JUST REMEMBERING....Thumbing through the 1978 Harding yearbook brings up another interesting picture about how things used to be.  We used to sew a lot!  We women had sewing machines.  We had a special place set up for that sewing maching and we made our own clothes, our kids clothes, and we visited the fabric stores often.The stores had row after row of fabrics, threads, needles, and any other items needed for sewing.  There were pattern books that we poured through and we'd chooe one that was fashionable at the time.....and maybe not too complex.  We spent hours in the sewing machine area at home.  And we remember Hancock Fabrics fondly.Sewing seems to be a thing of the past.  Now we can buy clothing made in foreign countries cheaper than we can make them ourselves.  And in most insta... 08/27/2018

Here's a snapshot of the framed print of an older house that was in Searcy AR.  It is gone now and I am wondering how many folks in Searcy might remember the house.  This print was done by Arni Anderson, an artist who attended Harding.  It is dated '74.  Arni is still an active artist and lives in Oklahoma.I bought the print at an estate sale over the weekend and was determined to identify the old home.  In the book, "Searcy, Arkansas:  A Frontier Town Grows Up With America," by Raymond Muncy , on page 112, I found it.  The picture identifies it as the P. A. Robertson house and it was located on the corner of Center and Elm where the Townhouse apartments are now located.  If you Searcy Sleuths can give us more information, we'd love to have it.P. S.  I just remembered doing this house o... 08/12/2018

"The way we were" was evidently a feature that was run by the Searcy Daily Citizen many years ago.  How do I know that?  Because I was just going through old things and stumbled upon a bag full of Citizen clippings that I'd forgotten we had.  The papers and clippings were saved by my now deceased mother-in-law, Wyndelene Holmes Duncan, who was a person who saved almost everything.This picture is not very clear but the names are under it and you can read them.  They even put the married names of the girls so that you'd recognize their changed names.Of interest to me and probably to you is the last name listed, Virginia Stotts (Williams), and we still have a loved drugstore downtown that was owned by her family.  Read through and see if you find names that you remember.   08/04/2018

Class reunion 1954 graduates, 30 years later.So who do you recognize?  I see lots of faces in here that I know or did know bacause some are no longer with us.  You might have fun, if you grew up in Searcy AR, trying to name them.  The picture was loaned to me by a friend for me to place on this blog.  Interesting is the man seated on the front row.  He looks like a builder friend of mine who did a popular Searcy subdivision.  Is it Billy Davis?  And I see Sidney Quattlebaum on the back row.  He was a close friend of my husband's.  Isn't it fun to see old pictures? 07/22/2018

Sowell's Furniture!What a great old picture and this, believe it or not, is on an advertisng card mailed to my family a few years ago.  The card was an invitation to join them in celebrating 65 years in the location at 207 W. Arch in Searcy AR!  There was to be a 25% to 65% off sale in the store.The old picture is a treasure and I liked it on the card enough to save it all these years.   We are proud to have this store still in operation in downtown Searcy!  Thanks for the invitation and for being here for us, Sowell's Furniture!  07/21/2018

 You saw two pretty pieces of pottery above.  The second picture shows you the bottom of the taller one and it gives the date and the studio who made it.I found these pots at estate sales and thought they were nice and brought them home.  I tried and tried to remember where I had heard of the Around Tuit Studio name.  I asked friends who had shops back in the 80's and they didn't remember either.I finally had a great idea!  I'd ask the ceramics instructor that I had when I was attending Harding College (now Harding University) if he might remember.  His name is Paul Pitt, a great artist, and he is the one who would remember anything creative that involved pottery.  No one has a land line anymore so I found him on facebook and asked to be his friend.  He accepted my offer and when I mess... 07/13/2018

Sleep-over of yesteryear?This picture was given to me by Sherry Person, whose dad collected lots of pictures and loved history, for this blog.  It makes me think of how kids used to have fun.  This seems to show young boys out in the woods with a tent, building a fire and probably planning a "sleep-over."  I have been told that kids have sleep-overs all the time now.  After asking my great grandchild what a sleep-over is and what they do, I decided NO, not at my house.  She reported that they stay up all night, play pranks, slip out of the house, etc., etc.!  Having fun, fun, fun!  NO, not at my house.We don't know who these boys were or where it was.  But we have to agree that it was a fun, fun, fun time! 07/09/2018

