| James M. "Pappy" Vail Sr. | John R. "Jack" Nelson | Alonzo Eugene "Gene" Hendricks | Carl W. Herrick | Maeola Tolbert Lee |
James M. "Pappy" Vail Sr., a 63-year resident of North Little Rock who excelled in softball and once played in the fast pitch world series, died of bone marrow cancer Sunday, Sept. 27. He was 81.
Born in Carlisle, he grew up in a family that loved sports and lived near a good fishing spot, said Amy Williams Vail, his wife of 59 years. She said he and his father fished out of the bayou and set traps for possum, mink and skunk. Roy Lee Vail, his son, explained that skunk fur was one of the highest priced pelts during the Depression.
Mr. Vail's father worked for a creamery in Carlisle, then he moved his wife and three children temporarily to Forrest City during the Depression before returning to Carlisle. There Mr. Vail lettered in track, football, basketball and baseball and graduated from Carlisle High School in 1935.
Soon, however, the Carlisle Creamery closed permanently, and the Vail family moved to 402 Willow St. in North Little Rock. Once settled, Mr. Vail's father worked for the old Mayflower Dairy and during the summer months, Mr. Vail often sold ice cream for the dairy and played fast pitch softball in the city industrial league.
By 1939 Mr. Vail was working full time for Tuf Nut garment manufacturing company in North Little Rock as a bundle boy. Little did he know that his future bride, Amy Williams of Levy worked a night shift attaching pockets to blue jeans and overalls.
The couple met one night when he filled in for an absent worker and she switched over to the day shift. Being a gifted athlete, he naturally took her to a basketball game on their first date, but there was more to it than that. He was one of the players in the game at the North Little Rock Boys Club.
"Ever since we first started dating he would ask me to marry him," Amy Williams Vail recalled. "I kept saying yes, and we just decided that would be the day. I bought a simple white lace dress the day before our wedding."
After services at Levy Baptist Church on June 4, 1939, the couple accompanied the pastor to the Williams' home at 48th and Pike Avenue where they stood in front of two yucca plants, said their vows and went inside to eat lunch. They hadn't told Mr. Vail's family their plans and left shortly to tell his mother and grandmother the happy news.
Then the two went back to work at Tuf Nut. But not for long.
Mr. Vail's softball skills hadn't gone unnoticed. In those days, companies recruited good players for their amateur teams, offering them career positions since they weren't supposed to be paid strictly for playing ball. He entertained several offers and went to work for Worthen Bank in 1940 until World War II interrupted.
Stationed at Fort Sill, Okla., Mr. Vail served as an artillery communications instructor and played baseball. He rose to the rank of sergeant and stayed on after the war to hand out discharge papers.
The Vails then moved to Pike Avenue, and he went back to work at Worthen, competing in the fast pitch world series in Detroit, Mich., and winning the Industrial League's sportsman of the year in 1953, when he retired from the Worthen ball team.
"He hit for a high average and once hit two home runs in one game," said Roy Lee Vail, "but he was best known for his skills behind the plate. He caught the eye of the Chicago White Sox in 1947 but decided not to turn pro because he had two kids and playing for Worthen paid more."
At Worthen, he worked as a teller and eventually moved up to assistant vice president. Recognizing his public relations ability, the bank sent him out to open new branches.
"He loved people so much that he was a natural choice to open the bank's first branches at Geyer Springs and University," Amy Williams Vail said. He retired from the bank in 1980.
Mr. Vail converted to the Baptist faith when he married in 1939. But after he joined, he never missed a step. Mr. Vail was an active Sunday school teacher and deacon at Levy Baptist Church and was ordained to preach Dec. 29, 1954 at the request of Union Grove Baptist Church of Johnson County.
He loved to camp, fish and hunt in the Ozarks and took his family at every opportunity, passing the legacy on to his three sons. "He loved it to pieces," said Amy Williams Vail. "As soon as he set up camp, he's go out and meet all the other campers. He lived for the great outdoors."
Besides his wife, Mr. Vail is survived by his son and daughter-in-law, James Vail, Jr. and Dorothy of Sheridan, Ark.; sons, Roy Lee Vail and Gary Wayne Vail both of North Little Rock; brother, Ralph Vail of North Little Rock; brother-in-law, Vic Paulette; four grandchildren; five great-grandchildren; many nieces, nephews and other friends.
Funeral services were held Wednesday, Sept. 30, at Levy Baptist Church with the Rev. Otto Brown officiating. Burial followed at Rest Hills Memorial Park. The family requests that memorials be made to Levy Baptist Church or a favorite charity.
