It was a stormy, rain-soaked night in 1948 when the lights went out in the Pentecostal Church of God in Little Rock and changed forever the life of Bill W. Bolton, then 17.

"It was one of the worst storms I can recall," his wife Yvonne recalled in an interview this week. "But when the lights went out, our preacher got out two oil lamps and proceeded right on. It was a beautiful service, with the soft light and the weather outside."

And as the service was ending, Bolton's brother turned to him and asked the life-changing question: "Don't you want to give your heart to the Lord?"

"And starting that night he dedicated himself totally to the Lord," Yvonne Bolton said. "Attending [church] and worshiping rigorously."

The Rev. Bill W. Bolton, founder and pastor of Gospel Lighthouse Church in Levy, died of congestive heart failure on Thursday, March 6, at age 64.

Born in England, Ark., the fifth of seven children, he had moved with his family to Little Rock when he was small and his father had taken a job with Worthen Bank.

The year he found religion, he also found his future wife, who happened to be a member of the Pentecostal Church of God in Little Rock, too. Romance soon bloomed, and the two were married a few weeks before Mr. Bolton's 20th birthday.

By then he had joined the Navy, and soon thereafter he was assigned to a destroyer in the South Pacific, where he would spend nearly four years during the Korean War.

"And whenever he would go into a port, he would always look for a church," said his wife.

After his discharge in 1955, the Boltons moved to North Little Rock, where he worked first as a driver for the Rand wholesale grocery business and then for Safeway.

"He drove 'turnarounds,' meaning that he didn't go off on overnight trips, although he did sometimes drive to places like Oklahoma and Tennessee and back in a day," said his wife. "And in his whole 31 years [with Safeway], he never had a chargable accident. I'm so proud of his record."

Throughout the 1950's and 1960's, Mr. Bolton was active in the Full Gospel Church in North Little Rock, at various points serving as its youth leader and as an adult Sunday school teacher.

In 1970, the Rev. J.D. Hardcastle, the pastor of Full Gospel, died, leaving the church to his widow Florence to pastor.

"Bill had just looked up to [Hardcastle] and admired him so much," said Yvonne Bolton, "Bill prayed about the situation, and he said that God told him to take care of Florence."

So help her he did, discovering in the process his own burgeoning interest in pastoring. Finally, in the early 1980s, he founded Gospel Lighthouse Church, a non-denominational church at 704 W. 38th St.

It was work that fit his temperament and personality, friends and family members say.

"Bill was the kind of person who never met a stranger. He laughed a lot, and always put those around him at ease," his wife said. "He was not a loud, boisterous minister. And I don't mean that as disrespect to anyone because each minister has a style that works for them and their congregation. But his ministry was more along the teaching lines. He was a good teacher."

He also embraced the discipline of his faith, she said.

"He started each day by reading the Bible and praying, and, before going to bed, he would do the same," she said.

"My dad was a man I admired always. He loved life, his family, his friends, and God," said his daughter Debbie in a tribute at his funeral.

Looking back on his contributions, family members also say Rev. Bolton took particular pride in the Gospel Lighthouse Day Care, which he established in the church building.

Under the direction of his daughter Deborah, the center now has a staff of six and cares for approximately 60 children.

"He will be greatly missed," his daughter said at the funeral. "He touched many lives, but he lives forever."

Besides his wife and daughter, the Rev. Bolton is survived by three sisters, Agnes Duncan and Bettie Turney of Little Rock, and Dottie Garrett of Russellville; two brothers, B.J. Bolton and Roy Jeans of Little Rock; and one granddaughter, Tiffany Renee Powers of North Little Rock.

Funeral services were held Saturday, March 8, at Roller-Owens Funeral Home, with the Rev. Jerry Bell officiating.

Burial was in Mt. Carmel Cemetery in Cabot.

The family requests that memorials be made to Gospel Lighthouse Ministries.

The Times - March 13, 1997



VELMA WADE

Friends and family members trace the extraordinary tenacity and zeal of Velma Wade to her humble beginnings in the economically depressed Blue Ridge mountain community of Marion, N.C., where by the incredible age of 5, she was expected to take care of her younger siblings and even help prepare meals for the impoverished family.

But somehow she would find her way to Rome, Ga., work her way through college, provide a bulwark of support for an entrepreneurial husband while she raised three sons, design her own house and manage a hospital information company of her own with record success.

