| Arlene Corzine McGlothin | Maybelle Nissly | William George Fleming | Mary Lou Hindsman | Mary Vela Fortner Ramsey |
She had a flair for design - of beautiful cakes, floral arrangements and the special events of people's lives. A planner, a doer, a gracious hostess and party-giver, Arlene Corzine McGlothin will be remembered for her tireless giving and impeccable style.
Longtime resident of North Little Rock and retired business-woman, Mrs. McGlothin died Friday, April 30, after a lengthy fight with cancer. She was 76.
She came from an artistic family and a "long line of nurturers," learning at an early age to be a caregiver to her younger sister and her mother, who was often ill, family members say.
Born in Texarkana, she was the oldest of two daughters born to the town's fire chief, Arlie McGlothin and his family taught her cooking, sewing and drawing, and dress design became one of her ambitions at an early age.
But her practical-minded father insisted that she enroll in business courses in high school, an experience which she called "horrible" because she had been the only girl in those classes, her daughter, Michelle recounted. Nevertheless, she excell, graduating valedictorian of her high school classs, with skills that would prove valuable later in her life.
She had ambitions for college, but they were happily abandoned when she fell in love at age 19 with Jack Clark McGlothin whom she met when they both were living briefly in Pocahontas.
After only knowing each other three or four weeks, they eloped but the union proved to be a happy one. Each year ever since, family members say, Mr. McGlothin has called to thank the young minister who agreed to perform the impromptu ceremony. Their 56th anniversary would have been this past Tuesday
Soon after they married, the young couple moved to North Little Rock , Mr. McGlothin's hometown, so that he could join the family business.
After the outbreak of World War II, Mrs. McGlothin lived in California while her husband served in the Army there and in Missouri, where she worked in the business office of a railroad.
After their return to North Little Rock and until the birth of their first child, Clark, in 1953, Mrs. McGlothin cared for the children of family, friends and neighbors and immersed herself in church work at 47th Street Baptist Church.
"She was there every time the door opened," her daughter said. Her two young children became the focus of her life, with scout meetings, dance lessons and PTA.
"She was the room mother extraordinaire," her daughter said. "In all that she did, she had incredible drive."
Still she had energy to spare, which she channeled into arranging and hosting special occsions of all kinds for friends and family, including Sweet 16 parties, bridal showers, wedding rehersal dinners and receptions - natural outlets for her creativity.
"She had the catering gene," joked her daughter, "She thought nothing of fixing finger sandwiches for 500."
Even after a battle with breast cancer in hr late 40s, an experience she handled with grace and determination, she insisted of starting a business, Arlene's Flowers, a floral and bridal shop in Candy Apple shopping center in Rose City. She would keep the buisness going for five years, but afterwards she continued holding parties for friends, the last one just five years ago.
Growing and arranging flowers was another of her passions and she leared about floral design and landscaping though seminars sponsored by the Greenkeepers Garden Club, of which she served awhile as president.
A blue ribbon-winner at virtually every flower show in the area, She eventually became a licensed floral design judge and landscape critic. She also served on the first City Beautiful Commission at the request of former Mayor Casey Laman.
Recognized for her many talents, Mrs. Mclothin was also known for her sweet dispostion even in the face of Hodgkins Disease that eventually took her life.
Family emebers say the remembrances sent to them after her death are a testament to her gentility. Tose who knew her best described her as "very gracious," they said. "All were honored guests in her home."
She was preceded in death by her sister Gloria Fricks. Besides her husband, son and daughter-in-law, Michelle and Gokhan Esentan, she is survived by grandchildren, Troy Deniz Esentan, Mary Corbin McGlothin and Mari Catherine McGlothin.
Funeral services were held Monday, May 3, at Gfiffin Leggett-Rest Hills. The family requests that memorials be made to Friendly Chapel Church of the Nazarene, 116 South Pine, North Little Rock, Ark., Attn: Brother Paul Holderfield.
The Times - May 13, 1999
Maybelle Nissly of North Little Rock, an accomplished musician whose local legacy was her inspiration for countless hand bell choirs and who national impact was as the director of several women's military bands and as the first woman warrant officer in military history, died Friday, July 30, after a long battle with Alzheimer's disease. She was 83.
"Her life revolved around music. It was everything to her," said the wife of her nephew, B.J. Kready.
