FAMILY HISTORIES
The following family histories, although brief, are just the beginning of gathering histories on families in Lee County. Each family has a story to tell and please use our website to learn about and share these stories.
THE JOHN LOCKHART FAMILY by Alice Lockhart Brady
(The following notes were taken during a phone discussion with Mrs. Alice Brady and Clifton Collier on July 30, 2021)
John Lockhart was the father of R.B. Lockhart, who we called “B.” John, died in 1963 and was buried at the St. John Cemetery where Rev. James Smith served as pastor. Some of John’s brothers were Samuel, Henderson and Bright. Another brother, to which Alice did not have a name, disappeared at a young age and was never heard from again. Some of his sisters were Alice and Isabella. Samuel, who was John’s father, bought a family cemetery plot in the Bethlehem Cemetery and many of the Lockhart kin are buried there. Henderson moved to St. Louis and Bright lived in the Black Swamp area in Lee County. John’s parents and family owned more land in Black Swamp but it was lost. There exists a letter that the Lockharts wrote to the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP) asking for assistance in keeping the land from white encroachment.
John’s mother was named Rose but Alice couldn’t remember John’s father’s name. Alice thinks that John went to the 8th grade in school. She describes him physically as being dark skin, tall and slender. His personality was one of being very intelligent and serious and was well respected in his community. John married Callie Frye in 1918 and they had a son, R.B. Alice states that Callie may have had another child from a previous marriage but she’s not sure. She believes that John’s first wife died. Callie, who was a twin, had family in St. Francis County. Bright’s children, Melvin and Johnnie, also moved to St. Francis County. John and Callie were typical of black families of the time with him farming and she tending the house.
He and Callie acquired eighty acres of “project” land on the Lessor-Goldman track. Many other blacks became landowners during this time including my grandparents Frank and Willie Mae Gatlin Collier who owned land contiguous to John and Callie’s.
The children of John’s sister, Isabella, were raised by John and Callie upon Isabella’s death. The names of these children were Carrie, Jesse, John, Ruby and Ruthie (twins), James and George. Alice Brady can’t remember if Samuel had any children but thinks that Henderson had one daughter and that John’s sister Alice did not have any children.
Like John, Callie is buried in the St. John Cemetery, northwest of Marianna. The land remains in the hands of the family.
(A follow-up interview with Alice took place by phone on Saturday, November 18, 2023. The subject of this interview was the project houses and farm land surrounding those houses in the St. John/Felton area.)
“The “project houses” were the first houses to be built in the Felton/St. John area and all were occupied by black families.” Before this time Alice said the land was in woods and had to be cleared to farm the land and to build houses. As mentioned earlier the John and Callie Lockhart family and the Frank and Willie Mae Collier families became owners of two of those homes. Alice said that other families that had “project houses" were “the Glover Austin family, the Woodrow Johnson family, the Kelly Crenshaw family, the T.C. Holmes family and the Spencer Brown family.” Lands from those homesteads are still mostly owned by the initial families. The only structures known to be still standing at the time of this writing (November 18, 2023) are the John Lockhart and Kelly Crenshaw houses. Alice doesn’t think any other such homes for blacks were built anywhere else in Lee County.
A St. John/Felton resident, Raymond Gilmore, had told this writer years ago that the “project houses” were well built and that oak wood was used in the construction of the homes, the chicken houses and smokehouses. I did not ask Raymond about the barns but each home also had a substantial barn. Raymond Gilmore was the son-in-law of homeowner Woodrow Johnson.
When asked about the construction of the school house located next to St. John Church Alice answered, “I think the school was built by the local people and was not a “project building.”
This writer is doing research on how this land came to be parceled out to black families and when these transactions took place. He is also interested in how these families became the owners of the homesteads. Hopefully more information is to come.