All before her early 50s, when her health began to deteriorate.

Mrs. Wade died suddenly and without any warning of the tumor that struck her down last Thursday, March 6, at age 56.

"Forced to grow up painfully early, she became fiercely determined not to remain a prisoner to a life she did not choose," her daughter-in-law Cindy said in a eulogy at a memorial service for Mrs. Wade last Sunday.

She met her husband Chuck at Berry College, where both were part of a work-study program that thrust them into dining hall duty together one day when she, determined to get his attention, playfully shoved a carrot into his mouth.

It was a new-found confidence for her at the time, but it was the sort of characteristic move that would eventually win her the family nickname "T.C." for "Take Charge," her husband chuckled in the memory.

The two were married soon after his graduation and settled into a lifestyle of a supportive partnership of two people willing to follow where opportunities led, she happy to raise their three sons while he built a career that brought them to Arkansas in 1969 when he was plucked for the job of comptroller for Winrock farms.

He would go into business for himself after the death of Winthrop Rockefeller Sr., and once all the children were in school, she, too, ventured out on her own, taking a job with Arkansas Impression Products, a firm that sells patient identification systems for hospitals.

One year after she joined the company, she purchased the local dealership and quickly grew it into the top of 200 dealerships in the country and the only one owned by a woman.

Her secret, family members say, was not only her obvious management skills but her dogged determination and warmth.

Years later, after she was diagnosed with Grave's Disease, sold her company and worked in the office of her husband's Shelter Insurance business, Mr. Wade says her people skills became his company's major asset.

"She was totally interested in everybody who came in the office," he said. "And it showed."

But she was also just genuinely interested in life and in excelling in life, other family members say. When she took up tennis in the 1970s, she took her game to tournament levels. She took a few lessons in interior decorating, then designed the house of her dreams, a warm, inviting and unusual floor plan built around a center atrium, in the Quail Creek community, family members said.

"But her pride was our three boys," her husband said. "Her achievement in her mind was that they were all college educated and productive citizens in society, and that is what she wanted her legacy to be."

And indeed it was, the wife of her oldest son Chuck said, in part because of what she had made of herself.

"I thought Velma could do it all, and I wanted to learn how," Cindy Wade said in her eulogy. "We would sit and talk for hours and she would listen, encourage, empathize and give advice as appropriate. She always had time for others, and a special way of helping you believe in yourself."

Besides her husband, she is survived by son Ric Wade of North Little Rock, Jeff Wade of Nashville, Tenn., Chuck Wade of Little Rock; two brothers, Bob Ayers of Reading, Pa., and Major Ayers of Marion, N.C.; sister Doris Armstrong of Marion, N.C.; and granddaughter, Jessi Wade.

A nondemoninational memorial service Sunday was held at the Presbyterian Church in Little Rock.

The Times - March 13, 1997






LUTHER EDWARD POWELL

Luther Edward Powell will be remembered as a quintessential "Southern gentleman," his cousin Clara Shillcutt said Tuesday.

And as a highy successful businessman, a gifted musician, "an exceptional artist" and a "very independent, very modest" man, his daughter-in-law, Linda Powell, said.

Mr. Powell, 89, died in his sleep on Thursday, Aug. 15, in the North Little Rock home he shared with Linda, a teacher at Fuller Junior High, and his grandson, John Michael Powell.

He was preceded in death by his wife of fifty years, Selma Belle Shillcutt Powell, and his eldest son, John Edward Powell.

He is survived by his son, Dr. Tom L. Powell of Little Rock; another daughter-in-law, Holly of Little Rock; and three grandchildren, Mary Powell of Colorado, John Michael of North Little Rock and Matthew of Little Rock.

Mr. Powell is also survived by nephews Robert E. Powell of Chicago, Norman S. Powell of Los Angeles and Charles Powell and Bill Powell, both of Winnetka, Ill.

Born in Mountain View on Oct. 30, 1906, Mr. Powell grew up on Schiller Street in Little Rock as the youngest of three brothers. Their father, Ewing Powell, was the Arkansas manager for the International Harvester Co. Their mother, Sallie, played the piano and drew her three sons to music.