She spoke little of her childhood. But relatives say she was born in 1916 in Lncaster, Pa., the oldest of two children of an entrepreneurial father who won and lost many fortunes along the way.
She would find her musical niche in high school, where her talents surfaced quickly, and she became her high school's first female drum major and then its first female student conductor.
The young musician eagerly began learning every instrument she could get her hands on, family members say, eventually mastering the flute, piccolo, piano, hand bells, carillon bells, saxophone and trumpet.
"She could play virtually every instrument and teach it as well," her nephew, Ben Kready, said.
She attended West Chester State Teachers College where she earned her bachelors degree in music, then went on to the University of Pennsylvania in Philadelphia and got her master's in music education>
It was the late 1930s when she got her second degree, and Ms Nissly jumped into a teaching position as a high school band director immediately after graduate school
But a few years later, after the war broke out, she made a dramatic career change after reading an advertisement in a newspaper for a piccolo player, according to her long time friend, Laura Lee Thomas.
The piccolo player position was in the first Women's Army Corps band, and she was not only accepted into the corps immediately, she was also among the first women admitted to the Army Music School, graduating first in her class. Before her first year in the corps was up, she was also appointed director of the first WAC band in 1942.
Her appointment created on small problem for the Army, however, family members said. Only warrant officers were band conductors, and there was no legal authority for the appointment of a woman to the warrant officer rank - until Congress, itself passed special legislation opening the way for Ms Nissly's promotion.
Still, "it wasn't like she was one of those women libers," her nephew chuckled. "She loved music and enjoyed it. Everything that came as a result of that was a by-product."
Like most of the enlisted women of the time, she was honorably discharged at the end of the war. But is wasn't long before she found herself back in the military again. She had returned to Pennsylvania and become the music supervisor for the Manheim County Schools, when she was called and offered n Air Force Commission to spearhead the new Women's Air Force music program.
It was a job that affored her the opportunity to travel all over the country as well as throughout Europe, where she kept up her never ending music education. In London she studied the carillon bells and became so enamored with them that after she moved to North Little Rock she gave money to the Trinity Episcopal Cathedral in Little Rock to construct its own carillon bells.
In 1965, after the Women's Air Force Band was disbanded, she moved to North Little Rock to begin an assignment at the Little Rock Air Force Base, and immediately she became involved in the musical life of the community.
Retiring in 1968 with the rank of major, she began a new career teaching music at the University of Arkansas at Little Rock, and it wasn't long before she started organizing and directing the school's first orchestra as well as teaching classes and major workshops in the techniques of her beloved hand bells.
Her love for music drove her to share it with everyone, Mrs. Kready explained as she recalled the story of one of Ms Nissly's many recruits over the years.
"He was a piano player at Shakey's Pizzs Parlor and played excellant rag-time music. She befriended him and then she started trying to get him to go to school for his talent," she said. "Now he as a music degree along with a medical degree."
In 1980, Ms Nissly came by an old carillon band wagon, something that became another trademark of sorts, as she insisted on playing it in most every North Little Rock parade as well as hauling it around town to serenade her friends on a lark.
"She even bought a new car just so she could pull that wagon around. She loved it, " Mrs. Kready said.
Music in virtually every form was her absolute joy and passion, friends and family members said. "She didn't cook. She didn't even keep house," one relative chuckled. "She was a very pleasant, eccentric person," Mrs. Kready said. "To know her was to remember her."
She was preceded in death by her sister, Virginia Kready. Besides her two nephews B.J. and Ben Kready, she is survived by two nieces, Sherrie Hall and Kandy Bentley.
A memorial service was held Wednesday at Trinity Episcopal Cathedral. The famly request that memorials be made to the Marybelle Nissly Music Scholarship, UALR Foundation.
The Times - August 5, 1999
Jason M. Willey
William George Fleming was enormously proud of the city of North Little Rock, proud of Arkansas and proud of America, and he dedicated his life to improving the well being of cities across the state and their citizens.
An impassioned believer in the power of cities to determine their own fate and an expert in municipal law who worked as a Municipal League lawyer for more than 50 years, retiring in 1990 as its General Counsel, Mr. Fleming died Thursday, Nov. 11, as a result of a stroke which occured in 1997 while vacationing with his wife in Fiord, Norway. He was 75.