The Times - October 8, 1998
JOHN R. "JACK" NELSON
By Nancy Dockter
He was a giant of a man who cheerfully embraced whatever life dealth him with gusto and good humor, always remaining a kid at heart.
He took up a line of work that fit his imposing size- 6 feet 6 inches tall and 425 pounds-as a heavy equipment operator specializing in construction site preparation.
But one of John R. "Jack" Nelson's favorite pastimes contrasted sharply with his size-collecting tiny Matchbox cars, trucks and tractors, enough to fill two curio cabinets and line his bedroom walls.
"He loved life and was a kid until the day he died," said Della Nelson of North Little Rock, his wife of 41 years.
The owner of John R. Nelson Construction Co. and a longtime resident of the Crystal Valley community, Mr. Nelson died Wednesday, April 28, from cancer. He was 67.
As his health declined in the last five years and severe arthritis confined him largely to his home, his love of people sustained him, recalled his wife.
"He took it real well and just went on with life," Mrs. Nelson said. "He always loved for people to come by and see him or he would talk with them by the telephone," she said.
Born in Concordia, Kan., the youngest of three children of an entrepreneur who owned a service station, a cafe and a logging company there, Mr. Nelson moved to this area with his family when he was 23 and together with his parents and brother founded the construction company that has been in operation in the North Little Rock area for 45 years, grading roads, readying lots for home construction, building ponds and landscaping.
"His first love was landscaping," Mrs. Nelson recalled. "He could grow anything. He planted pecan trees at our place and loved flowers."
After moving here in the early 1950s, the Nelson family worked hard to start their business, with Mrs. Nelson working long hours, meanwhile, to support the family as a waitress and short order cook at the bustling Motor Port cafe on the Conway Highway.
There Mr. Nelson, who frequented the cafe with his father, became friends with a young waitress, Della Clubb, who had recently moved to North Little Rock from Heavener, Okla., not far from Fort Smith.
"He was older and he would take us bunch of kids everywhere," Mrs. Nelson recounted. "He was a good friend to everybody. He was a great guy."
In time friendship turned to romance, and the couple eloped one night to Indianola, Miss., when he was 26 and she was 19. One Feb. 9, they celebrated their 41st wedding anniversary.
"He had a great life," Mrs. Nelson said. "Anything that pertained to the outdoors-he loved it." But most of all, he loved his work and his home and family.
"One day I asked him what he wanted to do off the job, and he told me, 'I just want to work and come home.'."
Besides his wife, survivors include a son, Johnny Owen Nelson; a daughter, Donna Kim Nelson, and her husband, Mark Evins; adopted son, Terry W. Henson; adopted daughter, Anita Henson; adopted granddaughter, Amber Dawn Henson; mother, Mary Nelson; and brother, Jimmie E. Nelson, all of North Little Rock; also a sister, Shirley Mossburgh of Clay Center, Kan.
Funeral services were Friday, April 30, at the North Little Rock Funeral Home Chapel with the Rev. Scott Harness officiating. Burial was in Edgewood Memorial Park.
The Times - May 6, 1999
ALONZO EUGENE "GENE" HENDRICKS
By Nancy Dockter
He was a natural teacher who loved his subject, fire technology, and made a life work of fighting fires and sharing with others the best methods available.
In his 21-year career with the North Little Rock Fire Department, which began as a fire truck driver in 1946, Alonzo Eugene "Gene" Hendricks rose to the post of captain and training officer and was one of the founding instructors of the State Fire Academy.
Mr. Hendricks died Wednesday, April 21 of cancer. He was 84.
Born Oct 4, 1914 in the small community of Naylor in Faulkner County, Mr. Hendricks was the only son and oldest of three children of Dorothy Lavada and Henry Hendricks. When he was a baby, his family moved to North Little Rock, where his father took a job as a policeman and detective.
As a student at North Little Rock High School, Mr. Hendricks proved to be a talented athlete as well as singer and dancer.
"He danced the jitterbug with his sisters in competitions and was a great baritone singer," his sons, Davis Hendricks of North Little Rock recounted.
A strong pitching arm could have meant a career in the minor if a summer of playing the outfield in softball hadn't permanently injured his arm. With the Depression on, college was not possible, so Mr. Hendricks worked as a bread truck driver for Meyer's Bakery for a while. That's when he met a young woman named Dorothy Mae Davis, who worked as a waitress at Burton's Eat Shop in Little Rock, which was owned by her sister. They married in October 1935.
At first they moved around to work together at other restaurants Mrs. Hendrick's sister owned, including some in Pine Bluff and Natchez, Miss., until Mr. Hendricks got a job as a firefighter at the Maumelle Ordance Plant. Then in 1942, he enlisted in the Army Air Corps and worked for a time training pilots in instrument use.
