Growing up in Malvern

My family moved from Dequeen to Malvern in 1946. I started 4th grade in a small 4-room school in North Malvern along with my sister who was just starting 1st grade. Two years after our move to Malvern, a new elementary school was built. Our 6th grade class was the first to attend that school, Fields Elementary, named for our principal, Eudora Fields.

Malvern was quite prosperous for the time. The main employers were Acme Brick, ABC Lumber Company, and two mining companies in Magnet Cove called National Lead and Magnet Cove Barium, where my father eventually began working and worked until retirement.

It was good growing up in a small town, knowing our neighbors, being taught respect for older people and helping them when we could. Our Christian parents, Joe and Ruth Krudwig, taught my two sisters and me to be kind and thoughtful of everyone.

The Ritz Theater had been a part of Malvern’s history ever since before we came to Malvern. Miller’s Drug Store is another business that has stood the test of time. A landmark I remember is the old steel Rockport Bridge over the Ouachita River. I was baptized in the river just below that bridge in 1947. The bridge washed away in a flood after being closed to traffic in 1980. Another bridge was completed and dedicated in 2006 very near the location of the old bridge.

Growing up as a teenager in the 50s was so much easier than growing up today is. My girlfriends and I would cruise up and down Main Street in my parents’ car which I had borrowed. We would go to the movies on Saturday night, have a cherry-coke at Miller’s Drug Store or at Mel’s Dairy Bar or one of the other driveins of that day. We knew nothing of drugs or use of alcohol except for an isolated incident. It was unheard of that young people “lived together” before marriage. When they fell in love, they just got married. Divorce was not really an option, either.

It was an honor for me to graduate from Malvern High School, the old three-story red brick building that predates the present high school building. After working for a year as a secretary at the International Shoe Company, I enrolled at Ouachita Baptist College (now University). I paid for my first two years of college tuition, room and board with my savings. The remainder was paid for with a National Defense Student Loan and part-time work on campus. I was the first person in my family to graduate from college, something I felt I needed in order to follow my calling to missions.

After spending many living in busy centers like Hong Kong, Mexico City and Southern California, I returned to Malvern to live a few years ago. Very few stores that were once part of the 50s and 60s still exist. There is a saying, “You can’t go home again.” My experience is that you REALLY CAN go home again, if you want to carve out a place in the country and slow the pace. What a joy it is to run into old high school friends and take time for a short visit in the aisles of Wal-mart. Where else can you do that except in a place that has been “home for such a long time?”

This Tidbit in Time shared by the Hot Spring County Historical Society

The Heritage, Vol. 39, p. 57-58

This Heritage, along with others, can be purchased from the HSC Historical Society