Born in Baring Cross, the only son of a railroad engineer and a 1941 graduate of North Little Rock High School, Mr. Fleming always managed to find his way back to his home town no matter how far away life would take him.
After high school, he enrolled in the pre-law program at the University of Arkansas at Fayetteville when pre-law was a two year preparation for graduate school, explained his wife, Jean.
He would leave school to serve a short stint as a pilot in the Army Air Corps during Warld War II and, proud to have served his country for even a short time, would become a military history buff ever after.
Back from the war and in law school, he would meet his wife, whom he married in 1947 and find his calling in a single course that captured his fascination."One day he came home from class talking about an interesting course in municipal corporations that he was taking," his wife recalled. And from that moment on Mr. Fleming was enthralled by the intricicies of municipal law and the welfare of cities.
With his new bride, he would return to his beloved North Little Rock, where he took a job as a field consultant with the Arkansas Municipal League and she became a social studies teacher and career guidance counselor in the North Little Rock Schools. The couple would make their home in Levy and raise three children here.
Mr. Fleming would remain a Wildcat fan and fixture at many athletic events even though none of his children were athletes, for the rest of his life.
"For many years he was at every football game, basketball game and track meet, cheering on North Little Rock High School," said his daughter, Anne Lee, of North Little Rock.
On the job, Mr. Fleming would travel the state, focusing on helping to transform Arkansas from a rural state of unincorporated villages into an urban state of towns and cities that would work together to empower each other.
John Woodruff, a longtime Arkansas Gazette reporter who is now editor of Arkansas Municipal Leagues magazine,
City and Town, said he remembers Mr. Fleming as always available and willing to speak with a city official, "even when he had to answer the same question five or ten times."
But in his travels he also "stressed cooperation-acting as one voice in approaching the legislature and working together to solve mutual problems," Woodruff wrote in a story about Mr. Fleming a few years ago.
His self-confessed obsession was the need for municipal sales taxes to apply for public facilities needs, and he lobbied the state legislature hard to pass a law allowing cities in Arkansas the ability to enact such sales taxes with vote by their residents.
"Great cities make a great state`" he would say over and over again, and he believed it with all his heart, those closest to him said.
Closer to home, he took great pride in the city's ownership of its own electric company, and "he was proud of little things like the trash getting picked up and the city having good street lights, that's how much he loved North Little Rock," his wife said.
Even after his retirement, Mr. Fleming found it hard to break away from municipal business as he volunteered at the League for seven more years doing the work he loved.
Eventually, however, retirement did afford more time for traveling farther away, and he seized the opportunity to make overseas trips to Ireael, Gibraltar, Sweden, Russia, the British Isles and many other countries in Europe.
His travels inevitably included visits to the most important landmarks of military history, including many of the Civil War battlegrounds. But "the most important trip for him was being part of the 50th Anniversary [of the invasion] of Normandy," his wife recalled.
In his private life Mr. Fleming was a father who instilled honesty and a love for education in his children, family members say.
"He made sure his children and grandchildren always had the best in education, it was important to him," said Jean Fleming. He was also a pillar of the Levy Baptist Church where he had served as a deacon as well as a long time member of the Gideons.
And just as he sustained his support for the Wildcats and Razorbacks, he maintained a network of friends, including those he had cultivated during his teenage years, wearing proudly his favorite t-shirt, which read "North Little Rock Class of '41," and joining other members of his class for monthly lunches until two years ago, when his health began to fail.
His strength was an even temperament that would not allow a grudge or mean word against anyone, no matter what happened professionally, Jean Fleming said of her husband's small town work ethic.
And he absolutely loved his work, reveled in helping the cities of this state grow and attract industry, his colleagues say.
"Bill's whole life was the League and municipal law, he just loved it." Woodruff said. "He was a tremdous asset to cities all over the state," said Don Zimmerman, the current executive director of the Municipal League. "I will always have the greatest respect and admiration for Bill."
Besides his wife Jean, and daughter Anne Lee, Mr. Fleming is survived by two sons Matt and Fred Fleming, and six grandchildren.
Funeral services werre held Saturday, Nov. 13th at the Levy Baptist Church with Revs Otto Brown and Mitch Vickers and Mike Manning officiating. Interment was in Edgewood Cemetery.
