Heroes, Healers and Humdingers ... we heard their voices and met them all!

We've learned something about the Civil War. These (rounded) headstones in the Eureka Springs Cemetery mark the graves of two Union Soldiers with the same last name. If they had been Confederate Soldiers, and some Confederate Soldiers are buried there, their headstones would have points. There was no fighting in Eureka Springs, but battles were fought in nearby Pea Ridge and Prairie Grove and sick and wounded soldiers were brought to Eureka Springs for the healing waters.

Two years ago, we wound through Eureka Springs on our trip home from a "House in Mourning" at the Rogers Historic Museum. Torches were burning throughout Eureka Springs Cemetery beside Highway 62. 
Standing in a semi-circle behind a tall headstone inside the cemetery was an old-fashioned choir singing to an audience, as a preacher stood in front. They seemed to be from another era.
We couldn't imagine what was going on, so we checked the Internet and found that we had stumbled onto the Eureka Springs Historical Museum's 4th annual "Voices from Eureka's Silent City."
We bundled up the next night and returned to Eureka Springs to hear stories from Civil War surgeons, nurses, soldiers, doctors, a mason and a preacher.

Hey look at us. We've paid our couples fee of $20 are are at the front of the line to get on the bus and ride to the cemetery Friday night. Fill the bus from the back. The tours went every 20 minutes from 5:30 - 8:30 p.m. It was a busy evening.

We arrived at the cemetery at dusk. Friday night was unseasonably balmy, which was a blessing. The past two years, we wore heavy boots, gloves, coats, scarves and hats. This year, we wore light vests and saw one man wearing shorts.

Here's our first tour guide. "Mute your cell phones, but please take lots of photos. Follow your guides and hang onto your buddy. You'll stop along the way and hear the Voices of eight people in the Silent City ... and you'll get to see them ... as they once were."

Before we hear the voices, here are a couple of extras thrown in for free.

Maybe in some cemeteries you've seen monuments that look like logs. We know we have and wondered about that. Friday night we learned something. For a few years at the end of the 19th Century, Woodmen of the World insurance members could receive these headstones - some tall, some short - for free if they had insurance with them. It came with the policy, and eventually they decided it was cost prohibitive.

If you hit this "stone" with your knuckle, it will ring like a bell because it was cast from zinc more than 100 years ago in one of the eastern states. The guide said that this type stone marker was a "Genealogist's dream" because the names are easy to read all these years later. 

 

An 8-year-old little girl was the heartbreak of her parents. They chose an angel to protect the final resting place of their child. The angel appears to be writing the child's name.  If you look closely, you can see the finger writing.  

This year the Voices tour was dubbed, "Heroes, Healers and Humdingers."  
First we will visit the healers.  We noticed that each resting place offered clues as the the person's significance.  For instance, this stop has a small table, a blanket, a crutch, and a black medical bag.

Meet Dr. Pearl Hale Tatman, the first female physician in Arkansas. Doc Pearl had a general practice, however, she concentrated on pregnant women and bringing babies into the world. She often gave them necessities for the newborn.   

Doc Pearl later married a pharmacist, Albert Tatman.  He became a doctor.  They are buried together in the plot behind her.  You can still stay in her three-bedroom Victorian house in Eureka Springs for about $200 a night. 

This sturdy woman was no one to trifle with -- a super nurse. Margaret McLaughlin RADM was a Eureka Springs graduate who rose to become the Chief Nurse Officer of the U.S. Public Health Service and Assistant Surgeon General of the United States.  She was born in 1910, died in 2003 and is buried near a large fountain.  She believes nursing is a noble calling and encouraged young members of our group to pursue that career.

Dr. Alvah Jackson considered himself quite the healer, who was especially fond of bear grease and "Jackson's Eye Water."  This avid hunter also sold medicinal plants and potions through the mail. He claimed one miracle.  His nearly blind son washed his muddy eyes out with water from Basin Springs. The next morning he told his father, I can see.  That is why he peddled the bottles of water as an eye wash.