THE FLOWERS FAMILY by Mrs. Earlene Flowers Coney
(The following notes were taken during a discussion with Mrs. Earlene Flowers Coney and Clifton Collier at her daughter’s, Shirley’s, home in Marianna in late June 2021)
Mrs. Coney’s grandparents were named Sam and Mary Flowers and they came to Arkansas from either Pittsburgh or Jackson, Mississippi. Mrs. Coney states that a lot of cousins still live in those areas of Mississippi. Sam and Mary’s children were Emily, Robert Eugene (Mrs. Coney’s father), Malinda and Bob. There were eight more children to which Mrs. Coney couldn’t remember or did not know their names.
Robert Eugene married Inez Vaughn (aunt of T. F. Vaughn) and he died in 1965 at the age of 86. They lived in Cody (eastern Lee County) where Robert Eugene was a sharecropper. The couple moved behind the Experiment Station, south of Marianna in 1952. Mrs. Coney confessed religion at Mound Bethlehem in Brickeys and also attended school in Brickeys. Mrs. Coney later joined Pilgrim M.B. Church, then New Light Church on Scott Valley and finally joined Mt. Moriah M.B. Church in Oak Forest.
Mrs. Coney attended Robert R. Moton school in Marianna and remembers Mrs. Anna Strong and Mrs. Captolia Taylor from her time there.
Mrs. Coney remembers Eli Hurston, a close family friend of my family. She stated that Mr. Eli attended the Methodist Church in Kokomo. Mr. Eli and his wife Francis, worked for the Bliss Yancey family whose home and farm operations were in Brickeys.
Inez was a member of Bethlehem M.B. Church, located west of Marianna, which explains why so many of her children are buried in the Bethlehem Cemetery. Inez’s mother, Mary Bismo Vaughn was a Bethlehem member.
Robert and Inez had eleven children
Jonathan who had 6 children
Rosie Lee married Sylvester (Dolly Bob) Norman and they had 6 children.
They lived in St. Francis County, Arkansas
Malinda Flowers Lewis had 2 children
Nugene had 13 children including Bobby Flowers. He lived in Marianna
Pearl Flowers Davis had 9 children and lived in Marianna
Erma Lee Flowers Green had 10 children and lived in Widener
Annie Bell Flowers Robinson had 17 children and lived in Marianna
Robert Flowers, Jr. had 1 child and raised 2 of Eugene’s children. (further research may be needed to verify this relationship).
Harrison Flowers had 7 children and lived in St. Louis
Earlene Flowers married Aaron Coney and had 11 children
Alfred Delano Flowers had 4 children.
THE HOSKINS, VAUGHN, COLLIER FAMILIES by Benjamin Hoskins
TELEPHONE INTERVIEW WITH BENJAMIN (DOBBIN) HOSKINS
MAY 28, 2024. Clifton Collier, Interviewee
Benjamin (Dobbin) Hoskins was born in 1939, the first child of Frank Hoskins and Launsella Vaughn Hoskins. His father Frank is the first cousin of my father, Lenzora Collier. Cousin Frank’s mother was Malinda Collier Hoskins who was the sister of Lenzora’s father, Frank Collier.
Dobbin attended school at St. John, a two-room school that was located to the south of where the St. John Missionary Baptist Church stands today. Some of the teachers that Dobbin remembers are Mrs. Shepherd, Mrs. Bertha Vaughn, Mrs. Captoria Taylor, Mrs Haynes and Mrs. Arvelia Taylor-Turner. Some of his childhood friends were his cousins Will Ester Allison, Smoky; his Uncle Willie Collier’s children; Overt (Bob) Willis, Lloyd Holmes, Eugene Carter and Freddie Walker.
St. John Missionary Baptist Church was the church that Dobbin joined but he said he often attended Bethel Chapel, the church of his uncle Frank Collier’s wife, Willie Mae Gatlin-Collier.
Dobbin shared that Jane Coffey married Rev. Newsome and Harrison Vaughn married one of the Newsome daughters. Mr. Harrison is the father of Elizabeth, Launsella, Thomas F. and Nurene. He also shared that there were roads during his youth that no longer exist and that there were houses throughout these roads of long ago. Of course, the occupants of these houses were farm laborers or otherwise worked for white landowners.