The family requests that memorials be made to the Levy Baptist Church, 3501 Pike Avenue, North Little Rock, AR.
The Times - November 18, 1999
By Nancy Dockter
Mary Lou Hindsman loved a challenge, even if that meant shaking up social norms for age and gender in the process.
Sixty years ago, when flying was still the near-exclusive province of men, this farmer's daughter talked the manager of the dust-strip airport near her hometown in Mississippi into teaching her how to operate his crop duster - and at the tender age of 20, became the first woman in that state to earn a pilot's license.
And after retirement at age 65 from her accountant's job with the state Employment Security Division, Mrs. Hindsman took up golf.
Although discouraged from the pursuit by family and friends, she doggedly kept at it the rest of her life, eventually breaking a score of 90 and placing as a seniors match play medalist in statewide competion when she was 79.
Mrs. Hindsman, a longtime resident of North Little Rock, died Thursday, Feb. 24, due to complications following surgery. She was 81.
A member and past president of the Burns Park Ladies Golf, Mrs. Hindsman, by example, helped other enjoy the game more by her capacity to laugh at her own mistakes, said Lynn Hardin, her daughter, an avid folfer and former president of the Arkansas Women's Golf Association.
"She made me put golf in perspective," Hardin said. "In a hurry, she taught me it's the friendships you make and the people you care abut that count."
She also set an example of grit and good humor that is legendary among friends and family. In a witty, detailed account that she wrote in 1984 after her first, and disastrous, foray into tournament golf in which her game average was 166 = a greens "record" according to the club pro - she vowed: "To end this sad tale, I want to assure you, or warn you, that I a not about to give up..."
Mrs. Hindsman had reason to be supremely confident in her ability to become a good golfer. Smart and athletic, she'd gone to Sunflower Junior College (now Mississippi Delta College) in Moorhead, Miss., on a scholarship as a star first baseman, championship tennis player and all-star basketball player and would have pursued golf and other sports afterwards if not for marrying a fellow studen and athlete, Sam Hindsman, soon after graduating with an associate's degree in business.
As wife to a successful high school and college coach, whose career took him to several Arkansas communities, including a brief stint at North Little Rock High School as well as Arkansas State Teachers College in Conway (now the University of Central Arkansas) and Arkansas Tech University in Russellville, Mrs. Hindsman sideline her interest in athletics while rearing their five children.
During their days in Russellville, she also worked for many years as an accountant for a car dealership, but also managed to find time for attending college part-time to delve into literature and several years' study of French, German and Spanish.
"She was one of the most intelligent women I have every known with a real yearning for learning, " said her daughter Ann Cornwell. "She loved crossword puzzles. One cup of coffee and she was through."
When she and her husband returned to North Little Rock in 1973, Mrs. Hindsman worked for 10 years as an accountant for the state. Upon retiring, she immediately launched into her new avocation with characteristic zeal and from then on devoted her time and energy to golf - playing, volunteering at the Burns Park Golf Course and serving in golf associations on the local and state level.
For her contributions to the game, the Arkansas Womens Golf Association in 1991 named a trophy in her honor, and this April, she and her husband will be inducted into the Mississippi Delta 2000 College Sports Hall of Fame. "She didn't go into anything halfway," Cornwell said.
Mrs. Hindsman was preceded in death by her husband, Sam Hindsman Jr., and a brother, Kenneth Streeter, and her parents. She is survived by sons and daughters - in-law, Thomas and Georgia Hindsman and Danny Bill and Donna Hindsman of Russellville; daughters and sons-in-law, Sylvia Ann and Gilbert Cornwell and Rebecca Streeter and Mike Kennedy of North Little Rock and Carol Lynn and Jim Hardin of Russellville; brothers and sisters-in-laws, Robert Harrison and Edith Streeter of Greenwood, Miss., Thomas Harvey and Mary Jean Streeter of Blanco, Texas; and a sister and brother-in-law, Frances Maude and Ed Wall of Mantee, Miss.; 14 grandchildren and numerous nieces and nephews.
Cryptside services were held Saturday, Feb. 26, at Edgewood Memorial Park with a memorial service at Park Hill Presbyterian Church with state Higher Education director Lu Hardin officiating.
the family requests that memorials be made to the Hindsman Athletic Scholarship Fund, Arkansas Tech University, Admin. Bldg., Russellville, AR 72801.
