Pea Ridge Times

Easley celebrates 90 years

- BY ANNETTE BEARD abeard@nwaonline.com

A drop-in reception is scheduled from 2 to 4 p.m. Sunday, April 2, in Room 161 at 161 E. Pickens Road, Pea Ridge, to celebrate the 90th birthday of June Easley.

June Stroud was born April 3, 1933, to Herbert Stroud and Mary Brown Stroud on a farm between Pea Ridge and Bentonvill­e. She was the eldest of three children. Her two brothers are Donald and Joe Stroud.

As a student, then a wife and businesswo­man, June has watched the community of Pea Ridge grow and change.

The tiny town of Pea Ridge had 72 residents in 1940. By 1950, it had increased to 268, according to U.S. Census records.

Today, Pea Ridge is “a different place. Nothing about it is the same,” June said.

“The old downtown is still there — in those days, that’s all it was,” she said. All grades were in one building — the old school building that sat on the north side of East Pickens in front of what is now the Intermedia­te School. That building was razed in 2000 when the new high school was built on the corner of West Pickens Road and Weston Street.

June remembers riding the bus to school from the farm west of town. She took her lunch the first couple of years as the lunchroom didn’t open until she was in the third grade. Some of the younger grades were combined with first and second grade students in a class and third and fourth grade students in a class. She said Mr. and Mrs. Roulac were teacher and superinten­dent.

“There was only one boy in my class that had a car,” she said, of high school. She does remember John Easley and Clint Beard, who were in a class ahead of her, had cars.

Going to school was her life before she got married, she said. She didn’t do chores on the farm as her mother was afraid of her getting hurt by the livestock.

She said she occasional­ly rode with her father to Bentonvill­e to get cow and chicken feed.

She graduated in 1951, one of 18 graduating seniors from Pea Ridge High School. A straight-A student, she was valedictor­ian of her class.

And, on May 25, 1951, she married John B. Easley. She remembers they were married in the house of the preacher, R.E. Coones, in Bentonvill­e.

“We met in school,” she said. “We just always knew each other.”

After getting married, the young couple lived in Lowell, Springdale, Fayettevil­le and ultimately in five houses in the first five years of marriage before buying a house on McCulloch Street.

“The first street made was McCulloch Street. We lived there. It didn’t have a name at that time. That was the street that went west out of Pea Ridge.”

“All there was were two grocery stores, a drug store which was the meeting point for all the kids and the bank. There was a barber shop, a shoe repair and the post office,” she said. “There was a larger building in the late ’40s; it was a dry goods store. And there was Webb’s Feed Store.”

She said the main route out of Pea Ridge was Ryan Road, not South Curtis Avenue.

“The first time I rode on it (South Curtis Avenue) when it was paved was 1948,” she said, explaining that all other roads were dirt prior to that. She remembers World War II and the rationing, but said it didn’t affect them much as they didn’t typically buy the items that were rationed.

“The only thing we used our ration cards was shoes and my brothers wore their shoes out a lot,” she recalled.

She remembers the hay fields and farms along what is now South Curtis Avenue.

She said she views the biggest changes were moving everything from downtown to the intersecti­on of Slack Street/Lee Town Road and Curtis Avenue and the demolition of the school that had housed all grades for many decades.

In about 1978, the Easleys built a house on the Easley family farm in the valley near Sugar Creek. That house was built near the site of the barn where John Easley’s family’s barn stood.

On the hillside on the north side of the land, June planted daffodils and she once had 27 varieties of iris flowers planted around the house.

“I love flowers. At one time, I had that hillside planted with daffodils. It took me a long time to plant that hillside with flowers,” she said

June said she worked about a year in Rogers when they were first married, earning $18.20 a week takehome pay for a six-day work week. Once she started having children, she stayed home until she and John opened their business.

When their son Ray was 10 years old, in 1963, John and June opened White’s Auto Store in downtown Pea Ridge in the corner building on North Curtis Avenue and West Pickens Road. Over the years, the business expanded and the Easleys bought the adjacent buildings, expanding the business further west.

“We opened the store and that became the rest of my life,” she said. “My life was the store.”

“I stayed there every day, stayed there and worked … accounts, ordering, putting stuff on the shelves … I did everything.”

She said she worked in the store all day, would come home and cook dinner and make clothes for her daughter.

“I made most of her clothes from the time she was born until the time she got married,” she said, adding that she made pageant dresses for Debra as well as her wedding dress.

“Ray was 10 years old when we opened the store; he knew where everything was and how much it was. He knew everything about the store. He was our first and best employee,” she said.

The couple had three children Ray, Debra and a son who died in infancy. They had five grandchild­ren: Brian and Bradley Easley and Bright, Lilly and Claire Bullard and have four great-grandchild­ren, she said.

In 2006, after 43 years of operating the hardware store (as White’s and later Ace), the Easleys sold the business to Cooper Communitie­s.

“I was just so glad to get out of it,” she said.

The Easley enjoyed several years of retirement together before John died in 2020.

The Easley’s children, Ray Easley and Debra Bullard are hosting the birthday party for their mother and said all are welcome to drop by Room 161 downtown.

 ?? ?? June Stroud, 10th grade, 1948
June Stroud, 10th grade, 1948
 ?? Submitted photo ?? John and June Easley celebrated their 50th wedding anniversar­y in 2001.
Submitted photo John and June Easley celebrated their 50th wedding anniversar­y in 2001.

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