A Brother Named Thomas

Thomas Arrowood, the brother of Samuel Augustus Arrowood. The third child born to John and Frances "Fanny" Barrett Arrowood, he was about 12 years older than Samuel.







Thomas Arrowood was born in Burnsville, Yancey County, North Carolina October 29, 1820. He came with his family to Altoona in the year 1881 where he lived until 1897 when he moved with his family to Des Moines where he resided until death called him to his home above Feb. 1, 1900 at the age of 79 years 3 months and 3 days.

He served his country faithfully during the Civil War. When the war was ended he received an honorable discharge and was given a pension for injuries which he had received in the war. Mr. Arrowood leaves a wife and several children to mourn the loss of a loving, devoted husband and father, also two brothers and two sisters who keenly feel the loss of a kind brother. The remains were brought here last Saturday and were immediately taken in charge by his late comrades in the G.A.R. Post of which he was a member.

He was taken to the Christian Church and after due ceremony from the Post the Stars and Stripes were spread upon the casket which held the form that had so boldly marched forth and fought in the Civil War. Rev. Hastie then took charge and completed the funeral services.





Mr. Arrowood was well known in this vicinity and leave many friends who mourn the loss of an honored citizen, as was expressed by the long procession which slowly wended its way to the City of the dead, to place one more of our respected veterans beside the many who have gone before. In a few years history alone will record the suffering of our old veterans who are leaving us one by one.


Addition Informantion:

Thomas Arrowood, son of John Arrowood and Frances (Fanny) Barrett. He married twice, first to Clarissa Parnell in North Carolina. After her death he married Louisa Stinnett on June 19, 1866 in Greene Co, TN.

Thomas was inducted into the military (Civil War) in Strawberry Plaines, Jefferson County, Tennessee, June 30, 1864. He was released from active duty in Knoxville, Knox County, Tennessee, November 30, 1864. Thomas applied for a military pension in Des Moines, Polk County, Iowa, July 9, 1890. The pension application states "that he is wholly unable to earn a support by reason of lung disease, chronic diarrhea, old age and general debility. That said disabilities are not due to his viscious habits and are to the best of his knowledge and belief permanent."

CHILDREN:

with Clarissa -

Frances Arrowood (1847- )
Elvira (Arrowood) Johnson (1849- )
John Arrowood (1849-1919)
Fanny Jane (Arrowood) Lowe (1851-1914)


Manson Ervin Arrowood (1852-1922)


















Althodrick Elizabeth (Arrowood) Snyder (1856-1932)


















William J. McHenry Arrowood (1860-1939)
Alexander Arrowood (Abt 1861- )
David Grant ARWOOD I (1864-1946)

with Louisa -

Clearsey Isobel (Arrowood) Arrowood (1867-1948)










Anna Belle (Arrowood) Riddle (1869-1958)
James Samuel Arrowood (1871-1887)
George Washington Arrowood (1873-1919)
Millie Allis Arrowood (1874- )
Nancy Irmilene (Arrowood) Rassler (1876-1909)
Joseph McHenry Arrowood (1878-1903)
Hattie (T) Clementine Arrowood (1880-1881)
Fleming (1882- )





Louisa Stinnett Arrowood





Birth: Oct. 16, 1843
Greeneville
Greene County
Tennessee

Death: Mar. 22, 1924
Des Moines
Polk County
Iowa

OBITUARY - DES MOINES TRIBUNE, MARCH 24, 1924

ARROWOOD - Funeral services for Mrs. Louisa Arrowood, 81,years old, who died yesterday morning at her home, 2518 Lyon Street, will be at held Wednesday afternoon at 1:30 at the residence. Interment will be in the Altoona cemetry.
p.18, c.1

NOTE: DEATH DATE ON TOMBSTONE IS MARCH 22, 1924, BUT HER DEATH CERTIFICATE AND NEWSPAPER ARTICLES SAY THE DEATH DATE WAS MARCH 23, 1924.

A Baby Sister Named Fannie

This is a photo of Fannie A. Whitehead and a step-grandson, Charles.




