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<H1 align="CENTER">Hazel Thomas</H1>

<H2 align="CENTER">An Arkansas Lady</H2>

<H2 align="CENTER">by Jeff Ward </H2>
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<P class="serif">&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;I'm an Arkansas lady. My name is Hazel Marie Williams Thomas, and I was born in Roseboro, Arkansas, on February 23, 1909. Louis Williams was my father, but L.D. is what everyone called him. He was in the lumber business, and he only had a third grade education. Nevertheless, L.D. Williams could walk through an acre of timber and tell you how many board feet of lumber were there. My mother's name was Effie Lou Woodard before she married Papa. She had family near Roseboro. She also had a horse and buggy, and she'd drive it five miles to Amity to take me to visit my grandmother.</P>

<P class="serif">&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;Later we moved to Mt. Ida, where Papa managed a sawmill. In Mt. Ida there was a superintendent of schools that had been there for years. He lived over beyond us, and we'd see him coming to school every morning. If you sat at your desk, not studying, just looking out the window and daydreaming, he'd say: "Forty days to work, lost, and they'll never return. You're just losing time." It made an impression on me; I try not to waste any time. We moved to Forrester from there. Papa used to buy land for the mills so that they could keep going. He'd come in and tell me what he'd done. He had me put it down to send in to the office; he used us kids to help him through.</P>

<P class="serif">&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;Papa put my four brothers and me through college, but my older sister didn't want to go. All the boys became engineers of one sort or another. He told us that he'd never have any money to leave us; he'd give us something that nobody could take away from us&#151; an education. The sawmill is gone now, and there's just a memorial park there. In a history book published about the logging industry in Arkansas, L.D. Williams is included.</P>

<P class="serif">&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;I went to Arkansas State Teachers College in Conway, Arkansas, and I majored in home economics. It was what interested me most. I thought it was everything a woman needed; it used science and focused on daily living. That's where I met Alton Thomas. On campus, everybody knew "Big Boy." He was an A-1 basketball player, and he played football. In those days, the football players didn't wear helmets like they do now. The helmets were just a leather cap, so you had to be tough. He was a big, strapping farm boy standing six five and a half. He was center of the basketball team, and he played other sports too. He had to work his way through school. There weren't any athletic scholarships in those days. Alton was a star athlete, and he lettered in football, basketball, baseball and track all four years. His senior year, the football game between Arkansas State Teachers and Arkansas Tech was so close, the score ended up being three to two. He was awarded the game ball, with the score written on it and everything. One of the grandsons has it now.</P>

<P class="serif">&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;But he wasn't just dedicated to sports; he always put me first. Each year the players could order a letter sweater if they qualified. Most players bought them for themselves. Big Boy didn't have any money, and he wanted to do something for me. When it came to the end of the season, he ordered the sweater for me instead of himself. When we got to chapel that day, all the players lined up on stage. The coach called me up and presented me with the sweater. He told everyone how wonderful Big Boy was to the team and told them that I never missed a game. Big Boy was back there, scared to death. He was afraid he was going to get killed for putting me on the spot. I had a class the next period, so I dashed by my room and put on a skirt and the letterman's sweater, and went on to class. It so happened that one of the other fellas didn't have a sweater made for his girl. It got her so mad that she went into his room, took some scissors and whacked up many of his clothes.</P>

<P class="serif">&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;I was in college during the Depression, but Papa never had any trouble keeping us going. Alton's family in Rosebud had it rougher. He'd lay out and work for a semester, and then go back to school for a while, and then stop and work some more. Alton's mother was helpless; she had rheumatoid arthritis. Big Boy's father took a straight back chair and put big wooden wheels on it that he had cut out of a log. That was how she got around. They lived on a big grape farm and had animals and a crop to sometimes sustain them, and sometimes not. His father did the housework and cooking and all that; so Alton worked hard to put himself and his brothers through college.</P>

<P class="serif">&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;We got married after college in Dardenelle. Because Alton had been teaching in a variety of one-room schoolhouses around the state while he was working on his degree, he got a job as Superintendent of Schools in Sheridan when he graduated. By this time, he had taught almost every grade. I always said there's one thing that I'm never going to do, and that's teach school. However, there was a shortage of teachers during the Depression, and on into World War II. Alton convinced me that I could teach math. I taught a group of men who wanted to get into the Air Force. They had to have so much math and geometry before they could get in. I told them, "We'll work it out together."</P>

