A Moving Experience

— My father fell in love with the Ozarks when he drove all the way to Fayetteville to marry his young bride. My mother was only 15 when she married Papa.

But it was the Nebraska winters that drove us to move to the Ozarks. In my native state the wind could be so harsh as it blew across the sand dunes in summer and created snow blizzards in winter.

The month before my eighth birthday, my father moved our family to the warm Ozarks where he’d bought a lush farm, nine miles west of Gravette. We’d had a huge ranch sale in Nebraska, where we sold all our cattle, but we shipped our household goods by train to Arkansas.

Though I don’t remember much of Nebraska, I can still remember the move. Papa loaded the five boys in an old pickup with a hand-built box on the back and we five girls all climbed into Mom’s car. In this two vehicle caravan we headed to what Pop proclaimed to be “God’s promise land”.

I don’t remember many difficulties along the way but I’m sure we had some breakdowns, flat tires, overheated engines and bad roads. The entire trip took us about two weeks.

Joy was only six weeks old when we left Nebraska (Gay and Cynthia were born after our move). Whenever we stopped on the long, hot trip we’d lay baby Joy down on the mattress in the box-trailer.

One night my dad pulled off into the yard of an abandoned house. We kids tumbled out of our respective vehicles into a weed-infested yard and began exploring while Mom fixed supper. Just as we were about to eat a police car drove up. We had never been that close to a policeman. We gaped as Papa spoke with him for some time. Finally the policeman came over and explained that we were trespassing and would have to leave. He was kind enough to let us finish supper. Driving down the road we found a free campground. (Years later when we traveled in our modern motorhome we sometimes parked overnight in Walmart’s free parking lot.)

My father was a stern man but the further down the road we went, the happier he became. Once, when I was riding with him, he told me, “The people in Arkansas are so friendly.” Long before we reached the Ozarks he began smiling and waving at everyone he saw. They would just stare at us; few waved back. They probably wondered what kind of hillbillies we were.

We arrived at our destination late, unannounced. However the owners, who weren’t expecting us, were quite hospitable and fed us and let us explore our new two-story farmhouse, though we had to live in our box trailer for a few days until they could move out.

Years later I took my first trip back to Nebraska with my husband. We drove on paved roads in an air-conditioned car and stayed at modern motels on a trip that took us two days. Oil wells stood on the site where our house once set. I walked out on a sandy knoll, watching carefully for rattlesnakes, and dug up a small cactus which I brought home and planted in m y yard in a corner of Northwest Arkansas, the place I’ve never left.

After this winter, though, I wondered if we had moved far enough south.

Marie Putman, one-time Gravette resident, shares her thoughts with our readers twice every month.

Opinion, Pages 4 on 02/17/2010