As I remember Pea Ridge in the years right after World War II, I recall that Pea Ridge was on the move. New buildings were going up. Things were stirring. The soldier boys had returned from the war, and they were beginning to have an impact on their hometown. Russell Walker and some of his brothers were among those returning soldier boys, (as the troops were often called in those years). Russell had served in an armored division as a tank driver, seeing major action in North Africa and in Italy and eventually neutralizing the German forces in those areas. His brother Max had participated in the Normandy Landing which after great losses and sacrifices eventually led to the liberation of France. I hadn't realized until many years afterward that many of our Pea Ridge soldiers were involved in some of the really crucial battles in the great war against Hitler's Third Reich. Many of these returning soldiers, and other young men coming of age in the 1940s, would soon become key figures in the progress of our town over the next several years.
In mid-1945, very shortly after the end of the war, Russell Walker married Eula Mae Webb, the daughter of Hugh and Nell Webb, and Russell was for a short time employed by Webb's Feed and Seed, a bustling and growing business at the time. But Russell soon chose to make his living outside the family business, in farming and in construction. Several notable construction projects about town came about soon after war's end. In 1947, construction began on the new church building for Mt. Vernon Presbyterian Church, where Russell and his family attended church. The new church building was opened later that year. Soon to follow, and with some materials from the old Presbyterian building being salvaged for the purpose, the Masonic Lodge built its new Lodge Hall across the street west of the downtown school grounds. Russell was very much involved in that project. He recalled using floor joist beams from the old church building, and obtaining windows and other materials for the Lodge Hall from old Army barracks from Camp Crowder at Neosho, Mo. Interestingly, in 2008 when our Pea Ridge Historical Society was working with the city to renovate the old Lodge Hall/E.H. Building for use as a museum, Russell again got involved, finishing out the windows, for a second time, some 60 years later!
Other projects I recall going on in town during those post-war years were the Eva Patterson Dry Goods Store which is the main part of today's T.H. Rogers Hardware, the C.H. Mount Store building which is now the Pea Ridge Upholstery Shop, and the Charles Hardy Garage which today stores building materials for the T.H. Rogers Hardware and Lumber business. The Pea Ridge School was growing significantly, and in 1947 the process of adding wings on the corners of the 1930 school building began, finally to be completed in the early 1950s. I don't know the extent of Russell's involvement in all these projects, but I know that in those years he was becoming one of the community's leading carpenters.
Since my family was a longtime dairy family, we remember Russell as a neighbor farmer and fellow dairyman. His farm and dairy operation was located about a mile west of ours, as the crow flies. Russell and family lived on what is now Easterling Road north of Pea Ridge, about two miles from today's new Pea Ridge High School. I think when he and Eula Mae sold their farm and house, it was sold to the Easterling family, whose name now identifies the road. I'm also pretty sure that all the structures on the farm, the house, the dairy barn, the out buildings, all had been built by Russell himself. The Nichols family had begun producing Grade A milk in 1954 after we built our milking parlor barn. In the 1960s, my Dad hired Russell Walker to expand the milking parlor, doubling its capacity. Two years ago, in 2011, I renovated that old milk barn, which had endured nearly 60 years of rigorous service.
I remember going to see Russell one day soon after my wife Nancy and I were married. At the time I had completed two years of college, and I was contemplating trying to become a high school math teacher. As I recall, Russell was serving on the School Board at the time, and I went to ask him about the possibility of teaching while I worked toward a college degree. His advice, very good advice, I think, was that I should major on completing my college work, even though in those days it might still be possible to start teaching before one had a degree. I'm glad, even today, for his good advice in my situation.
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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.
Editorial on 09/03/2014