts. As I talked to Jerry recently, he wondered who we might have disturbed. That thought had never crossed my mind.

            As a ten year old boy I would wake up at 6:45, ride my bike down to the Ouachita tennis courts and practice hitting the ball against the backboard there. I enjoyed having the girls watch me and compliment me as they walked to morning breakfast in the cafeteria.

            In a three block radius of my home lived four grandparents, three great aunts, three aunts and nineteen cousins ranging in age from eighty to four. Three or four times a week in the summer Aunt Margie would pull up in front of our house in her black 1951 Plymouth and honk the horn. My mother would yell at us boys to go get whatever vegetables Aunt Margie was delivering from her harvest at her farm on the Ouachita River. I would run and get one or two large paper sacks filled with some assortment string beans, lima beans, corn, black-eyed peas, okra, tomatoes and figs later in the summer.

            Cousins would come from out of town to visit every summer and when there were funerals. Jan Vestal would go in mother’s closet, play dress up and make Jerry and I play some part in a bizarre wedding. Jerry and I would explore Aunt Margie’s house and be sure to sneak into Uncle Arthur’s forbidden study and tinker with his ticker tape. We would have sleepovers together on Aunt Margie’s sleeping porch with the windows cranked wide open.

            Daphna Ann would come and so would the Cole sisters, Lisa, Carol and Susan. My mother would do her best to entertain them, embarrassed that my father could not take some time off from work to entertain Uncle Wilbur.

            There were great feasts at Aunt Margie’s. The adults would sit at her giant dining room table. We children would sit at the round table in the smaller dining room. Under each table Aunt Margie had a button for a buzzer that would go off in the kitchen when pushed. It was fun for me to use the button to make noise. At every one of these meals pickled peaches were an option.

            The floors in Aunt Margie’s home were made of wide elegant boards I believe tongue in groove constructed and held to the floor with pegs, not nails. Oriental rugs filled the downstairs. Brass tiffany-like lamps were everywhere. Light switches were round buttons. When you pushed one in, the other popped out. The house was steam heated with radiators hissing.

            Bobbobie’s home was a white clapboard house with a large front porch and a porch swing. Many days, especially just after Betsy was born, my mother would dress us boys and send us down the street one block to Bobbobie’s for breakfast. The best oatmeal in the world  awaited us. It was cooked with real cream. It was rich in fruit, bananas, peaches, or blackberries. In the winter the fruit was boiled prunes.

            We ate with Hippop who poured his coffee in a saucer and sipped it from the saucer’s edge, not from the cup. Hippop had a morning regimen that included drinking eight glasses of water before breakfast. It was his notion that he was cleansing his system. And soon after breakfast he lit his corncob pipe filled with Prince Edward tobacco.

            Aunt Selma’s house contained (I believe) her apartment and two others. One downstairs and one upstairs. Her apartment contained a bedroom, a bath, a small kitchen between her bedroom and her living room. The living room and the dining room were one room. One entered her part of the house from the side, I think into her bedroom.

            The smell that emanated from her house was always of something baking. She was, of course, famous for her angel food cakes but she baked pies, cookies, rolls and biscuits. And she smiled with delight when you walked in her door.

            Arkadelphia was my home and a place that many of you came home to. It was a generous kind community filled with loving friends. Anywhere I would go, I was known. The community accepted and nurtured my sister Betsy. She was the first child with special needs to go to school there.

            The story of the life of John Allen Adams perhaps best represents the character of this small town. John Allen was a good friend of Bill Vestals. In the fall of 1938 he was injured in a football game at age sixteen and paralyzed for life from his neck down. He lived out his life of 64 years in Arkadelphia. When I knew him, he and his aunt ran a small bookstore. We and everybody else in town bought our magazine subscriptions and our Christmas cards from him. Though his Aunt Bessie and later his wife Joy were his primary supports, the whole community saw it as its responsibility to see to it that Bessie and John Allen had a means to support themselves. As his biography Fortune Teller’s Blessing portrays Arkadelphia’s kindness and generosity allowed John Allen to have an independent, dignified and stimulating existence.

Arkadelphia was a good place to call home for our family and many others.

G. Porter Gammill was Elsie Taylor and Gilbert Gammill's son, his young wife Mary Louise. At the time of Porter's WWII death, his son John was 18 months old. John and his step sister Kim Goodloe Rochow ARE COMING TO THE REUNION!

This War Memorial is located in El Dorado, Union County, Arkansas.