Samuel Augustus Arrowood’s sister, Fannie, the baby of the family:


Birth: Jan. 29, 1840
Yancey County
North Carolina, USA
Death: Mar. 28, 1935
Happy Valley
Blount County
Tennessee, USA


At the time of her death, she had 29 living grandchildren, 15 dead grandchildren, 83 great-grandchildren, 5 dead great-grandchildren, and 5 great-great grandchildren, and 1 dead great-great grandchild.

Burial:
Boone Cemetery
Blount County
Tennessee, USA

The following was published in the Maryville Times (Blount Co. TN) Thursday, October 20, 1932:

"Mrs. Fannie Whitehead of Rasor, Tennessee, is visiting her grandson, Lawrence H. Marine of Maryville.

Mrs. Whitehead is 93 years of age and is the only survivor of a family of 14 children. Her father also raised seven of his brother's children. His brother died and left the children homeless, so the burden fell to him, making his family total 21 children. Mr. John Arrowood raised the 21 children to maturity and never had the attention of a doctor except with one of his grown sons who had typhoid fever.

Mrs. Whitehead is in very good health and talks freely. She very often talks of Civil War days and says young folks don't know what hardships are.

Her grandfather fought in the Revolutionary War and was in the Army when George Washington led his forces to victory. Her father, John Arrowood, of Rock Creek, North Carolina, fought in the Jackson Army in 1812 and helped drive the Indians from the southern swamps.

Her husband, James Whitehead, volunteered in the Union Army when the Civil War broke out, leaving her with two small children. She also had four brothers who volunteered in the Union Army. Their names were James, George Washington, William and Wesley Arrowood. Washington and James returned, but Wesley and William died and are buried in the Soldier's Cemetery in Knoxville.

Her son-in-law, W.M. Boone, volunteered and fought in the Spanish-American War. She also had four grandsons in the World War. Their names are Roy and Roscoe Whitehead of Jade, Oklahoma; Horace Boone of McKeldry, Tenn., and Leonard F. Marine of Rasor, Tenn. They all returned except Leonard, who died at sea. Mrs. Whitehead will be at the Marine home on Morganton Road several days. All relatives and friends of Mrs. Whitehead are cordially invited to pay her a visit. She recognizes almost everyone she ever knew.

Mrs. Whitehead now is proud to say that she lives to see her fifth generation. She is the mother of six children. She has 30 grandchildren, 70 great-grandchildren, and three great-great-grandchildren. She says nothing would do her more good than see all her generations together at one time, but she hasn't much hope that she ever will, for they are scattered from Tennessee to Oklahoma. She does hope to live to finish 100 years. She likes to call the little folks around her and sing to them or tell them stories. Piecing quilts is still a great pastime for her."



The following was published in the Maryville Times (Blount Co. TN) Thursday, April 25, 1935:

"Mrs. Fannie Arwood Whitehead was born January 29, 1840, and departed this life March 28, 1935, being 95 years, 1 month and 29 days old. She was united in marriage to James Whitehead on January 29, 1860. To this union were born six children, two sons and four daughters. They are Thomas Whitehead of Oklahoma, Mrs. Belle Marine and Mrs. G.G. Hearon of Rasor now living. She has 29 grandchildren still living and 15 dead, 83 great-grandchildren living and five dead, and five great-great-grandchildren living and one dead. Her husband departed this life 63 years ago and left her and her children to make their way in life as best they could in the trying days just after the Civil War. By hard labor and toil, she kept the wolf from the door and reared her children in honor. Aunt Fannie as she was known was born in Buncombe County, North Carolina, and came in young womanhood to Happy Valley in the 3rd District of Blount County where she spent the remainder of her life.

