Northwest Arkansas Democrat-Gazette
Fond memories of Rogers in 1940s, ’50s, ’60s
Recently, I interviewed Betsey Robinson-Harold about growing up in Rogers in the 1940s, ’50s, and ’60s. She is very sharp and has an amazing memory — a veritable bank of information about Rogers.
I learned that she attended Central Ward Elementary (now Frank Tillery Elementary), then grades 7-12 in the old Rogers High on Walnut Street, graduating in 1957.
“The population of Rogers was 5,222, and ours was one of the first classes to have 100 graduates, many who remained and still live in Rogers. The Class of 1957 was amazingly close,” she said. “We were, and still are, like brothers and sisters.”
The class included, among others, Steve Roberts, Kay Calvin Sanford, Johnny Jacobs, John Wayne Ford, Jeannie Fleeman, Barbara Kennan, Teddy McConahey, Jimmy McWhorter, Rosemary Fones Walczak, Charley Brewer, Owen Anderson, Harold Snoderley, Martha Keck, Lynne Collette Bailey, Joel Cooper and Richard Glen.
Betsey’s father was Al Robinson, an accountant who moved his family to Rogers in 1939 to work for Arkansas Western Gas Co.
Betsey showed me a picture of a bunch of kindergarten children in full band uniforms. “What is this?” I asked. “My mother and Annie Pickens were good friends. Annie was a kindergarten teacher in a small private school, and she had a little rhythm band. Mother talked Annie into letting me join when I was 3 years old. I wanted to play the tambourine so bad, but I ended up playing the triangle.”
At the age of 13, Al Robinson taught Betsey to drive. “We went out to South Arkansas Street, which was a straight dirt road, so after work he gave me lessons for about three days. One day I wanted a ride to my friend’s house, and he said to go ahead and drive myself. I was clueless, but I drove and did not have an accident. My mother had an old 1938 Packard, a huge automobile. I drove that thing to school with no driving license. You had to be 17 to get an official license, but it wasn’t just me, lots of underage kids drove back then.
“I lived at the pool and skating rink in the summer,” she said. “Mother would drop me off at the pool on the way to work, and I would stay all day. That was not unusual. Lots of kids spent all day at Lake Atalanta while their parents worked.
“Russell Riggs was the head life guard when I was a junior, and he wanted me to be a water safety instructor. You have to be at least 18 to be an instructor. We were a small group at Fayetteville taking the course. Each of us was asked what we did, and I said that I was a student in high school, and I thought Russell was going to die because I was too young to be there, but they didn’t say a word. I passed the course and taught the tadpoles (non-swimming little kids). The water was so cold, the kids would get out and be blue, and we would put towels around them to warm them up.”
“Did you get paid for teaching swimming lessons?” I asked. “No, haha! But I did get in free to the swimming pool.”
I knew that Betsey did synchronized swimming performances for Virginia Rand at the Lake Atalanta pool, so I asked about that. “I performed synchronized swimming one season and was the youngest participant. The only performances the synchronized swimmers did that I remember was at the Lake Atalanta beauty pageants that were held in 1948, 1949 and 1950.”
The swimming pool was adjoining the Lakeside Restaurant, both owned by Cactus Clark, so I asked Betsy about him.
“I worked for him about six weeks. I thought it would be a good idea to have a snack bar in the pool area, for they didn’t have one. You had to go into the restaurant to get something to eat, and that didn’t work well. So one day I suggested to him that we needed a snack bar. He built this kitchen kind of thing for snacks, and I operated it. I made 35¢ an hour and lasted about six weeks before he very gently let me go. It was a very cold June and very few folks at the pool, so he told me that it wasn’t paying off. The fault was mainly me because I wasn’t good at it and I was lazy. Haha! He closed it and then reopened the snack bar (with someone else running it) when the weather got better.”
“What social activities did you participate in high school,” I asked.
“There were three social groups for girls — The Wing Scouts, founded and run by Doris Laremore, and two sororities, The SubDebs and Hi-Sis. I belonged to the Sub-Debs and joined the Wing Scouts in the eighth grade. They hadn’t been around long, maybe six years. It started out as a Girl Scout troop, but they were supposed to sell cookies, and Doris did not want us selling cookies. So she took us out of the Scouts organization and changed it to Wing T’s. The president of the Sub-Debs said that the Wing Scouts was the best organization that she belonged to, so several of us joined the Wing Scouts and I loved it, loved it, loved it.
“We would go to the airport and a pilot would fly us around the patch, sometimes upside down — very thrilling. We also took trips to places like Tulsa or Joplin. Doris was a stickler for things like no chewing gum in public and don’t walk and smoke at the same time; we all smoked. We would go to nice restaurants and learn proper manners. A lot of the girls didn’t have access to that. We would have dances almost every weekend, mostly at the Lake Atalanta Skating Rink, but also at the Masonic Youth Center and the National Guard Armory. I remember most of the music was by Max Gundlach and his band. He was just a year older than me, and he was extremely talented.”
“What about the style shows?” I asked. “The Wing T’s had an annual fall and spring fashion show led by Doris Larimore featuring the latest styles from prominent Rogers’ merchants. I usually modeled for Alida Greene and Emma Jefferson at the Dress Shop, but also for Stroud’s and McDonalds.” The fashion shows were a big deal, with singing groups, musicians, and other entertainment.
“Where did you shop in Rogers,” I asked.
“I shopped for clothes mostly at the Dress Shop and Strouds. I remember Mr. Stroud sitting up on the mezzanine while the money went up and down the chutes. The clerks downstairs put the money in tubes like drive-up banks today. The money would go up the tube, and Mr. Stroud would make change and send the canister back down to the clerk and customer. By the time the store was purchased by H.K. Scott and Bill Crum in 1972, the clerks were making change, and the tubes were discontinued.”
“Where did you buy groceries,” I asked.
“Foodtown, owned by the Fleemans, and at Farmers Produce on Arkansas Street. My dad was a bookkeeper and accountant for Mr. Charlie Garrett, who owned Farmers Produce. Charlie Garrett also started the F&M Bank in 1956. Dad worked for him until Mr. Garrett died, then Dad and Mom started their own accounting and bookkeeping business. I spent many a night on a day bed at the office during tax season, for Dad and Mom would work all day and into the night. Joyce Wilson Givers and her sister, Jennie Lou Wilson Jones, also worked for them.
That business evolved into the business now owned by Clarence Guinn.
I knew that Betsy had two children in the Rogers area, so I asked about them. She was extremely proud of them. “Lainie McCurdy is the senior manager of medical records at the Walmart home office. John McCurdy is the director of community development for the city of Rogers, she said.
“I know that being a mother and homemaker is a full-time job, but did you have other interests?” I asked.
“I like to think of myself as a professional artist and painter, because I did get paid, but not very much,” she said. I looked at some of her commissioned paintings and was amazed. There was a wide variety, but most of them were watercolors of dogs. They were so realistic that they looked alive. One of my favorites was a watercolor of The Orchard Restaurant and the apartment underneath on the back of the Harris Hotel. Betsey painted it for friend and classmate Kay Calvin Sanford. Kay grew up in this apartment and lived in the hotel from the time she was a little girl until she left for college in 1958.
It is very interesting and delightful reliving memories of growing up in Rogers. “We grew up in paradise, and I still think it is today,” Betsey said.