After his discharge in 1946, Mr. Hendricks was hired by the North Little Rock Fire Department, where he quickly rose to the rank of captain, a post he held for about 15 years.
At one point he was tapped to become a chief but declined because it would have meant stepping over a man who had more seniority, his son said.
"He didn't want to break the line of succession. He had a high degree of integrity."
As he traveled to national conferences to learn about firefighting techniques and training, Mr. Hendricks realized that Arkansas "lacked an organized system for delivering training statewide," his son said.
Together, with several other instructors, Hendricks founded the first State Fire Academy in Camden (today it is located in Magnolia) shortly after his retirement from the fire department in 1967 and mapped out a statewide system for firefighter education in cooperation with the state department of education.
Until his retirement in 1978, Mr. Hendricks traveled the state teaching the latest in firefighting techniques.
"He fell in love with fire technology and as a natural teacher, he could take a difficult subject and make it easy," recounted his son, who often traveled with his father and eventually would become a teacher himself. Today the younger Hendricks is the director of the gifted and talented department of the Pulaski Special School District.
"He was very proud of me," his son said. "He taught me that it is more important to love what you do rather than make a lot of money."
Besides his wife, survivors include his son and daughter-in-law, Henry Davis and Cheryl Hendricks; a granddaughter, Jessica Lauren Hendricks; two grandsons, Corey Eugene Davis Hendricks and Andrew Christian Shelton Hendricks; a sister, Maurine Lukas; and nephews, Jim, Tom and Bill Lukas.
Funeral services were Friday, April 30 in Roller-Owens Funeral Chapel with the Rev. Burt Powell officiating. Interment was at Edgewood memorial Park.
The family requests that memorials be made to the Gardner Memorial United Methodist Church or the Baptist Medical Center Hospice.
The Times - May 6, 1999
CARL W. HERRICK
He was a man of great religious faith who volunteered for the Navy at the start of World War II to be a chaplain.
Remembered for his service to country and God, soft-spoken Carl W. Herrick ministered to military men aboard ships during times of war and at bases during times of peace. Even after he completed his military service, he continued his ministry to veterans at Ft. Roots.
On Monday, June 28, Mr. Herrick died of a heart attack at his home. He was 81.
Mr. Herrick was a chaplain in the Navy for more than 30 years, retiring in 1962 and moving his family to North Little Rock where he became a chaplain at the Ft. Roots Veterans Affairs hospital for 18 years.
While working as one of six chaplains at the V.A., he held services and visited men on the ward.
"He was always available," said his wife, Ruth. "He sometimes had to go to the hospital late at night. When someone had emergency surgery a chaplain had to be there."
Ruth Herrick said that even after he retired he continued to serve in the ministry.
"He would relieve ministers when they were going to be absent from area churches," she said. "Like when they were going on vacation for a week or two."
Born in Syracuse, N.Y., Mr. Herrick was the youngest of two boys born to electrician Lester Herrick and his wife, Margaret. He graduated from a public high school in Syracuse and went on to Columbia Bible College in Columbia, N.C., to pursue a degree in Biblical Education.
"There was a minister in Syracuse, when he was a young man, who was very interested in encouraging people to go into the ministry," Ruth Herrick said. "Several of his friends went into the ministry as well."
After receiving his degree, he went to the seminary in Decatur, Ga. His wife said that once he got his Master of Divinity he started ministering at a Presbyterian church in Lindale, Ga.
But then World War II intervened, and he signed up with the Navy.
About the same time, his future wife, who was working as a registered nurse in Los Angeles, became a Navy nurse because, she said, "it was war time and I felt patriotic."
In 1945, the two met while both were on duty in Sun Valley, Idaho.
"I was a nurse at a convalescent hospital where they sent many of the troops who were shell-shocked, and he was the chaplain there at the time," she recalled.
The two fell in love and married in Syracuse within six months of meeting. They were married 53 years.
Shortly after they married, she was discharged from the Navy and started a family, only to return a few years later. Mr. Herrick rejoined the Navy, but was assigned to the Marine Corps during the Korean Conflict.
A few years later he took his young family to Trinidad in the West Indies where he was stationed for two years.
In 1961 he was sent to Pensacola, Fla., for his last year of active-duty service. Afterward, he joined Veterans Affairs (then known as the Veterans Administration) and was assigned to the V.A. Hospital at Ft. Roots.
After retiring in 1980, he spent most of his free time fishing at various fishing holes and cooking. His wife said he was a member of the Old River Fishing Club based on Old River Lake in Scott.
