Nevada County Picayune and Gurdon Times Newspaper Archive

Letter To The Editor

Although I grew up in Hot Springs, we spent our summers in Gurdon in the 1950s as Mary Bush Tarpley (Tarpley's store) was my Aunt. I'm hoping to find some guidance in searching for information on my grandfather, who was really the age to be my great grandfather and had been a sheriff in Gurdon in the early part of the century. His name was Frank Edmonds.

I understand there have been fires at your building and perhaps your records were destroyed. I have relatives still living in Gurdon, although I haven't been there since the 1960s. Is there a museum in the area or one in Arkadelphia, or some other society that might keep archives? Also, do you publish articles from those who have lived in Gurdon in the past?

I live in Leelanau County, a peninsula commonly called the "little finger" of the "mitten" that's the lower peninsula of Michigan, a peninsula in Lake Michigan north of Traverse City. I am an artist and an educator with a masters in humanities; I have received grants for writing and visual art, so I do know how to write.

Gurdon is a very dear place in my heart. I have known more about my mother's family than my father's. My father, a Marine officer during WWII, met my mother in China after her family had fled the Bolshevik Revolution in Russia. They were both in prison camp in the Philippines and, when liberated, they came to Gurdon where my father's sisters lived. As my father was much older than my mother, his family was really one more generation removed than is the norm. Although he has been gone since I was 18, in many ways I'm just beginning to know him and our wonderful heritage from Clark County. I have just learned that our family is buried at the Rose Hill Cemetery, land which I believe my grandfather donated.

Thank you for your time. I do still miss the South.

Connie Sweeny