This photo shows the other most popular attire in the 1950s with Searcy High School girls.  We just discussed the pearls-with-a-sweater trend and now we have another picture with the little-scarf-around-the-neck style.  I mentioned that I grew up in Georgia and we dressed this way also and I wondered how fashion was the same with  so much distance apart withoug social mediaSearcy Sleuths can name these girls.  I know several of them but not all.  Perhaps the Sleuths will also know why they were gathered around the piano.  Singing?  Just posing?  They do look happy!   07/06/2018

Fashionable girls who were football royalty.I grew up in Georgia and I can remember pulling my sweater up under my pearls and I looked similar to these girls from Searcy AR.  I also had the socks with shoes like these, the skirt that showed only a short amount of leg so the style must have been nationwide even without social media to send the style along.  How'd that work??One thing I wonder about with this picture is how the girl on the bottom right could dress differently.  She has a sweater and a collar and a scarf.  I believe she also was the queen while the others made up her court so did that call for a different look?  Was she told to wear white to stand out while the others wore darker colors?  Only the Searcy Sleuths can tell me that.  This picture was loaned to me for this blo... 07/04/2018

Jody's new car?Here's another great old snapshot that was loaned to me with permission to share on this blog.  The writing was underneath the scanned photo and tells who was there......even down to the dog's name.  But we don't know who owned the dog!  Jody Taylor, so it says, was home from the Air Force and got himself a new car.  I assume the car on the left was it.  My understanding is that he and Anita Hart lived across the street from each other on West Arch Street in Searcy.Note the street had a sidewalk!  I hate that eventually builders decided that sidewalks were not needed in the new subdivisions so we have many homes and subdivisions in Searcy AR with no sidewalks.Happy 4th of July to a veteran, Jody, and to all others! 07/04/2018

Where they were?  What they were doing?  Why they were together?I don't know.  (But Searcy Sleuths will know.)   I do recognize lots of the ladies.  In fact, I recognize almost all of them but can't recall the names.  Definitely, they were on a nice brick porch and they were all dressed up.  I don't believe I see a single pair of pants in the picture so it dates back a good distance.  It might be fun for you to pinpoint your favorites in this picture! 07/01/2018

 A friend and I were visiting an estate sale a few days ago.  The sale was for property from a very well known Searcy AR person who had passed away.  She had grown up in Searcy, moved away for years and years, and then moved back.  There in the house was hanging a white-looking jumpsuit thing with letters on the back.  Searcy High School Band.  It was tiny looking so she must have been a small high school girl when she wore it.But we passed it by and went on our way.  Then, look what has popped up!  A picture with girls wearing those outfits!  They have different poses as they wear them and one is unzipped down the front.  And some have High School shortened to H S.  These make me wonder if the bands still have these jump suits?  Anyone know? 06/20/2018

The last one!  Promise!We have just had two birthday parties from many years ago on this blog.  I promise that this is the last one and it really needs to have someone tell us who these lovely girls (and we are down to two handsome boys) were.  Anita Hart, our little birthday queen, is in the middle probably opening her gifts.  My bet is that lots of these kids were present in the other two parties that we have published.  They have just become older! Check here for one of them and check here for the other one.They have moved inside the house.  Notice the pretty curtains, the wallpaper and the nice furniture including a coffee table with gifts galore!  Mom must have decided they were old enough to have manners and not ruin the house!  I do love these old pictures and hope you do too!  T... 06/18/2018

Bear with me.  We were on the subject of birthday parties of the past and how much they brought out the dress clothes and the good manners for the youngsters.   Well, here we are with the possible same bunch of kids on the same street but just a little bit older.  Anita Hart Fuller is right there beside the cake and we can recognize her and surely she can tell us who the other kids were.  Would it be fun to compare this one to a picture of a birthday party today?  I think it would.Location:  Arch Street, Searcy AR. 06/18/2018