Porter Gammill was shot by a German sniper April 1, 1945, Easter Sunday.  Thirty-seven days later the Allies declared Victory In Europe (VE Day) on May 8th .  (This memory is credited to Daphna Ann Daniel Warner who was 8 at the time in El Dorado.)

Porter's wife, Mary Louise (Gammill) Goodloe, is now 90 living in Staunton, Virginia.  Porter and Mary Louise's son is John P. Gammill (18 months old when his father was killed) is recently retired in Staunton.  Mary Louise remarried Breck Goodloe whose career was as an attorney and judge.  Their daughter Kim Goodloe Rochow lives in Atlanta, Georgia.

Thase Daniel's Photography Collection at OBU

http://library.obu.edu/specialcollections.html

The Thase Daniel collection of wildlife photography and field notes are housed in the library's Special Collections. In addition, Special Collections serves as the official depository for the archives of the Clark County Historical Association.

Susan DeLaughter Young will be investigating this collection for the possibility of "people pictures" that may include family.  Dr. Ray Granade, OBU professor of history and Director of Library Services,  as well as Executive Director of the Clark County Historical Society, takes great interest in the Papa Taylor Reunion's interest in Thase's collection.  There may be 250,000 slides that have been indexed.  Ms. Phyllis Kinnison, Library Archivist,  oversees Special Collections.

We will look forward to hearing what Susan learns.

Below is Thase's Brown Thrasher found online in the Encyclopedia Britanica.

Thase Ferguson Daniel

Papa Taylor and extended family 1928 or 1929

Note: Click on the picture to enlarge. Clicking again should enlarge it even more.

Rowland Pattillo helped with names. Several questions remain: 1. Where is Horace Taylor, Dorothy Taylor, Libut & Toney Daniel? 2. The black man's name and relationship - he has a place of prominence in front? 3. Papa Taylor, after his wife's death, married "Miss Fannie" Sauce (sp?) - did she have children? 

I have one of the originals found in dad's Ouachita R.O.T.C. trunk. Rowland says Jack Vestal made several copies for people at the 1974 reunion in Arkadelphia that he organized.

Sardis Cemetery

In Memory of . . Betsy McMillan, A Remarkable Girl 1952 - 2002

Thank you, David. Bring a few copies to the reunion to share!

Arthur Jerome Vestal - July 6, 1956

AJ, Margie & Sons

Remembered as a teacher.

AJ - a generous & gentle man.

Elk Horn Bank & Trust Resolution

William Arthur (Billy or Boonie) Vestal - Always the Cheerleader

W. A. Vestal Annual Award at Chamber of Commerce

Father a "Farmer" age 39.  Delivered by Dr. H.A. Ross.

Call of Duty

Jack Herring and brother Billy

McMillan home Christmas 1953. Possibly Toney and Libut's 50th Anniversary

1943 Picture in Margie & AJ's living room.

Children are (LR) Elisa Cole by Maribeth Vestal, Bill McMillan Jr to right of AJ Vestal and Carol Cole in her dad Wilbur's lap.

2G Taylors in picture: Margie, Selma and Elizabeth.

Rowland Pattillo - Henderson College Reddie Tennis Conference Champions

Rowland Dale Pattillo II (and III !)

Why Am I Interested in My Ancestors? by David W. McMillan, Ph.D.

Written just for The Papa Taylor Reunion. Thanks, Cousin Dave.

Click once to enlarge. Do it again for very big!

I was the son of a perfect mother. I was the little brother of a perfect, dead at nineteen, frozen in his perfection at nineteen, Bill. And I was not and am not close to perfect.

My father wasn’t perfect either, nor was my brother Toney nor my sister Betsy. But from where I sit at my family’s table, we were all supposed to be. My father was strong and powerful. To me, Yul Brenner in the King and I personified him. My brother Toney was movie star handsome, 6 foot 2 inches, tanned, blonde and graceful in every movement that he made. My sister was born with Down syndrome and she had an excuse.

Me, I was born a mess. I played I’ll show you mine, if you’ll show me yours with Kay Epperson and Jean Ellen Hankins. I always went first and then the girls ran away. I knew it was wrong but that never seemed to have much influence on me. The abstract idea of “wrong” or “bad” to me were only words adults used for their convenience to keep me within earshot or to stop me from taking apart mother’s precious antique Ethan Allen clock. These words “good” and “bad” were used to get me to take naps I didn’t want to take or take a bath or go to the bathroom when I didn’t want to.

