Daffodil hill evokes memories of Effie
The profusion of yellow daffodils along Arkansas Highway 94 south of Pea Ridge, are the thanks to Effie, of “Effie’s Flowers.”
Effie Clanton Johnson and her husband Harry Johnson lived in an older house higher up on the hill above the flowers. The house has been gone for many years. Prior to her marriage to Harry Johnson, Effie was Effie Clanton, a sister to Pea Ridge’s Johnny Clanton. Johnny Clanton was one of the best known of our traditional blacksmiths, welders and machinists. Johnny and his wife Mayda lived on McCulloch Street and owned the property which borders the cemetery on the east side.
When Effie and Harry were actually living out there on the hill, the flowers were much less profuse in comparison with today.
In the earlier days they basically lined part of the long driveway up to the house and were arrayed in a row across the lower front of the property. Over the years, the jonquils have spread down to the highway and southward.
Effie and Harry were survivors of the Great Depression. Neither were very much educated, and both had rather eccentric ways. They were quite poor, never owned an automobile, and they walked wherever they went unless someone stopped and gave them a lift to where they were going.
Effie especially was besotted with Roy Rogers, and with Roy’s glamorous cowboy movie star lifestyle devoted to foiling the shenanigans of bandits and outlaws in the wild west. Roy always wore a white hat, as heroes should, and the bad guys wore scruffy-looking dark hats. Roy’s horse Trigger was a magnificently beautiful blond Palomino, whereas the bad guys always had black or brown or ugly gray horses. Effie loved to go to the Roy and Dale Rogers movies. She would dress up in a western style shirt and pants, with two six-shooters (cap pistols) in her holsters, and she and Harry would catch a ride or walk into Rogers to see the movie. During the movie, Effie might call out a warning to Roy when he was about to get ambushed by the desperadoes. “Watch out, Roy, they’re hidin’ behind that rock!!”
The point some of us like to make about the flowers is this — Effie made efforts, as she was able, to beautify her surroundings, to add color and life to what could have been a dreary and drab time in the life of our country, and her efforts continue to this day (60 years later) to contribute beauty and cheer to our lives, brightening the scene as we transition from the dreary Wintertime into colorful Springtime.
•••
Editor’s note: Jerry Nichols, a native of Pea Ridge, is a retired minister and officer of the Pea Ridge Historical Society. The views expressed are those of the writer. Nichols can be contacted by email at joe369@centurytel. net, or call 621-1621.