Dr. John Fremont Ellis was truly a doctor with a large practice and was staff physician at the Crescent Hotel, a monument that he helped build.  But he was more famous for his business foresight.

He helped bring a railroad to Eureka Spring, establish and operate the power company, and install water and sewer lines.  He was living in an apartment on the third floor of the Rosewater-Ellis Building when it caught fire.  He had a heart attack and died while he stood on the street and watched the file consume the building on Spring Street. He is buried in the grave just behind where he sits and talks on the phone.

Next, we have a hero.  A simple man who was the most popular man in Eureka Springs. 

George Head.  You remember George Head?  See the fireman's helmet on the ground?  Maybe he delivered ice to your house on a hot summer day before you had electricity.  And then he was that lineman who fixed your electricity.  He knew absolutely everybody and everybody knew him, including the children he taught to square dance on Saturday nights in the Auditorium.  He was a volunteer firefighter for 38 years.  He was fighting the fire when Dr. Ellis died.  George and his wife are buried in the graves behind him. 

What is a Humdinger, you say?

Miss Kitty Goodwin was a very friendly sort.  Men found her and her "funhouse" especially entertaining. At this point in the tour, we were at the Pauper's graves where no graves are marked.  Could Miss Kitty be buried here? 

Miss Lena Wilson was 80 years old when she died in 1963.  Remarkable, considering the circumstances in which she lived.  Before this well educated eccentric spinster fell into hard times, she was a school teacher for 16 years. After her father and mother died, she lost her home to foreclosure.  She spent most of her years in a shack that she built herself. She lived with her 12 dogs, three cats and pigs.  Take a good look at the picture.  That wooden wagon was pulled by a donkey or a little pony through the streets of Eureka Springs as she went about and was paid by residents to collect trash. Sometimes she would find that she was able to repair old cast-offs.  She would secretly leave them with other "unfortunates."  She is buried in the Wilson family plot, with only a metal marker used by the funeral director as her headstone. 

I guess Humdingers can have all sorts of souls -- good, bad, funny and evil.  And possibly just mentally ill.  Bad.  Evil.  Mentally ill.  Who really knows?  Johnny Poynter was 21 years old when he died.  If you look closely, you will see that the top of the tall monument behind "Johnny" is broken off.  A seemingly cruel prank.  Our guide explained that this often happened and what it meant -- a life cut short or a murderer was buried here. In our next blog, we will talk more about Johnny.  

If you look at the young girl's headstone from a earlier picture, it looks like that top also was broken off.

Miss Kitty always likes visitors and if she is really here, then in the Silent City she will still be.  Listen for her voice and the voices and tales of others.  The good people at the Eureka Springs Historical Museum will be happy to fill in the blanks.

Dwain and Megan

Cell Service at the end of Yellow Rock Trail. Come Hike With Us.

The first Saturday morning in October 2014 promised to be an absolutely gorgeous day to hike.  And Devils Den State Park has any number of trails to pick from.  We knew the campground was full so it was a good thing the park had so many options.
 

We're dressed in layers - 4 for Megan and 3 for Dwain.

Eating our hardy Lumberjack breakfast hot off the campfire, we contemplated the trails.  There was Yellow Rock Trail, three-miles.  It was close enough for us to walk to the trail head, so we decided that might be fun.  Devil's Den Cave trail was also nearby, but we were pretty sure we had explored that trail once before several years ago.  

And, no, we didn't find anything in the Devil's Den.

The problem was, we had no idea if the Yellow Rock Trail was moderate, easy or difficult because the map did not say.  We should have guessed from some of the sites the map pointed to as "scenic" along the way.  There were at least two overlooks.  We were in a valley. 

Dwain packed two bottles of water in a small insulated backpack cooler (he got it FREE as a thank you from AARP when he renewed his membership -- although the one pictured as an incentive looked much nicer with more pockets to hold things and so forth than the one that came in the mail) and of course, a couple of cameras.