As teenagers, Howard, Dick and Luther made money by singing in Jewish temples and local churches, Linda Powell said. The brothers became well known in the Little Rock music scene when they performed in the Majestic Theatre.

Luther also played saxophone in the Tommy Scott Band, popular locally at the time. He also played the clarinet, the trombone and the organ, often teaching himself how to play.

One of his older brothers, Dick Powell , went on to Hollywood and gained fame as a singer and actor, starring in such Warner Bros. musicals of the 1930s as "42nd Street." Dick Powell's screen career continued until the early 1960s, encompassing acting, directing and producing.

Author Dee Brown remembers growing up only a block away from the Powell brothers.

In his book, "When the Century was Young", Brown called Luther "one of the gang" who banged around the world of early 1920s Little Rock.

In his book, Brown recalled that Dick would send his little brother the clothing he'd worn in his films.

Such movie material outfitting made him "a sort of honey pot" to attract the area girls. But Luther remained nonchalant: "As far as he was concerned...the movie clothes were nothing special, just an amusing part of growing up during the early years of talking pictures."

Mr Powell graduated from Little Rock High School in 1922.

He attended the University of Arkansas at Little Rock, studying liberal arts.

In 1939, Mr. Powell, who hadjoined his father's company, left Little Rock for South America, where he was to remain for 22 years. He and his wife raised their children on the continent, and travelled widely.

When they first moved to Argentina, they fell in love with Latin music and dancing, learning the tango and the cha-cha. They later moved to Rio de Janeiro.

In 1961, Harvester asked Mr. Powell, then president of South American operations, to become worldwide director of operations, but he decided to retire early instead. He and his wife moved to Lake Hamilton, partly motivated by his love of fishing.

After his wife's death in 1985, Mr. Powell moved in with his daughter-in-law and grandson.

His interests shifted from music to visual art in his later years, although he still played the organ daily. A self-taught artist, "he could paint the most beautiful clouds," Shillcutt said. He favored nature scenes and landscapes for his works in oil and his paintings were featured in several one-man shows, she added.

"He was more of a big brother than a cousin," she said. As coodinator of a social group for widows and widowers at Lakewood Methodist Church, she persuaded Mr. Powell to join and he soom became one of the most active participants.

Linda Powell said her father-in-law "was very sharp, constantly keeping up with politics, business and economics...He had the mentality of someone very young."

He was a man with a rich and colorful life who had "lived through so many eras and experienced so many things we only read about in history books," she said.

His nephew and family historian Bill Powell added that Mr. Powell spoke Spanish and Portuguese fluently, and also knew German.

The Rev. George McCoy of the Lakewood United Methodist Church officiated at a cryptside service at Pinecrest Mausoleum on Saturday, Aug. 17.

The family asks that memorials be made to Conway Human Development Center Volunteer Council or Pathfinder Inc.

The Times - August 22, 1996

VINCENT JOSEPH PARRISH

War Veteran, VA hospital director, 73, dies

Family members say one split second changed the whole life of Vincent Joseph Parrish, and that moment occured in 1946 when his Coast Guard ship in the Pacific came under Japanese fire, lodging some shrapnel in his spine and triggering an infection that would take him several years in a VA hospital to get over.

"He was in a body cast for 2 1/2 years and could have died," said Mary Kelly Parrish, his second wife of nine years. "If it hadn't been for the care he received not only from the hospital staff, but from others, he wouldn't have come back."

The awareness in his mid-29's of just how much the care of others had meant to his own survival and well-being stayed with Mr. Parrish for the rest of his life, and he thrust himself into hospital administration as a career and into charity work as a priority ever after.

Mr. Parrish, the former director of the Little Rock and North Little Rock Veterans Administration hospitals as well as a tireless volunteer to the infirm, died Feb. 3 of a massive stroke. He was 74.

Born in Joliet, Ill., the oldest of three children of Joseph Perisich and his wife Clementine, he and his brother and sister, with the blessing of their father, legally changed their family name in 1957 to Parrish.

"It was easier to understand and pronouce," his wife said. "Perisich literally translated in to Parrish anyway."

After he graduated from high school, he worked at a land mine production plant, where he endured the first catastrophe of his life, an explosion at the plant.

"His whole pool did not survive," his wife said, "They went out one door and he went out another. And he survived."