I was not mean or insolent. I never intended harm or insult, but I was ambitious and impatient and still am today. These qualities and my lack of respect for authority seemed to create a history of mistakes. I was trouble for my teachers. My grades were barely acceptable in this McMillan/Taylor family. If you haven’t noticed most all of my cousins were and are very smart, beginning with Daphna Ann and her protests to the contrary. I had a certain intelligence but it was for mischief and fun. I had a flair for the dramatic.

The one thing that my family gave me that made complete sense to me was a heavy dose of Calvinism. I was comforted by the fact that at church, at best, everybody was a sinner, perhaps like me.

But outside of church my family was filled with Saints. In my mind my mother was chief among them. Then there was my Aunt Margie. Then there was my powerful dangerous father who loved those whom he loved ferociously. There was the wealthy mysterious Uncle Arthur. Aunt Dot was a kind doting Aunt who needed quiet and rest. There were my grandparents, Bobbobie (Elizabeth) and Hipop (Toney) Daniel. Hipop was a staunch Baptist Deacon and Bobbobie was a properly dressed and perfectly behaved Southern lady. Then there was Aunt Selma who to me seemed as pure and as wholesome as her white angel food cakes. And it was the same on the McMillan side of the family, wonderful Aunts, cousins much better behaved than me and saintly grandparents.

As I grew older the myths of my family’s perfection began to unravel and my life mistakes became more costly, a failed law school career, a dropout from the National Guard, two failed marriages. There was nothing like this in the whole of my family on either side. I became a psychologist, in part to figure out why I was so crazy.

I began to ask questions. I began to uncover my family’s underbelly. There was John Pattillo. Women seemed to like him, but a work ethic and honest dealing weren’t his strong suit, until much later in his life. There was Aunt Dot and Uncle Horace. Each had a stint in the psych hospital in Nashville. These revelations all made me feel better.

Though I have never suffered from extreme bouts of depression, I’m too self-absorbed for that, I was comforted to hear Roland speak of the Taylor family’s depression. My grandmother, perhaps Aunt Elsie and their mother sometimes followed the Southern magnolia tradition of taking to their beds.

Hearing these stories comforted me. Though my failures may have been more family newsworthy and more dramatic, I was not the only member of my family that struggled to manage life and myself.

It is my opinion that if we are to survive as a species, each generation must improve on the one before it. As I look inside my family, I can see that I got my impatience and flair for the dramatic from my ancestors. I share a sense of humor with Aunt Selma, perhaps George and certainly Rowland. Mine is just a bit more inappropriate. I love watching Roland tell a story that makes him the butt of the joke or in which he becomes the butt of the joke by insisting on telling the story. I recognize that in me. I have my father’s lack of impulse control and his flair for the dramatic, and I have a bit of his temper, but thankfully only a bit.

Click to ENLARGE

As I look around at my family, I recognize the genes that I am carrying. They give me a cross to bear and a talent to share. I see the struggle I had in learning about myself and living with myself as common to others before me. It seems to have been most difficult for most of us in our thirties and forties. As my hormones have decreased, the battle has become a bit less intense for me and new problems have emerged. As I have learned about who I am and where I’ve come from, my assignments have become clearer and I am more effective at managing myself.

Our family history is not much different than many others. We have our share of saints and sinners. Perhaps it is unfair of me to place the saint label on people of my generation. Perhaps I am too far away to see anything but good when I see Jan, Jerry and Beth. (Jerry suggests that I would quickly get a clear picture of the devil in him, Jan and Beth by asking their mates Sharrylon, Fred and Jim.) I apologize for being so short-sighted, because they deserve the same freedom to screw-up and be forgiven as this family has granted me. (I have one thing in common with John T., my uncle and Daphna Ann’s father; we both have a sir-name. His was Bless His Heart John T and mine is Bless His Heart David. I’m sure Jan, Jerry and Beth need their heart’s blessed too.)

I know Daphna Ann and the Cole girls too well to grant them Aunt Margie, Aunt Selma or my mother’s sainthood, though Lisa was mighty kind to tend my mother, her mother and Sally Maude in their old age and dying time. I am quite fond of my nephews Carter and Kevin. Carter seems to need his heart blessed more than Kevin. I see Pappa Taylor’s John T.’s and Hipop’s good head for business in Carter and John Hand.