Aunt Fannie professed faith in Christ at the tender age of 12 years and first united with the Treeville Baptist Church. Not content to remain with them, about 60 years ago, she united with the Missionary Baptist Church in which she remained until her death. She was faithful to her church, her home and her neighborhood and country. She loved her church more than most of us. She gave her last dollar one time to lift the debt off the church at the dedication. She was loved by young and old wherever she was known. She was always in her place at church as long as she was able to attend, always ready to lend a helping hand in every time of distress and need. She lived long enough to learn what trouble was, but was always looking to the future Home where trouble would be over. She was a widow of a Federal soldier and was faithful to the memory of him, living in widowhood for more than three score years, one of those that the Bible speaks of as a widow indeed. She will be missed you know, but we bow to His will who does all things well. Our great loss is Heaven's gain. Her funeral was conducted at the Happy Valley Church of which she was a member for more than 60 years. The service was conducted by the present pastor, Rev. Robert Porter, and the Rev. William Brown, a former pastor, with three other former pastors present. Her mortal remains were laid to rest beside her husband in one of the Valley cemeteries to await the Resurrection Morn." ---Written by a friend and former pastor.



The 1860 Yancey County, North Carolina Census:
Samuel was living beside his sister Fannie Arrowood Whitehead.
Down toward the bottom, line 31 through 35.
Samuel and Sarah had our little Welzia,the first baby.




***********************************
Fannie struggled to prove her claim to a Civil War Pension as widow of James Whitehead, this struggle was well documented.

"National Archives have the handwritten records of her deposition by Federal authorities prior to her being approved for the pension, to which she was entitled. It is a long account and involves the sworn testimony of several people, attesting to her identity, and to the fhe fact that her children, belonged to James, that she had not remarried, etc. It is an interesting and somewhat revealing document."

The land on which Boone Cemetery is located is adjacent to the property that was owned by Fannie Arrowood Whitehead. The Correll family owned the adjacent property.
The land for the Boone Cemetery was donated by Fannie Arrowood Whitehead.

Descendants of Fannie remember her in a wheelchair in later years. She knitted and quilted, making quilts for each of her grandchildren.


The following is a story that was told by one of Fannie's descendants:

**My father, Cecil, grandson of James, once told me a story that his father, Solomon, told him. Seems that one day a salesman came by the Whitehead homestead. Fannie was weeding the flowerbed inside a small picket fence where the salesman stopped. At the time, James was doing some leather work nearby. Evidently the fellow had been a confederate soldier as he started giving James a hard time about him being wounded in the war. Grandma Fannie took offense to this and hopped over the small picket fence and took a "swipe" at the man, cutting off some of his beard with her knife. The man ran off and she resumed her weeding without a word being said.**


This is Fanny Arrowood Whitehead and her daughter Mary Belle Whitehead Marine (born 1868)in the dark dress, and her children.

Without A Trace

Steve Lewis had a son, on July 12, 1956, after one daughter, and three more daughters yet to come; he had a son in the midst of those four girls. A sweet little boy with blonde hair and innocent eyes. He learned to ride his bike and Steve bought him a three speed bike. Boy, was he “grown-up” and powerful, on that bike. He rode like the wind and struck off on that first ride, going way too far from the house. Much too far for Steve’s liking and he was worried sick over him until he safely returned, a bit winded, but unharmed.

The years drifted past and Lewis grew into a quiet, thoughtful young fellow. He was a great older brother. He was always outnumbered in a house full of girls, but he never seemed to mind. The ‘never’ being able to get into the bathroom, because of curlers and girls primping and doing what all girls do, for hours, had to be a bummer.

My memories of him are all good, they make me smile. He was kind and considerate of me. I was a nuisance more often than not, I am sure, especially when his buddies came over and there I was, this ‘tom-boy’ girl wanting to tag along.
Not especially cool for a teen age boy.

I remember calling out to him , for a special ‘Tucking In‘.
He would tuck the covers all around me and kiss the tip of my nose with a “goodnight”.
He made me smile, made me feel special. A special big brother.

I remember one episode in detail. Dad had given me a plastic horn. Not an ordinary horn, but a special “Dr. Seuss” sort of horn.