<P class="serif">&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;Sheridan didn't have much money to pay, so we moved to Standard Umsted by Smackover to get better jobs. Alton moved down there as Superintendent of Schools, and they needed seventh grade math teachers, so I moved right in. We started our own family down there. We had our boy, Alan, in 1936 and our girl, Ruth Ann, in 1938. We were active in the local church in Joyce City. Alton and a group of other men gave up smoking so that they could contribute the money to the church. They wanted to help the church build the educational space that was needed for Sunday school. Faith was important to both of us. Ruth Ann still remembers sitting on Alton's lap, while he was reading Scripture, with the Bible in her lap. Sometimes, he'd put Ruth Ann on his shoulders and stand up. Because he was so tall, Ruth Ann's head would hit the ceiling! Alton went to work for Phillips Petroleum because the money was better. He started in the fields, but eventually he moved up to an office job as a trainer. Things were going well. He received a promotion, and we were packing to move to Shreveport, Louisiana.</P>

<P class="serif">&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;Alton loved to hunt quail and small game. He never did get a deer, but he got really scared once when a deer ran out in front of us while we were driving. He nearly wrecked the car before he could get it stopped. He cleaned his gun while we were packing and didn't know the safety was broken. The gun went off, killing him. I had a five-year-old daughter and seven-year-old son. I prayed, and the Lord told me to go to it, you can do it. Alton's sister's husband was a rancher in the Texas Panhandle, and he wanted to take care of me. He said he'd have a certain amount of money put in the bank each month. I said: "Don't you do any of it. If I need help, I'll call on you. Otherwise, let me do it myself." I never had to ask anyone for help. We moved to Arkadelphia, to be closer to the Williams family.</P>

<P class="serif">&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;I got a job teaching junior high math. There was an opening for a home economics teacher at a local high school, so I switched to that. I taught there until Ouachita Baptist University invited me to join their faculty in 1948. I had been a teacher for sixteen years when I went back to complete my graduate work. I went into it with everything I had. I had two children to take care of, and I had to make good. I did some study in home economics at the University of Arkansas in Fayetteville, Oklahoma State University in Stillwater, and a summer program in Maryland. I completed my master's degree and did all of the class work for a Ph.D., although I didn't write the final dissertation.</P>

<P class="serif">&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;I became the head of the Home Economics Department at Ouachita Baptist and accomplished a lot there. We received federal accreditation in the field of home economics, a certification that was needed for some of our students to teach in certain positions. The state schools were concerned because they thought we were after the federal funds, but it was really just the certification we wanted. Those girls needed it to get jobs. I also started a school of dietetics. It's never been difficult for Ouachita graduates to find work. Other schools were after me to move, like Baylor, so that I could accomplish those things for them. However, I built my home in Arkadelphia, and I wanted to stay there.</P>

<P class="serif">&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;My daughter, Ruth Ann, also went to school at Ouachita Baptist. Some of the other students were concerned about me playing favorites. I remember standing outside the classroom door one day and overhearing a conversation. One girl complained that Ruth Ann always got good grades. Another student, Jamie Maddox, came to her defense, saying: "You can be sure that she has to earn it; she just doesn't get it given to her!" That made me feel better. She got married in 1960, and to hear her tell it, I was now free to do what I wanted to do.</P>

<P class="serif">&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;In 1961, I did a summer study at the Sorbonne, in Paris, France. I was just curious; it was supposed to be the oldest cooking school around. I wanted to see what specialties they did. While I was there, I took a course in French. The lady who taught it said: "I hate to tell you, but you've got too much Southern brogue to ever learn to speak French." Nevertheless, I did help some of the American soldiers over there learn to speak French. Because of the cold war, it was a little scary. I remember waking up one night, and hearing something. Just outside my hotel window, there was a woman screaming and no one came to her rescue. They told us not to worry because if anything came up they'd get us out of there first thing.</P>