I believe that with the exception of my mother, I have done my task. I have taken the character traits in the difficult genes passed to me and I have worked very hard on improving them. I think I can say that I am a better man than my father. (Jerry reminds me that my father was a towering man of character and accomplishment and that’s true. He cast a large shadow.) I can say that I have accomplished more than my mother, (but we all know how disadvantaged women of her time were). I don’t think my parents would be offended or jealous of what I have become and achieved. I think they would be very pleased that I can honestly make such a statement.

I also believe my parents improved on their parents, and their parents on their parents and if you read W. J. Cash’s Mind of the South; perhaps Papa Taylor and Mary Francis improved on their parents.

So who were these people? We need to know because they are us.

I’m not sure my picture of Pappa Taylor and Mary Francis is more than raw speculation. He owned a store and I believe a gin in Sparkman, which at that time would have placed him at the hub of a mean and sometimes usurious share cropping system that exploited poor farmers, black and white. That’s the worst that I imagine.

Pappa Taylor was a strong Methodist. He attended church regularly and saw to it that his children did as well. He was constant host to his grandchildren in the summer. My mother spoke of her frequent visits to Sparkman without her parents. Roland has memories of such visits as well. And as you know, tending grandchildren is a lot of work and trouble. This genetic tendency to tend grandchildren seems to have been passed along.

Another is the tradition of Aunts and Uncles hosting nephews and nieces. Jane visited and stayed with Aunt Elsie and Uncle Gilbert when they lived in Philadelphia, Mississippi. That’s where she met her husband, Wilbur Cole. I and my brothers were the recipients of this tradition in our visits to Philadelphia during the summer for weeks at a time, and to El Dorado where John T. would give me golf lessons and a car to drive before I was sixteen and to Snyder where I was allowed to take the family car on a date with Vicki Mebane.

We are story-tellers. We tend to take our pain and put it into a story, turn it a bit and find a way to laugh at ourselves. I was recently bumming a night’s lodging from Daphna Ann and Phil. She told me this story about her father, John T.

It seems that when he was a boy, age four or five, he wanted to make money so he and Hippop concocted a scheme for how he could. Hippop bought him a goat wagon and two goats. John T. named the goats Jim and Charlie. John T. used the goat cart to deliver eggs and milk. Surely the friends and family that received and paid for this delivery were impressed and charmed by John T.’s entrepreneurial spirit. Eventually John T. became too big for the small cart and too big for the goats to pull.

Hipop took the goats to his farm where John T. expected they would be cared for by the farm tenants that lived on the farm. One day John T. came home missing Jim and Charlie. He walked down to the farm to visit the goats. When he got there it seems that the tenants were having a party. Many people had come from miles around for a goat roast. Two goats were on a spit being turned over a fire.

John T. walked home crying.

Daphna Ann may have the best memories of Aunt Elsie. Aunt Elsie was a well-cared for Southern Magnolia. She never learned to drive. Uncle Gilbert left work to take her grocery shopping or to the beauty parlor or to the seamstress or to the dress shop. He doted on her and indulged her in every way he could. He lost the love of his life when she died and he never remarried.

Three of us are not burdened by the Taylor genes. They are Susan Warner Morgan, Ashley Sloan Ross and Daniel Ross. These now almost forty year olds have been given the best of our family, the expectation that they belong and are welcome, the hope, faith and support that they will find their place in the world and our willingness to bless their hearts when they needed blessing.

So where did we come from. I think it is safe to say that we came from young people in their twenties and thirties who were having a tough time. They married hoping to find love. Sometimes they did and sometimes they didn’t. Hopefully in a fit of passion we were conceived and more trouble came with us. They discovered their capacity for love when we children came along. They, Pappa Taylor and Mary Francis discovered what love was as they loved Elizabeth, Horace, Elsie, Margie, Selma, George and Dorothy.

To hear mother tell it, Aunt Margie and Uncle Arthur did not have a beautiful romantic courtship. There was Uncle Arthur’s mother to deal with but my grandmother strongly advised this union and it was so. They discovered their capacity to love in Bill and Jack.

I may have something in common with Aunt Dot, John Pattillo, George and Sallie Maude, and John Gammill (Porter's son) that I think all of us regret. It is that we had no children. Most all of you here know that joy and what it has done for your soul to love your children like you were loved and as Pappa Taylor and Mary Francis loved theirs. Like Sallie Maude, I have done my best to steal children to parent.

