When the girls and I got to Gentry, our car of household goods we shipped from West Plains the day we left there, which was accompanied by Mr. C. E. Kimberlin, had not arrived and awaiting it, we stopped at the Elberta Hotel. Among the guests at the hotel while we were there was Mr. Williamson, an editor of a newspaper published in Oklahoma, and Mr. Wilson from Illinois, who had purchased a farm near Gantry. They were very friendly gentlemen, both good singers and joined with us in rendering a number of familiar songs. In about two days after our arrival at Gentry, our freight car came in all right and was unloaded. Besides our household stuff were a horse and buggy which I had bought in West Plains and thinking they would be useful to us on the farm we had them shipped with our other things. Mr. Kimberlin who came through with the car said it was delayed on the trip by being left on a side track several times. Had not he been along we might have had to wait much longer for our property, our stuff was taken to the farm by one of the transfer men, Mr. Johnson, who with his family were still at the farm, came with a buggy and assisted me in conveying the family to the farm, and then we were again at home.

We arrived at our farm in Arkansas about the middle of October, 1915 and that fall I was busy preparing firewood for winter and superintending the clearing of about five acres of timberland in the inclosure of the farm, and also some patches of timber left uncleared in one of the fields. During this time, one day I had lariatted our buggy mare in the peach orchard where there was an abundance of good grass. In some way she pulled the lariat pin loose from the ground and becoming frightened she came by where I was working, running at full speed, the lariat and iron pin dangling after her and often striking her heels. The field gate happened to be open and she passed out to the road leading to Gentry, and did not stop in her wild, swift speed until she reached town, where some men caught her. I followed her afoot, to town, as soon as possible, found her at the livery barn, where she had been taken by the men who caught her, and brought her home. She had always seemed to be a very gentle animal before that, but she had got such a scare that she became unsafe to work in the buggy and I exchanged her for an old gentle mare, poor, but safe to handle in harness.

That fall I was in a real estate office in Gentry one day, and met an old gentleman, whose name was Ball, and in the course of conversation he said he had a son living at Farmington, New Mexico. He also said he had come to Gentry to look after a residence he owned there. Then I proposed trading him our Aztec, New Mexico residence property for his Gentry property. At once I saw he was interested. He proposed that I go with him to see his house and after viewing it carefully, I described my property to him. He said he would have his son at Farmington see my Aztec residence, and if he found it satisfactory he would give me an even exchange. In a few days he heard from his son and we made the deal. He and I both had abstracts to the respective properties showing perfect titles. Our newly acquired Gentry property was a very nice frame, story and a half structure with five rooms below stairs and room on the second floor for two more rooms, but unfinished. The house being vacant at the time, I rented it in a few days to Mr. Montgomery Wilson and his wife, very nice people.

Our dwelling house on the farm near Gentry was a large two story frame building with five rooms and hall an the first floor, but the upstairs was unfinished. That fall I had one room upstairs finished. It made us a very comfortable home. We were all as well as usual until after Christmas when on the night of the 12th day of January, 1916, which was exceedingly cold, my wife became very seriously ill with her old ailment, rheumatism and some other complications. Dr. Wilson of Gentry treated her case for some time, but without benefit, and she became almost helpless. She was unable to walk, could only sit up a few minutes once or twice a day and was so weak that she could not turn herself in bed. As I learned was frequently the case, the remedies the doctor used in treating her for rheamatism affected her stomach and caused her to almost lose her appetite and to suffer very much with gastritis. This was the first time during all the time she had been afflicted with rheumatism that her stomach had ever been affected, either by the disease or by remedies which were administered for its relief. She had always been unusually abstemious, altogether too much so, with the result that she was undernourished. But her stomach had never given her any trouble, and her digestion and assimilation had always been very good, though she had a lack of appetite, or rather a desire for food, rarely if ever being real hungry. But now her stomach was so upset, that her digestion got to be very bad, and on account of not being able to take any exercise, she became very constipated, necessitating the constant use of laxatives as well as other remedies. She continued to be in very poor health all that winter, and but little if any better during the ensuing spring and summer.

The next summer after we moved to Arkansas, our daughter Inez visited us and remained with us several weeks, assisting the other daughters in nursing her mother. We were all so disheartened over Josie’s deplorable condition that we were exceedingly glad to have Inez with us. She was always optimistic, ever looking hopefully to the future, and did all she could to encourage her mother. We regretted her departure for her home after she had remained with us as long as she could do so.