<P class="serif">&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;Most of the American girls were there because they were given a trip by their parents after they finished high school. They were more interested in flirting than in their studies. When they wanted to go anywhere, they'd come and get me because I was the eldest. One day, we were going to a special showing at the main castle. We went by and ate some breakfast, and the girls decided that we needed some cookies to go along with it. When we got there, the girls went running up the steps. The guards stopped us to see what we were carrying, and they took the cookies. I didn't care for French food much; the breakfasts were terrible. We found out there was an American place to eat. I went there once, and I didn't go back anymore. The food wasn't fit to eat.</P>

<P class="serif">&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;Still, I enjoyed the trip. When I completed my studies, I took a vacation tour of five countries. I made some friends, including a man in France named Andre Souplet. I corresponded with him for years. When my daughter, Ruth Ann, changed planes in Paris, on her way to Israel, he met her with gifts. One of my grandsons went on a tour of Paris, and Andre took him down the Champs Elys&eacute;es. He knew Mitterand's driver and took him to the palace, although the president wasn't there. He said it was a lot of fun.</P>

<P class="serif">&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;Ouachita trained missionaries, so I had contact with people from all over the world. The University has reciprocal agreements with other universities around the globe. Some of them were difficult, but most of the girls were good and stayed out of trouble. Working there was hard because not only did I have to teach and do administrative tasks for the department, but we also catered every campus function. Now there are three people who do the same job that I did then. I taught at Ouachita Baptist for twenty-seven years before I decided to retire in 1974.</P>

<P class="serif">&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;I took the opportunity to travel quite a bit. I visited a brother who had moved to Columbia, South America. I also went to Australia, New Zealand, and to Mexico twice. Nevertheless, Arkansas was my home. I wanted to use what I had built there. I know I'll be remembered for what I did in Arkansas.</P>

<P class="serif">&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;I got together with some other retired people and started throwing "turnip green parties." With two or three other people from my Sunday school class, we'd have a buffet. I'd cook a big pot of turnip greens and make a pan of cornbread. One of the ladies would bring some salad and another would bring the dessert. We would invite two or three people who were not going to Sunday school anywhere and get together about eleven o'clock. Everyone would start spinning stories about their childhood, and this and that, and they might go home by four. George Fisher, who used to be an editorial cartoonist for the <I>Arkansas Gazette</I>, was famous for his "rackensack music." He played a song called "Turnip Greens, Turnip Greens, Them Good Old Turnip Greens." George composed a stanza of "Them Good Old Turnip Greens" about Hazel's turnip green parties in Arkadelphia, Arkansas. My daughter even used the model of my turnip green parties in conferences for the Baptist Sunday school people, as an example of an outreach tool.</P>

<P class="serif">&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;Sometime around 1986, Carolyn Neal, one of my students from Ouachita who works on the staff at Parkway Village, came down to Arkadelphia and got me. She brought me up here to stay and see what it was like. I had been the only one left to take care of my mother and father as they got older, and I didn't want anyone to have to take care of me. It seemed like a nice place. When I got home, I called my son, Alan, and asked him: "What do you think of me selling and moving to Parkway Village in Little Rock?" He said "You've always got a home with me." I said, "No, I told you I'm not gonna live with either one of you." I moved, and I haven't been sorry. I like it here, and it's getting better all the time. They keep improving it.</P>

<P class="serif">&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;I still go back to Ouachita Baptist for functions sometimes. After teaching for 43 years, it seems like I know everyone. I run into someone I know or have taught almost every time I go out. My son-in-law, Glynn, took me to see the Christmas trees at the State House, and by the time he got back from parking the car, people were huddled around me. They all wanted to know how I was doing. When Ruth Ann took me to a Baptist Missions meeting for the state of Arkansas, two or three ladies who had been my students were there.</P>

<P class="serif">&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;Not too long ago, a group from out of the country were on the Ouachita campus for a service for a family member that had been involved with the school. We all lined up after the funeral. As the people from the family came by, we introduced ourselves. When they got to me, I said that my name was Hazel Thomas. The woman said, "Say it again." I repeated my name. Then she said, "Are you the one I've looked for all these years?" I said, "Well, I'm it." She grabbed me and hung on to me for dear life. I invited her to come home with me for dinner, but she said she had to stay with the group. I never dreamed it was going to come to anything like this. I've got to see if there's another Hazel Thomas.</P>
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