You could swivel the segments into any shape you wanted. Each different shape giving the horn a new, distinctive, wonderful sounding ‘toot’. It was a contraption to say the least, but it gave me hours of fun. Lewis liked the horn too. He was showing it to his buddy, Robbie, and I made a scene to have my horn back.
Not the common garden variety scene, but a "hopping-up-and-down-little-brat-sister-scene". Oh, I remember it well..(shaking my head in dismay).
Lewis relented, and he tossed the horn in my direction, pretty disgusted at my display, he did it off-handedly, without looking. Well, the horn made contact with my forehead. At just the right place, right on the hairline. It hit me with enough force to cause it to bleed.. A gusher ensued . It went all over my face in a matter of milliseconds and had to be an awful sight to see. Lewis went faint and dropped to his knees.

After Dad was called and the blood flow was stopped, Dad set about to discipline Lewis for it all.
I was crying and Lewis was crying and eventually Dad saw that Lewis had been punished enough.

He had to sit with his head down between his knees for quite some time after the incident.
I saw the intense pain, that my pain caused, in my brother and I knew the bond between us , was strong.


When I was about ten years old my brother just “disappeared”. He is still among the missing.

Gone without a trace.

He was eighteen, young, good looking and high spirited, always working on his car and always trying to save money for a better one. He liked to spend time with his friends and buddies from the neighborhood.

A typical young person in the 70’s.

He met and became involved with an ‘older’ married lady. She was evidently on the run from her ex-husband and was quite a long way from home. She was in her thirties and I put the blame on her.

Lewis must have been an easy target and one with a little money, too.

He left home and went to Texas with this woman. She had several small children from her marriage. He returned some time later, alone, and very scared. I think that he thought her “Ex” was following him and he most likely was.

Lewis’s car was found, left unattended, near some apartments where our sister was living at the time. His belongings were in the car, keys in the ignition, but no Lewis. One small drop of blood was found on the car seat, leaving the police to wonder.



Police were left with precious little to go on.

They searched. They interviewed. They questioned the ex-husband, but nothing was proven.

Nothing was found. No proof of wrong doing, so there was nothing they could do.

I remember the sleepless nights in our household.

The phone ringing in the middle of the night, horribly cruel prank calls.

My Dad was tormented by Lewis being gone. He suffered tremendously, this being his only son. He went and searched the empty fields, the out of the way places, anywhere he could think of. Any place a crank caller suggested. It was hell for him.

Our whole family, somehow, held together in spite of it all.

The worst part is the lack of "knowing".

There can be no closure when a loved one is missing.

There is no burial, no place to “remember” the person.




Only the questions remain and linger.

He is simply "gone", and not where he is supposed to be…

He should be living across town, we should be able to visit with him and his family.
Call him up for a chat.
We should be able to attend ball games together and have a summer picnic.
We should be able to share the joy of his first grandchild.

But there will be none of that, none of what should have been.

He is gone without a trace. The imprint left on our hearts will remain forever.

May Angels Surround You, Lewis.

I miss you.

The Story of Ray Everett

Ray Everett Arrowood was born May 23, 1922 in Gastonia, North Carolina. He was the son of Lewis William “Pat” Arrowood and his first wife, Edith Davis Arrowood.

Edith passed away, when Ray was just shy of being two and half years old. So sad to lose your Mom before you have time to know her. Sadder still , to not be allowed many memories of the lady that gave birth to you, to carry you on, through life.

Ray soon had a younger sister, who was born when he was the age of seven. Hilda Faye Arrowood was born, the daughter of Lewis "Pat" and Maude Hull Arrowood. Then a baby brother was born three years later, Steve. Steve and Ray soon became inseparable. Steve idolized his big brother and wanted to be just like him. In later years, when my Dad would recount his younger days, there would always be a 'far-away look' that come over his eyes, as he remembered his beloved brother, Ray. A smile would come to his face, remembering their special bond.

Ray had an Uncle Bob, Rufus "Bob" Preston Davis, that came to visit him in North Carolina. Bob was a brother to his mother, Edith. Bob was born November 06, 1894, son of James R. (Jack) Davis and Anna Ledbetter Davis, as was Edith and three other siblings.

Reluctantly, William Lewis “Pat” allowed his son, Ray, when he was about 14, to go to Hobbs, New Mexico to spend the summer with his Uncle Bob and Aunt Mae. Once he discovered New Mexico, Ray decided to stay out in Hobbs and live. I am sure it was an exciting place to a young fellow, more of a ‘new frontier” type of environment than North Carolina, I suppose. Oil rigs were plentiful and he soon started working on one.