Megan carried a third camera.

We visited the restroom a last time, locked the door to the RV and set off.

The Lumberjack breakfast was truly our most important and inspired meal of the day. We both agreed on this by the end of the hike.  
Megan's biggest complaint was that nowhere along the way was there a bathroom of any sort.

Megan gets a kick out of posted signs. They are, of course, posted for a reason -- Someone has done the very thing that the signs warns NOT to do.  This one says,"Rappelling Not Permitted. Trails Open from Dawn to Dusk."  Consider us warned.  This is also a clue to what awaits us along the way.  Rocky ledges.  Steep ones. 

Saturday morning temperatures started out in the low 40s so at the beginning of our hike, jackets felt good. 

As did gloves.  Megan is wearing a pair of Dwain's (thank you, Dwain).  Megan forgot.

Midway through the hike, though, we pulled the jackets off.  Dwain tied his around his waist. 

That blue coat sure adds interest to  his profile.

Dwain!! I know it's tempting but No Rappelling. Remember the warning signs. 

  Don't make Megan come up back there!

The trail, in many places, twisted and looped, kind of like a car climbing a mountain. That eased the level of intensity.

We were rewarded with many gifts of nature along the way -- wildflowers, which continue to bloom even in October.

The first time we ever saw these beautiful purple berries was at Petit Jean State Park.  At time time, neither of us had a clue what they were.  We found out later that they are appropriately named, Beauty Berry. 

Makes us wonder if we would be transformed if we ate them.  Hum... might turn us purple.

We wondered if a bear might suddenly appear.  Knee-jerk surprises were still to come, though, as we meandered along the trail. More on that later.

And delicate moss that grows like a soft carpet in the leafiest and dampest parts of the forest, it seems. We'd give anything to be able to grow moss like that. 

Nothing is more intriguing along a trail than a cool wooden bridge. Dwain took this panoramic photo just so you could take in the entire scene.

This is a close up of the bridge.  Hey, someone had to build this thing and the park keeps it maintained.  There is no telling how many people cross it as they hike this trail every week.

AND here in this very spot was a HUGE surprise in the land of absolutely NO CELL SERVICE.  Ding. Ding. Ding. Ding.  Dwain's cell phone was binging to beat the band.  We had been concerned about the fact that we could not contact family -- I mean, what if something happened?  Isn't that always the worry? Sooooo... Dwain took this momentary opportunity to contact some VIPs -- especially the ones who were caring for our pets. 

Naturally, trails usually have a destination and overlooks seemed to be popular.  Yellow Rock Trail was a popular place to be on Saturday morning among the human and canine set.  We enjoyed meeting such a wide variety of dogs happily pulling their owners along. One young lady was being tugged by a very large pup -- 11 months old. She was thrill to tell us all about her very friendly one-blue-eye-one-brown-eyed Husky/Shepherd/Wolf.  We forgot the dog's unusual name, but his fur was very thick and soft. We will never forgot those beautiful eyes.

 

Are those last two dogs - German Shepherds - we passed about to fight?

We had wanted to take Alice Ivy camping with us, but we couldn't leave Pup without her.
We were glad she didn't make the trip, because our rescue dog is a bit timid and doesn't like strangers, whether people or other dogs.

We promised a surprise to come.  As one of our friends so aptly put it, "she bet we were scared of the wildlife."  What wildlife? Dogs?  When we left the overlook, we rounded a hairpin corner.  As we pointed out earlier, the sun had warmed enough that we had to remove our coats (and Megan's gloves).  We ran smack into two young women who were in the process of frantically shedding their heavy sweats. One of them had taken off her sweat pants in such a panic (she announced that she was very, very hot) and she feared that she had forgotten to wear shorts underneath. To be honest, at first glance, we were worried about the same thing.  Megan wanted to put her hands over Dwain's eyes to keep everyone from being embarrassed. We were all relieved to see that the shorts were in place.  