The Times - March 9, 2000
By Nancy Dockter
Independent and hardworking throughout a lifetime that nearly spanned a century, Mary Vela Fortner Ramsey of Sherwood met new challenges with a willing and cheerful outlook, doing the best she could with modest means to care for her family.
A twice widowed mother of four whose final challenge was a lengthy battle with Alzheimer's disease, died of congestive heart failure Sunday, Aug. 8, just 17 days before her 93rd birthday.
As a young farmer's wife, she managed with a wood cookstove, kerosene lamps and travel by horsebck. In her middle years, with the outbreak of World War II, she took her first job - at a Jacksonville munitions plant - often walking three miles along lonely country roads in predawn hours to catch a ride.
And later, because her husband's eyesight was too poor, it was she who learned to drive the first family vehicle, a '41 Ford pickup, and made the necessary weekly trips to the Cabot feedstore, to the grocer and to church.
Well into her 80s, after she moved to Sherwood from north Pulaski County, she continued to drive and live on her own, glad for the independence that skill afforded her.
Mrs. Ramsey was born in Van Buren County, the oldest of five children of famer James Rambo and his wife, Famey, a homemaker. As a girl, she helped take care of her brothers and sisters, pitched in with farm work and attended school through the eighth grade. When she was 20, while attending church, she met John Fortner, a farmer, road worker and widowed father of two.
According to the account of their son, J.D. Fortner, his dad was leading sons when he spied pretty, young Vela Rambo enter the church.
"Mother walked in and came down the aisle and he said, "That's going to be my next wife." A year later, in 1927, they married, and she became the mother of his two daughters, ages 2 and 14, happily taking on the challenge of helping rehabilitate the youngest, who was afflicted with polio.
"The doctors said she'd never walk but with her doing therapy, she helped her walk again," said her youngest daughter, Estelle Waymack.
The couple had two more children of their own, a son and a daughter, and farmed cotton and vegetables near Vilonia until moving into north Pulaski County in the 1940s.
During World War II, she took a job at the Ordnance Plant in Jacksonville, followed by "many years" at the Tuff Nut Garmet factory in Little Rock stiching overalls to bring in extra income for her family.
But even after long hours at a factory, her work day wasn't over. In the summertime, she would come home to mounds of fresh picked vegetables waiting for her to can, her daughter recalled.
"She'd can 'til 8 in the evening so the family would have food," she said. Jellies, sauerkraut, pickles, vegetables, hand-churned butter and fresh milk from the family's five cows, smoked hams and bacon was just some of the bounty that came from her kitchen.
One summer, she and her youngest daughter harvested and canned more than 100 quarts of huckleberries. Another time, Waymack recalls, she and her mother picked strawberries and for each quart were paid five cents, money meant for family necessities but which her mother turned over to her because she had just graduated from high school and needed some nice clothes for job interviews.
"That's how sweet she was," her daughter recalled, remembering the "very pretty yellow dress" she bought with the money.
In the 1940s their house on East Justice Road near the Bayou Meto community was wired for electricity, enabling the family at last to partake of some household conveniences. "The washing machine was her favorite," her daughter said
In 1967, Mr. Fortner died and a year later, she married John Ramsey, also a widower, who died in 1979. After that, Mrs. Ramsey moved into Sherwood to be near her daughter, but chose to have her own place, a mobile home next door.
She lived briefly in a Greenbrier retirement home then came back to Sherwood after she was diagnosed with Alzheimer's eight years ago. Even then, this self-assured woman insisted on living on her own, accepting help from family only in her latter years. "She was very independent," Waymack said. "She liked to do things herself, her way."
Besides her two husbands, Mrs. Ramsey was preceded in death by one daughter, Monell Fortner. Besides her daughter and son-in-law Estelle and Charles Waymack of Sherwood, and son and daughter-in-law, J.D. and Linda Fortner of Cabot, she is survived by daughter Mada Johnson of Santee, Calif., six grandchildren; 19 great-grandchildren and 19 great-great-grandchildren.
Funeral services were held Tuesday, Aug. 10, in the chapel of North Little Rock Funeral Home. Burial was at Sumner Cemetery in Cabot.
The family requests that memorials be made to Baptist Hospice and Rebsamen Home Health Care.
The Times - August 19, 1999