But the attitude of the plant managers made a lasting impression on him. They kept the surviving workers at the site overnight in order to make a full accounting of the survivors, but that meant that many families, including Mr. Parrish's, did not know whether their loved ones were dead or alive.

And still in shock the next day when he returned to work, he was handed a mop and bucket and told to begin cleaning up the body parts of his coworkers.

"he told them he couldn't do that [and left]," his wife said.

He went into construction work, then at age 20 enlisted in the Coast Guard Reserve in 1943 serving in Europe and the Pacific Ocean.

That's where "They led the battleships out and they came under fire," his wife said.

During the 2 1/2 years of recuperation at the Hine VA Hospital in Chicago, Mr. Parrish was struck by the support and care he received from the Veteran's Administration, Disabled American Veterans of Foreign Wars, organizations he would later join and help.

"His interst in them was that he had been a recipient of their care," his wife said.

After daughter was born with Downs Syndrome, which would spark Mr. Parrish's longtime involvement with the Special Olympics and the Arkansas Association of Retarded Citizens.

He would get his liberal arts degree in 1952 with a concentration of studies in psychology, sociology and health care and immediately go after his master's degree in hospital administration from Iowa State University, which he earned in 1954. For the next several decades he would work in the administration of hospitals in Erie, Pa.; Pittsburgh, Pa.; Washington, D.C.; and Saginaw, Mich., then cap his 35-year career as director of the Little Rock and North Little Rock VA hospitals starting in 1975.

During his 14-year stint here, he oversaw the construction of many new facilities at both the Little Rock and Fort Roots hospitals.

His first wife died in 1987 and he married in 1988 a veteran's widow who had worked under him for nine years in the personnel department at the VA hospital. The next year he retired, intent on some years of travel in the autumn of his life.

"When we got married he told me he wanted to see the world so that's what we did," Parrish said.

But Mr. Parrish was also a devout Catholic, and devoted member of Immaculate Conception Catholic Parish in North Little Rock. So when the nuns at the St. Joseph Home & Day Care said they needed some help, Mr. Parrish heeded the call, assisting at the facility and as a board member of it until the home was closed and the board recently dissolved.

"Vic's whole life has been spent caring for others," Parrish said.

Besides his wife, Mary Kelly, Mr. Parrish was also survived by his daughters, Kathy Heller and Mary Jo Parrish, both of North Little Rock; one son, James Parrish of Battle Creek, Mich.; on brother, Joseph Parrish of Peoria,Ill.; and four grandchildren, Matthew and Sean Heller of North Little Rock and Madison Ainsley Parrish of Battle Creek, Mich.

Funeral services were held Feb. 5 at Immaculate Conception Catholic Church with Bishop Andrew J. McDonald officiating.

The family requests that memorials be made to Diversified Opportunities Inc., 2401 N. Poplar, North Little Rock, 72114; the VA Medical Center Voluntary Service, 2200 Fort Roots Dr., North Little Rock, 72114; or the Immaculate Conception Catholic Church Building Fund, 7000 J.F.K. Blvd., North Little Rock, 72116.

The Times - February 12, 1998



CHARLES HERBERT STANLEY

Former FBI agent, family man dies at 86

For nearly 30 years, Charles Herbert Stanley was a special agent in the FBI, chasing German spies during World War II or working closely with Attorney General Bobby Kennedy on organized crime cases.

But the tight-lipped Stanley would never come across when pressed for details about his adventures at family gatherings, relatives said.

Stanley, known as "Charlie" to the bureau and Uncle Herbert to family, died May 9 in North Little Rock of Parkinson's disease. He was 86.

Born July 29, 1912, on his family's small farm in Naylor (Faulkerner County) he was the fourth of seven children (four boys and three girls) born to the late James Walter Stanley and his wife, Nellie Jones Stanley.

James Walter Stanley had moved his family to Levy while Herbert was still a baby to be close to his brothers and help run Stanley Hardware, which is still in operation today.

As a child, Mr. Stanley was a good athlete who played on the 1933 Levy baseball team that won the city championship.

In high school, he caddied at Sylvan Hills Country Club (now North Hills Country Club). One of his colleagues from the caddy shack was Dutch Harrison, who had a successful career as a pro on the PGA tour. A good golfer with a 3 handicap, Mr. Stanley liked to play a three-hole course he built on family property on 52nd Street.

