There are some things I’d like to find

Although I’m not a collector of antiques as such, there are some old things that I would like to find.

Many who read this column will already know that I am active in the Pea Ridge Historical Society, and involved in the operations of the Historical Society Museum on North Curtis Avenue, as well as the School Heritage Center on the old school campus downtown. We are always interested in improving our local historical displays and adding to our local historical records.

A few weeks ago, I wrote about the old crank-type phones, the earliest telephones used in our community. I’d very much like to find at least two of those old wall-mounted phone sets, with the varnished oak cabinet, bells at the top, earpiece on the hook on the left side, and ringer crank on the right side. It would be great if we could put a small system likethat in working condition, and have it available at the museum. When children’s classes from school are visiting the museum, we like to do hands-on things which help show the kids how people lived back when Pea Ridge was young. I think it would be neat to have a couple of those old telephones that the school kids could actually talk over. Does anyone know where we might find the equipment?

Also, a major aspect of our Pea Ridge past which we have only begun to document with museum displays is the great apple industry which thrived in our community and Benton County 100 years ago.

From the 1880s through the 1920s, apple orchardswere plentiful on Pea Ridge, and apple processing sheds and evaporators could be seen in many places. The coming of the Frisco Railroad through eastern Benton County was in great part for shipping our apples all around the nation. At the Heritage Center, we are displaying an apple press, on loan from Mark Lasater, younger son of Jack and Imogene Lasater. We would very much like to add other items and photos from the era of great apple orchards, apple drying, shipping, cider making and vinegar making, especially pictures showing workers tending the orchards, harvesting apples and so on.

In the 1940s, many of our homes had wringer washing machines. One thing you wanted to avoid back then was getting your hand or fingers caught in those wringer rollers. That was not good! We’d very much like to find one of thoseold wringer-type washing machines for the museum.

Back in the early ’40s my family had a Montgomery Ward washer, powered by a little gasoline engine.

That was before electricity on the farm. Mom hated that little motor. It was always hard to start, especially in winter. When electricity came in 1945, one of the first things we did was to put an electric motor on that old wringer washing machine.

Remember the old Number 3 wash tubs? We called them “worsh tubs” back then. We had two tubs: one for the “rainch water” and one for the “bluin’.” You used the “bluin’” to make the white clothes really white. I never did quite understand how blue made white.

One of my earliest memories is of my mother ironing clothes, using irons heated on top of a wood stove. Mother’s irons had a detachable handle whichcould easily be reattached to a hot iron on the stove.

As I recall, the irons were a set of three, so while you were ironing with one, the other two were heating up on the stove. When your iron cooled, you put it back on the stove, detached the handle, connected the handle to one of the hot irons, and away you went with more ironing. Does someone out there have some of those old irons?

Also, it seems that pictures of the buildings that once stood out at Buttram’s Chapel are very scarce. We have a couple of pictures of the chapel building that stood near the southeast corner of the property from about 1895 until the early 1940s, when it was damaged by a tornado. One of our pictures shows the building after the tornado had moved it off its foundation and wrenched the structure out of square. We have no pictures at all of the earliertwo-story lodge hall building which stood near the middle of the Buttram’s property, with front facing east. After Leetown was destroyed in the Battle of Pea Ridge in 1862, that earlier Buttram’s Chapel building became the new home of the Leetown Masonic Lodge. The Masons met upstairs, and the downstairs was used for church, school and other community events. In 1874, the Pea Ridge Academy had its beginnings in that older frame building. We would really celebrate if someone could come up with a picture of that original Buttram’s Chapel.

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Editor’s note: Jerry Nichols, a native of Pea Ridge, is an award-winning columnist, a retired Methodist minister with a passion for history. He is vice president of the Pea Ridge Historical Society. He can be contacted by e-mail at [email protected], or call 621-1621.