I did not do any farming that year but raised a good garden and looked after the fruit crop. Much of the land, not in apple and peach orchard, of which there was about twenty acres, I mean in the orchard, had been cultivated in corn I learned, almost constantly for several years and I felt sure it would be beneficial to it to let it "lay idle" for a year. It was a bad fruit year in Arkansas that season and the price of apples that fall was very low. The peach crop was a failure having been killed by a heavy frost in the spring, consequently we did not realize much from the fruit crop, and as there had been no grain crop raised on the farm, it was so far a bad investment. All we realized was what we got off our garden which was considerable, plenty of apples for our use during the summer, fall and winter and of course the use of the place as a home. There was a good well of cold water, we had quite a bunch of chickens which helped out some.

In the tall of 1916, Mr. Montgomery Wilson, the renter of our dwelling house in Gentry, bought a farm near town and he and his wife moved to their farm home vacating our town property, and as Josephine's health continued so poor, I leased the farm and in October, 1916 we moved to our Gentry residence where we continued to live, as long as we stayed in Arkansas. We liked the house real well, and as later our family became reduced in numbers we had plenty of room. We had a well of good water near the kitchen door, a small barn for our horse with the shed for buggy and room in the shed also for some chickens which we brought from the farm. There was a good sized, fenced garden spot and we had a real good garden the spring and summer of 1917. Our renter on the farm during that year, Mr. Perkins, raised a good crop of corn, and the fruit crop was better that year than it had been the preceding year. He was a good farmer, but his health was bad and he was unable to work most of the time, but he had a son, Joseph, who was 15 or 17 years old, that was a very industrious boy and did as much work as many men and did it well. Mr. Perkins was a good manager and assisted the son very much in planning their farm work. Mrs. Perkins was very nice, well educated lady who frequently assisted Joseph in hoeing the corn. She and the children younger than Joseph, did all of the work in raising a good garden. We were well pleased with Mr. Perkins and family as renters and would have been glad to keep them on the farm another year or longer, but his health became so poor, that that fall they moved to Kansas City, we heard of his death the next year.

In the fall of 1917, Joe and family and Harry and Inez Pitts visited us and stayed with us a few days. Their mother was slightly improved but her health was still very poor and we were very glad to have them with us and we all appreciated their visit very much.

After Mr. Perkins and his family removed to Kansas City I rented the farm sometime late that fall to a man by the name of Crosby, but he proved to be a lazy, worthless character, and although he had two boys nearly grown and with their help he would have been well able to cultivate all of the farm and spray and cultivate the orchard, they neglected their work, and the crop was so poorly cultivated it was not in condition to withstand the dry weather late in the summer, that it was almost a failure and the fruit, though abundant, was of poor quality, the trees having been only partially and very poorly sprayed. I had rented the farm to Mr. Crosby for cash but he failed to pay part of the rent but I got him and his lazy boys to do some work in partial payment of the deficit on the rent unpaid. That summer I had the house and barn on the farm painted and some fencing done, improving the appearance of the premises very much. I got plenty of fruit for our own use and firewood off the farm, I hauled the fruit and wood to our home in town in my small one horse wagon. That summer I did some work on the farm, I cut all the sprouts off the five acres from which the timber had been cut in the fall or winter of 1915, and did some other work.

Early in the spring of 1918 Joe sold his interest in the stock of goods he and Bernie Coon owned in Hermitage, to Thomas H. Sanders and after the disposal of same, he and his family visited us a few days, they left with the intention of locating somewhere in the far West. Their departure from Gentry was April 7, 1918. Later we heard from them at Caldwell, Idaho, where they had stopped and Joe had obtained employment in a shoe store. We regretted very much to see Joe and his family go so far away from us, fearing we would never see them again. Our fears have proved to be well founded so far. Joe said he disposed of his mercantile interests in Hermitage because the business was unsatisfactory and unprofitable, and his health was not good on account, their physician said, of malaria, and the doctor advised him to locate in the West in some high, dry section of the country.

That spring Nelle and Irene visited Inez at their farm home near Hermitage. They were there when Joe and family sold out and went West after staying with Inez a few weeks and visiting her aunt Mattie Coon and family and other relatives and friends in Hermitage, Irene came home stopping en route with her uncle Eugene Lindsey and family in Springfield, Nelle remained for a longer visit with Inez and Harry. We heard from Inez and Nelle frequently stating they were all well.

Then shortly after the fourth of July we had another letter informing us that we had another granddaughter, Inez's girl baby, born July 4, 1913, and named Josephine Victoria, for her grandmothers. We were pleased to hear of the birth of our second grandchild and that the young mother and babe were doing well. Nelle remained with Inez until September when she came home accompanied by Inez and baby Josephine. They stayed with us until October when Harry and their aunt Mattie Coon and Stanley Hewitt, a boy whom we knew in Hermitage, came and remained with us a few days. We rejoiced to see them all but regretted that they came so soon after Inez’s arrival at our home, as Harry wanted her to return home and we wished she and the babe could have stayed awhile longer with us. They left for their homes October 12, 1918, in their automobile.

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