He graduated from North Little Rock High School in 1929, then took an insurance job in the Rector Building on Third Street in Little Rock. The FBI's Little Rock office was also in the Rector Building, and Herbert came to know a number of agents.

In time he landed a job as night clerk in the FBI office and attended Draughon Business College by day.

While still a night clark he had his first date with his future wife, Helen, on his 21st birthday. He was quiet, seemed older than his years and dressed nicely, she recalls.

"He seemed more mature than other kids," she said.

They dated off and on for three years before Helen, who was engaged to a man her mother felt was a better suitor, eloped to Benton with Herbert Stanley.

He wanted to be an FBI agent but the bureau accepted only lawyers and accountants. So after his 1936 graduation from Draughon, he transferred as night clerk to the FBI office at Washington and attended law school at Columbus University by day.

Two of his responsibilities as a night clerk were taking dictation and keeping tacks on a map indicating the presence of FBI agents across the United States.

He was appointed special agent after graduating from law school in 1939, when a new agent made about $17,000 a year.

"We were rich. Of course, it was a lot cheaper to live in Washington D.C., at that time. A cab ride into the city was a dime," Helen Stanley said.

FBI Director J. Edgar Hoover like to send new agents to unfamiliar areas, and Stanley was assigned to the Oklahoma City office. After four months, Stanley was assigned to the Philadelphia office for a second four months. No explanation was given but Stanley thought it may have been to give him more "polish" as an agent.

In 1940, he was transferred to New York City office, where he served as chief of the Major Espionage Squad.

One of the highlights of his career came in interviewing Herman Heicht, a German saboteur who, with several other spies, came ashore in Florida and Long Island from submarines inhopes of eventually gaining information on the American war movement.

Eventually Heicht was executed, but Helen Stanley said her husband respected the spy as a German patriot and family man.

"When they [the FBI] handed him over to the military, he shook all their hands and said he had never been treated better," Mrs. Stanley said.

On the day Franklin Roosevelt died, Herbert Stanley was transferred to the Little Rock office as assistant special agent in charge when the agent in charge was the late Dean Morley, who later became traffic judge in North Little Rock.

Two years later, Stanley was transferred to the Washington D.C., office, where he served as assistant section chief and from 1947 to 1962, as chief of the Loyalty Division, which interviewed government employees and potential employees to discern their loyalty to the U.S. government.

"Basically, they wanted to make sure they weren't Communists," Mrs. Stanley said. "It was a very controversial program."

Later, as the lead inspector in the Organized Crime Division, he worked closely with Bobby Kennedy when, as Attorney General, Kennedy had declared war on the mob.

Mr. Stanley retired in April, 1968, as inspector.

After retirement, he chaired the J. Edgar Hoover Memorial Fund and presided over the Retired FBI Agents Association.

mrs. Stanley said the lifestyle of FBI agents made it difficult for them and their families to maintain friendships outside the FBI. Agents and their wives and children would often gather for cookouts, etc., but the agents never discussed their business in front of their families, Mrs. Stanley said.

Stanley's nephews, Joe Luker of California and James Luker of Wynne, said they tried unsuccessfully at family gatherings to prod Uncle Herbert into talking abou this experiences.

"He was very, very guarded and unwilling to talk about even the current events we knew he was involved in," James Luker said.

The Stanleys moved to Lakewood after his retirement and he became part owner/operator of the family business, Stanley Hardware in Levy.

Mrs. Stanley said her husband took her to see J. Edgar Hoover on several occasions, but usually their meetings were hurried with little time for conversation.

Their last meeting was at herhusband's retirement, when "Mr. Hoover said "Don't let him go down there and sit in a rocking chair."

Stanley enjoyed the hardware store, listening to customers' views on politics and predicting the outcome of local elections based on what he was hearing, Mrs. Stanley said.

But in 1995, he broke his hip and had to stop working in the store.

Until Parkinson's disease made him unable, Stanley like to work in the yard and watch his favorite teams, the Razorbacks and the Washington Redskins.

He was a member of Christ Episcopal Church.

Besides his wife, he is survived by two sisters, Nellie Mae Johnson and Zula Liker Broyles, six nephews and two nieces.

Funeral services were held Tuesday at North Little Rock Funeral Home. Burial was in Edgewood Memorial Park.

The Times - May 14, 1998