Remember days like this?  It is probably typical of parties held long ago.  All the kids are told to look this way for the picture but the sun is so bad on their eyes that they have to put the arm up.  Note all the shadows of the grownups looking on for the fantastic picture of the kids having a party.  I believe this party was being held on Arch Street in Searcy AR.  It says that it is Anita Hart's party but we don't know which one was Anita.  (Perhaps she will tell us.)  Looks as if it had a slightly wide range of ages, too, for the festive occasion.  We can even see if the party-girl remembers who these kids were!  06/17/2018

Here is a great old post card showing a Searcy AR family visiting the world's tallest building.  As they climbed to the top, the photo guy was there to snap their picture and sell it to them.  The picture had to be made prior to 1972 because that is when the Empire State Building in New York lost its prestige of being the tallest.  Doing a little googling revealed that it is now the 5th tallest in the US and the 37th tallest in the world!  I like the styles of the folks in the picture.   For dress-ups back then women did not wear pants!  It was dresses all the time, even to school.  Bobby-sox were in.  The men wore hats and dress pants and two-toned shoes!  And it looks as if Mom had on slightly higher heeled shoes that were dressy.  What a nice trip!! 06/16/2018

Bicycles!How many of us can remember our first bicycles and how they were treasured and how we were so thrilled when we got one, even if it was a used one, beat-up and not beautiful!  I do!  It was there on the front porch of the old house we lived in.  My dad had sneaked it in there for me and my sister.  We were ecstatic!Here we show a mother and a daughter on their bikes.  I don't think it is on the same day.....but possibly in the same neighborhood.  Corinne Hart, who lived to be 100, is the top picture.  Second picture is her daughter, Anita Hart Fuller, when she was a cutie-pie daughter riding the first bike.  She might even be able to tell us about it because she let me use the picture.  Bikes to us....way back then....were probably equivalent to cell phones to today's kids.  06/13/2018

REMEMBER PHONE NUMBERS?  It was easy when they were small numbers.  Anita Hart Fuller, our blog source for so many things, has an old phone book with phone numbers and addresses. We thought it would be fun to see who had the first 10 phone numbers in Searcy and the locations.  We were unable to track down the numbers 2 and 7.  Perhaps you Searcy Sleuths can help us out.  Here goes.....1.   Smith-Vaughan Merc. Co    201 W. Arch2.   ??????3.  White County Jail  413 N. Spruce4.  Ivan Quattlebaum Grocery & Ivan Quattlebaum Transfer   217 W. Market 5.  W. D. Davenport  211 W. Center  (remember we have been publishing pictures done           by the Davenport son,  Elvin, and I wish we had a picture of this house ) 6.  Person Feed Store  212 N. Spruce7.   ?????8.  MidSouth Gas Co.  315 N.  Spr... 06/05/2018

It does not seem possible now but in 1978 and shortly before then a lady REALTOR was rare.  This picture comes from a 1978 Harding yearbook and shows the Action Real Estate Center at 2909 East Race Street in Searcy AR.  Lots of students are in front of it and in the background I believe we are seeing a house in Cloverdale.  At this time there was no shopping center behind this building.  The building, by-the-way, is still there and still charming.And to answer the trivia question about who were the first women agents in our area I believe we have the answer with the owners of this business.  Mervel McInturff, Dell Coyle and Lorene Smith.  Dell has passed away, Mervel has moved to another city but Lorene Smith is still in Searcy.  If you see her, thank her for her fantastic career in rea... 05/29/2018

Here's another photo loaned by Anita Hart Fuller and it is also a very interesting one.  It shows three ladies standing outside a house (and we know which house it was) and posing for the photographer.  It has these names on the back. 1. ?  2. Ruth Fuller  3. Grace Neal.  So the person who wrote this did not know the first lady on the left.  But she looks so much like the lady in the middle that they have to be relatives.  The third lady, on the right, was Grace Neal.  I remember that she may have been the original owner of the Ideal Shop, a dress store for women in downtown Searcy AR.  My children's grandmother Smith worked there and enjoyed being in the midst of the latest fashions, especially hats, that were available in Searcy.  This picture, no doubt, shows the style of the day, an... 05/20/2018