Our ancestors had trouble when it was time for them to do battle with their character traits in their twenties and thirties and some in their forties and at the same time raise their children. But they had lots of help. They were given a strong sense of family and because of this Aunt Margie took in Uncle Horace when he was depressed. She took in Dot as well. Uncle Horace paid for Dot’s treatment in Nashville. Aunt Selma knew to return to Arkadelphia to her sisters and my mother after her accident. My mother saw to it that my father got John Pattillo out of jail as soon as he could. My mother tended her mother, Aunt Margie, Aunt Dot and Aunt Selma as they grew old. She visited Phil and Corrine Taylor in Hotsprings weekly in their later years. And your mother’s and father’s did things for the family that I know nothing about.

As many as you know, my family, the McMillan family, has had its share of trouble. And in the midst of our pain the faces of the people in this family were there, present, tending, caring and sharing our pain. We are especially grateful for the many trips the Pattillo family made from Waco to Arkadelphia.

This sense of family and an understanding that there is some transcendent spirit that brings us together is what we got from these folks, along with our character strengths and weaknesses.

I don’t know Bill Vestal II, but I do too. He is Jerry’s boy. I met him once. He is named for Jerry’s father. If he ever comes my way or ever needs my help, I’m there. I got this from my parents. You all feel some version of the same thing from yours. We are all in this together.

I must mention of Fannie Taylor, Pappa Taylor’s second wife after Mary Francis died at an early age (54). Fannie was not given the respect she deserved according to Roland and my mother. She dipped snuff and that was evidence that she was not a woman of breeding. Yet, she was kind to Roland and my mother when they came to Sparkman to visit. She was Pappa Taylor’s companion and caretaker for the rest of his life (died in 1951 at 88+ [jv added]). According to Roland, she had a kind sweet spirit. She was a gift to our family. I never heard much talk about Mary Francis when I was a boy, but I often heard of “Fannie and Pappa Taylor” as if they were one word.

Nell Elizabeth Cown Pattillo, January 6, 1922 - April 23, 2010

Nell Elizabeth Cown Pattillo passed away peacefully surrounded physically and spiritually by her loving family on Friday, April 23, 2010 in Waco. She was a wonderful wife, mother, grandmother, great-grandmother and friend to so many. Her favorite things were her beloved family, pumpkins, geese, quilts, bluebonnets, England and Christmas.

A Memorial Service will be at 3:00 pm Monday, April 26, 2010 at the First Presbyterian Church of Waco. A private burial will be held preceding the service at Oakwood Cemetery. Visitation with the family will be 6:00 pm to 8:00 pm Sunday, April 25 at Wilkirson-Hatch-Bailey.

Nell was born January 6, 1922 near Stone Mountain, Dekalb County, Georgia. Her father drove a mule-driven wagon several miles to bring the doctor to their home for Nell's entry into this world. She was the elder of two daughters born to Annie Laurie Partridge Cown and George Dewey Cown. At the age of 4, she moved with her parents 6 miles up the Georgia Railroad to Clarkston, a small town 12 miles from Atlanta. She graduated from Clarkston High School as Valedictorian of her class in 1939 and from Georgia State College for Women in 1943 with a B.S. in Institutional Management and Dietetics. Four days after graduation, she was in Austin working as a dietician for the Navy program at the University of Texas In spite of her degree, she never made her sons eat healthily.

It was there at the University that she met, Pat Pattillo and on March 19, 1946, they were married at the Clarkston Georgia Methodist Church. In June of that year, Nell and Pat moved from Houston to Waco where Pat began a long association with Frank Wilcox, C.P.A., eventually retiring from the firm of Pattillo, Brown and Hill. Her children loved to hear the story of how she and dad arrived in Waco on a Greyhound bus, carrying all of their earthly possessions with them, and walking to the Raleigh Hotel at 8th and Austin Avenue to spend their first night in Waco.

Nell was active in civic affairs, serving as Chairman of the Women's Division of the United Way, President of the Women's Symphony Council, First Lady of Waco when Pat was mayor and First Lady of Texas C.P.A.'s when Pat was president of that organization. She was active in her sons' P.T.A.'s, the Current Event Club of Waco, the Waco Symphony Board of Directors and other organizations. She was an active member of First Presbyterian Church of Waco from 1946 until her death.

She was a neat and beautiful lady and a wonderful wife and mother. She would fight to the death for her children.

Nell was preceded in death by her parents, Laura and Dewey Cown; her sister, Virginia Lucille Cown McLeod; her brother-in-law, Charles McLeod, both of Rochester, NY; nephew, Terry Sinclair of Avon, NY and her daughter-in-law, Claudia Culver Pattillo.