As a cook, his specialty was Japanese cuisine, Ruth Herrick said. "When he was aboard a ship he was invited to a Japanese family's home and they taught him to cook sukiyaki," his wife said. She remembered that he would often fix the dish at home where his famiy would eat it while sitting on large pillows on the floor and using chipsticks.
He attended Westminster Presbyterian Church during his final years, where he was a faithful member, and occasionally gave the Sunday sermon when the pastor wasn't able.
Mr. Herrick is survived by his wife, Ruth; three sons, Walter Carl Herrick and David Herrick, both of Little Rock, and Mark Herrick of North Little Rock; one daughter, Frances Middleton, of Little Rock; and one brother, Lester A. Herrick, of Alameda, Cal.
Funeral Services were Thursday at Westminster Presbyterian Church with Rev. Donn Walters officiating.
The Times - July 8, 1999
MAEOLA TOLBERT LEE
She was a woman ahead of her time, remarkable for her achievements and contributions in an era when educational and professional opportunities were limited for African American women in Arkansas.
But friends and family members say she will also be remembered as a devoted care giver and family matriarch.
Maeola Tolbert Lee, a licensed practical technical nurse and the first black woman appointed to the state nursing board in 1973, died Wednesday June 2, at her sister's home, where she had lived battling cancer for the past year. She was 84.
Born in Keri, Arkansas, she was the third oldest of eight children of a building contractor who moved his family to North Little Rock shortly after her birth. Mrs. Lee would live the rest of her life in North Little Rock.
She graduated from Scipio A. Jones High School in 1935 and attended Dunbar Junior College and Arkansas Teachers College (now the University of Central Arkansas) to study nursing. She received her nursing certification as a licensed practical technical nurse from the University of Arkansas for the Medical Sciences in Little Rock.
At the age of 20, she married the late Rev. Robert E. Lee, a native of Cuba who was 10 years her senior and worked for the school district for more than 40 years doing plumbng and maintenance work. Later in life he became an associate minister at Mount Pleasant Baptist Church, a church the Lees attended for 71 years.
Mrs. Lee worked as a psychiatric nurse at Arkansas State Hospital in Little Rock for more than 33 years and the Arkansas Children's Hospital for six years.
"She loved children, and she loved taking care of people," said her niece, Janet Brown.
Family members say it was probably Mrs. Lee's reputation as a caring and dedicated nurse that won her the appointment to the State Nursing Board in 1971 by the Gov. Dale Bumpers.
It was a position she took great pride in, family members say, and she served on the 15-member board until 1979, helping nurses prepare for the state nursing exam, administering the exam, training student nurses and representing the board at meetings around the state and country.
"She was always flying somewhere," said her niece, Robbie Williams.
But despite her many responsibilities, family members say, Mrs. Lee, who never had children of her own, always found time to devote to kin, holding the family together and taking great pride in her nieces and nephews and cousins and second cousins.
"She was always there for us through good times and bad," said her cousin, D. Faye Rhodes. "Her legacy was he care and concern for others. If you heard you talking about someone who was related to her she'd say, "That's my baby.'"
Outgoing and friendly, she would stop people along the street to talk.
"She loved to talk about her family, and she'd go through every one of her kin asking if you knew any of them," Rhodes said. "She never met a stranger."
Her family said she also enjoyed cooking and embroidering in her spare time.
"She made the best macaroni and cheese; it was from scratch," Williams said. "Everyone wanted it when we had a get-together."
A one time member of Mount Pleasant Baptist Church, Mrs. Lee attended every function she possibly could there, according to the Rev. O.C. Jones. She also helped establish several programs to bring together the congregants as well as help them tend to each other.
Her trademark contribution was the annual Family Night fund raiser she started in 1961 on the last Sunday in January, now a church tradition.
Initially "it was a competition as to which family could give the most money," Rhodes said. "Whoever gave the most was named family of the year."
In 1972 she also created a church nurses guild to assist congregants after the death of a family member and even designed the emblem worn by the members of the guild, which currently has 12 members.
She was a life-time member and five-year president of the North Little Rock City Mission, a service organization of black Baptist women who sponsored scholarships, organized revivals and planned outreach projects to help people in crisis or need.
The service group was a good fit for this generous woman, say those who knew her best. Family and friends say they never went to her house without leavng with some sort of gift. "She was always giving people something, such as a plant or a book," Rhodes said.
Mrs. Lee is survived by two sisters, Juanita Harris of North Little Rock and Elizabeth Littles of Detroit; three sisters-in-law, and a host of nieces, nephews, other relatives and friends.
Funeral services were held Wednesday, June 9, at Will Acklin's Funeral Home.
The Times - June 10, 1999