Ray enlisted in the United States Army on May 16, 1944 .

Years passed and Steve followed Ray out to New Mexico, to work with him on the oil rigs. Steve eventually returned home and had lots of stories to tell.. Rodeo riding, Oil rigs, tumbleweeds, wild escapades , and the like.

Ray’s Uncle Bob passed away when Ray was 21 years old.
Ray worked as a driller on an oil rig.





Ray married his sweetheart, Martha, in 1940, in Seminole, Gaines County, Texas.
They had three beautiful daughters.

Then one day in May, 1963, tragedy struck. The following account is from Ray’s youngest daughter:

“What was being done (on the rig) was very dangerous, and Ray would not even start the drilling back up, until all his men were off the floor. There were two other men with Ray, that were trying to help. There are chains, two of them, on the tongs, one on each side (of the drilling mechanism). One was broken and they were only operating with one chain. The two tool ‘pushers’ for the company he worked for were on the floor with him, one of them said, “We will just do it anyway“ , and then Ray said, “Not with my men on the floor!” Ray instructed them both, that they would have to help him. So he started the pipe spinning to drill down in the hole, the pipe was almost at full speed, the other chain broke and the tongs went in two different directions.”

Ray saw that one of the tongs was going to hit his friend Albert, so he knocked him out of the way and Ray was hit. One hit him on the front of his body and the other on his back. These tongs weigh thousands of pounds. They are bigger than a man, they clamp around the pile and they are supposed to help hold the pile for the drilling. The force of the blow to his body was tremendous, crushing him in an instant.

The man that insisted on Ray going on ahead, without the proper precautions, was never able to let this go, and had a hard time with it. The other man had horrible nightmares for years. Ray's daughter remembers:

“The men that were helping Dad, were both very good friends of our family. All of his workers kept telling my mom, over and over again, that my daddy was so brave, that he cared so much about everyone else. They had all said they would help, but Ray said “No“.”

Ray truly wanted to protect everyone else.

(The following are memories of Ray’s daughter.)

Daddy was always the type of person who would be one of the first to help others, he would do his share and more. He always continued to help our Aunt Mae even after Uncle Bob had died. Aunt Mae was only an aunt by marriage, but that was the kind of person he was, he even helped her mother and sister, just like there were his real true family. Any time a neighbor or a friend needed help he was there. He would even help the less than fortunate, those who could not afford to help themselves. I remember him giving money to those who needed it, he was always worrying about others.




He loved his wife, his children and dreamed of being a grandfather and was a good one for the short time he had to be a grandfather. He would go and pick up his grandson that lived close by. He would take him home and play with him, watch him and would talk about the times he would spend taking him fishing and hunting, which never came about.

When he died he had four grandchildren and was so happy to talk about them. He had big dreams, as any man of his age would have, the sad thing is he never got to fulfill those dreams. He was and still is truly missed by myself and my two sisters. I hate that my children never got to meet him or know the man that I knew and loved.

I have so many fond memories of him, my strongest memory was Christmas. He loved Christmas with a passion, he loved it so much that he could not wait to decorate the house for Christmas. He always enjoyed listing the song by Bing Crosby called, “White Christmas” and to this day I can hear that song and it will bring tears of joy to me. I still have to watch the movie White Christmas each year for no other reason than to remember those wonderful Christmas’s that we had with him.


Ray had gotten the company’s “Safety Award” for two years running, until that week, one other man was hurt on his rig, and then Ray was killed. By all accounts, Ray was a man with genuine caring for others, a man with a huge heart.

He was a kind, brave man that looked out for everyone else‘s well being.

He died one day before his 41st birthday. He is buried at Prairie Haven Cemetery in Hobbs, Lea County, New Mexico.

~ May 23, 1922 b. ~ May 24, 1963 d. ~ Well done, Uncle Ray.




Martha, Ray Everett, Hilda, and Lewis "Pat" William Arrowood

Fall In North Carolina