She is survived by her beloved husband of 64 years, Pat Pattillo; two much loved sons, Rowland Dale Pattillo III (Spike) and George Dennis Pattillo (Denny), both of Waco; her beloved daughters-in-law, Sherry Lamb Pattillo and Laura Nokes Pattillo, both of Waco; seven extraordinarily gifted grandchildren, Dr. Matthew Pattillo and wife, Laura of Dallas, Genny and husband, Russell Davis, Andy Pattillo, Jonathan Pattillo, Chelsea Pattillo, Jamie Plumhoff and wife, Susan, all of Waco, and Charles Plumhoff and wife, Corinne of Austin, all of who she was so proud and loved so very much; two beautiful and delightful great-granddaughters, Annie Elizabeth and Emma Taylor Pattillo of Dallas and one beautiful and delightful granddaughter to come, Harper Davis of Waco. Additionally, she is survived by nieces and nephews, Charlene Sinclair, Chris Sinclair and Susan McLeod, Dewey McLeod, all of New York, Elizabeth Ann McLeod and great niece, Sierra of London, England and great nephew, Chuckie Sinclair and Barbie and great great nephew Kyle Sinclair of Avon, NY.

Her love shall remain with us forever.

Toney Daniel McMillan, November 22, 2009 (Arkadelphia Daily Siftings Herald)

Toney McMillan. Photo provided
by Ed McCorkle.

Hot Springs — Toney Daniel McMillan, 67, of Hot Springs, died on Sunday, Nov. 22, 2009 in Baptist Health Medical Center in Littler Rock. He was predeceased by his father and mother, H. W. and Elizabeth Daniel McMillan, an elder brother, Henry William McMillan Jr. and a sister Elizabeth McMillan; he is survived by a brother, David Williams McMillan of Nashville, Tenn. Toney is also survived by his wife, Jill Jordan McMillan, and two sons; Daniel Kevin McMillan wife, Paige Duncan McMillan, and their children, Matt, Ben, and Alli of Martin, Tenn.; son Carter Jordan McMillan and his wife, Elizabeth McCarty McMillan; and two daughters, Sarah and Caroline, reside in Dallas, Texas.

Toney was a partner in McMillan, McCorkle, Curry, and Bennington law firm in Arkadelphia where he has practiced for the past 35 years. He was a member of the Arkansas Bar Association, the American Bar Association, and the American College of Trial Lawyers. Prior to the practice of law and in what he termed his “other life,” Toney was a Presbyterian minister, serving churches in Eldorado and Kingsville, Texas, from 1967-1972. He graduated from Davidson College in 1963 and then attended Austin Presbyterian Theological Seminary. His legal training was at the University of Arkansas from 1972-1975 before joining the firm founded in 1859 by his great-grandfather.

Besides maintaining a thriving law practice, Toney proudly served as a trustee of the Ross Foundation of Arkadelphia and the Harper Family Foundation of Wimberly, Texas. Despite relinquishing his pastoral role in the early 1970’s, he was committed to the Presbyterian Church and worked tirelessly on its behalf as an elder and lay leader. He was on the board of Louisville Theological Seminary and served Arkansas Presbytery as a member of the Committee on Ministry for many years. He was also well known in his local church as a dynamic Sunday School and Bible study teacher. A self-proclaimed “yellow dog Democrat,” Toney was an avid reader and follower of state and national politics.

Despite his professional responsibilities and commitments, Toney’s most satisfying role was as grandfather. Affectionately known as “Bobbu” to his five grandchildren, he spent many happy hours catching wiggly youngsters as they bounded from the dock of his Lake Hamilton home into the water and his waiting arms, sitting on his lap to drive the boat, or baking chocolate chip cookies after a day on the water. Matt, Ben, Sarah, Caroline, and Alli may miss him the most of all.

The memorial service for Toney (was) Wednesday, Nov. 25, at the First Presbyterian Church in Arkadelphia, with Reverends Kendal Land and William Galbraith officiating under the direction of Ruggles-Wilcox Funeral Home. The family (received visitors) following the service. Memorials may be made to the First Presbyterian Church, Arkadelphia, Davidson College or a charity of choice. The family would like to especially thank Dr. Joseph Beck, Dr. Michael Ford, and the caring nurses on the 10th floor at Baptist Hospital.
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