The next overlook was actually another starting point for the Yellow Rock Trail and also a high enough spot for cell service.  This well built rock and log pavilion was constructed by the CCC in the 1930s. 

It was so well built that it was nominated by the National Park Service for an award.

We took the opportunity to take several photographs and of course to use our momentary cell service to post this very picture to Facebook so that our extended network of family and friends would know that we were alive (in case anyone wondered).  It was at this point that we returned to the trail and hiked back. Our hardy breakfast sustained us wonderfully.  However, and this is a BIG however.  Nowhere along the trail was there a simple Port-a-John, so...

We never drank the water.

Until next time, 
Dwain & Megan

We forgot marshmallows. What kind of Scouts are we?

This narrow road into Devil's Den State Park has some pretty spell-binding twists and turns.  Our Nissan truck was pulling our very first camping trailer along this road. Along the way we ran across a state park sign by the side of the road that announced that the campground was full.  We just looked at each other and smiled.

If you look closely, you can see that the leaves on the trees are just beginning to change from shades of green to shades of red and orange and yellow.

The Arkansas Department of Parks and Tourism says the Ozarks landscape begins changing colors the last of September and early October when Black Gums take on brilliant red tones; Maple and Hickory are in full color by the last week of October; and some 30 species of Oaks turn red the second week of November and keep their leaves for a month.

This is a scene alongside a 1.5 mile hiking trail that we anticipated exploring. 

Who needs reality TV when you have panoramic windows in your RV?  What fun it was watching these families set up their tents, put tablecloths on picnic tables and set up camp.

We felt lucky to get a campsite with electricity and water.  We felt luckier still that our neighboring campers (judging from the license plates, three families from Kansas) were family-friendly (meaning, the were not overly rowdy).

Part of our plan was to cook outside on the campfire at least a couple of times, starting with breakfast Saturday morning.

With temperatures in the low 40s, we were in no rush to venture outside and get the fire blazing.

This is our first attempt at tin-foil cooking. We've packed the Lumberjack - sausage, frozen French fires, chopped onions and tomatoes, salt and pepper, and cracked two eggs on top - in three layers of foil and set on the fire.

At the end of 20 minutes, we put cheese on top and resealed the package.

And here's breakfast - Lumberjack, fresh banana, extra-spicy tomato juice and fresh coffee - a hearty breakfast.

Without cell or Internet service, thank goodness our neighbors were entertaining. These young women made trip after trip into the woods across the road and carried back dead limbs for their own campfires. Hum, wonder what the men were doing? Maybe still sleeping.

 

Cold enough for jackets and vest could be the perfect camping weather. We didn't worry about bugs or snakes ... except the dead black snake squashed in the highway.

Isn't the campground lovely? It's just a beautiful setting in the valley along Lee Creek.

Devil's Den is a state park, and rangers were planning a program on bats for tonight. Too bad we had to miss it at the amphitheater.

Visitors are restricted from caves, because of the danger to the health of bats. But we were welcome to look in this bat shelter. No, we didn't see any.

This was our first camping trip in years, and we FORGOT several essentials, like this charcoal starter we bought at the camp store. Too bad it didn't stock dish washing detergent. Have you used shampoo to clean dishes or wash hands or ...?

We forgot lots of other essentials, like marshmallows or anything else for S'Mores, although someone was kind enough to leave marshmallow-roasting rods on the picnic table.
And they called Megan a Girl Scout.

But our trip wasn't going to be dampened by a few mistakes.

If those were our biggest problems, it was a great weekend. We were in for some real surprises.

 
Devil's Den was created by CCC workers in the 1930s and '40s, quality work that has stood the test of time.
The park is popular with college students at the University of Arkansas, and we ran into dozens of young people on the hiking trails, who were camping and hiking with their dogs.
More on them later.
Megan and Dwain