Tidbits of News Enrich Family History

#52 Ancestors Week 13 — In the Paper

Tidbits of News Enrich Family History 

 By Myra Vanderpool Gormley © 2019 

 It is the small things, rather than the major vital statistics we all pursue, that make a family history interesting to read. I find these rather trivial things in old newspapers — just ordinary news items of other times and places, but what depth and color they provide my genealogy. 

In the Arkansas Wheel, a newspaper I’d never heard of, was an article that settled once and for all (I hope) the dispute in my family as to whether my great-grandpa, William Carroll Vanderpool, was a Baptist or a Methodist preacher. There in that obscure paper, published at Jasper, Newton County, Arkansas, on 21 October 1886, was a lengthy article, headlined with “Minutes of the 7th Annual Meeting of the Buffalo Association of United Baptists held with Corrinth [sic] Church, Newton County, Arkansas. It is dated. Friday, 24 September 1886. 

From the article I learned great-grandpa Vanderpool, along with the

Rev. W.C. Vanderpool and wife, Mary E. Kelly

moderator and clerk, was to make out a bill of arrangement for to-morrow [sic]. They were to “have 100 copies of the association’s minutes printed, to superintend the job, and take care of the distribution of same.” 

 I always trusted my Dad and Aunt Inez (after all they knew their grandpa) regarding him being a Baptist preacher, but other cousins disagreed. Now, I have additional evidence.

In The Star Progress, of Berryville, Arkansas, a marriage announcement appeared on 25 Feb. 1916. It reported that Miss Alice Downs and Orb Vanderpool were married near Eureka Spring by the Rev. Mack Haggard. It also mentioned that her mother, Mrs. M. A. Downs, accompanied them and that the bridegroom was “clerking at Fair Store” and that he was the “son of well-to-parents who reside just across from Arkansas in Barry County, Missouri” where the young couple were going to reside. 

Orb is rather unusual name, which aided in me finding him in our large Vanderpool database. These one-name projects are fun because you get to work with so many cousins — near and distant. However, had his given name been John or William, I might still be looking. We have his given names as Orba Elmer, with a nickname of “O.E.” He was born 13 March 1893 in Carroll County, Arkansas and died in Barry County, Missouri in 1952. His bride’s full name turned out to be Martha Alice Downs, but apparently she went by her middle name. They had five known children. He was the son of James Bluford Vanderpool and Cordelia E. Jackson. 

In August of 1910, my granduncle, Brack Vanderpool, and another man were thrown from a wagon by a runaway team. Brack’s left arm was broken. This little news item appeared 29 August 1940 in The Indian Journal, published at Eufaula, Oklahoma. It ran under a heading of “Recalling Past Evens in Eufaula” — Items taken from the files of the Journal recalling events that transpired in years gone by — 1910. “Looking Backward” columns in local newspapers are among my favorites because it is easy to overlook something in the older newspapers which are often laid out somewhat helter-skelter. 

Brack’s full name was Russell Braxton, but he was always called “Brack.” He married Cora Kimbro on 17 October 1908. They had four daughters, three of whom lived to adulthood. He was the son of my Baptist preacher great-grandpa, William Carroll Vanderpool and Mary Kelly. Brack’s big brother, John, was my grandfather who married Cora Kimbro’s older half-plus sister, Mollie Kimbro. I refer to them as “half-plus sisters” because Cora and Mollie had the same father and their mothers were full sisters. As a result, the children of Brack and John are almost full double first cousins. 

My genealogy software goes bonkers trying to compute this.