A few weeks ago, I began this column with good intentions. It was the Juneteenth weekend, and I had every intention of sending along a tidy 800 words or so to our Public Information Officer for posting on our blog and, ultimately, our newsletter by the following Monday. At the time, I was facing preparations for taking some time away from the office, as well as inevitable end-of-fiscal-year paperwork, but I had some interesting, even exciting news to pass along.

Over the weekend, though, things slowed down a bit, particularly after I glanced at local obituaries. One aspect of living longer is that every day, it becomes more likely that one will recognize friends and acquaintances in the obituary columns, particularly if one lives in one place for long enough. These recognitions of lives spent are reminders that the clock is ticking for one and all. They can be sobering, even sad, but also make the case for their subjects living on in mention and memory. That weekend, I ran across the narratives of two acquaintances who, in very different ways, helped me learn about the story—and stories—of this, my adopted state. I ask your indulgence as I acknowledge them and speak their names once more.

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Gerry Lee Eilbott Soltz died on June 15, 2021, in Conway. She grew up in Pine Bluff; over the years she worked as a federal bank examiner and in various state government entities, including the offices of the State Auditor and the Secretary of State (in which capacity she managed the State Capitol Gift Shop and arranged the Capitol’s Christmas decorations). She served as a House Reading Clerk, worked in Trapnall Hall and the Old State House (and, briefly, the Arkansas History Commission) and most recently in the Winthrop Rockefeller Institute atop Petit Jean Mountain. She had a wide circle of friends and acquaintances and had a gift for remembering them. I met her when I joined the Capitol’s staff in 2001; she told me some good stories about some long-time Capitol denizens, hinted at a few more and introduced this recently-arrived damnyankee[1] to people I would know and appreciate for years to come. Gerry Soltz was someone who jump-started my learning the history of the Capitol and who was, indeed, part of that history herself. Her obituary suggested that friends might honor her memory by hoisting a “French 75” cocktail,[2] visiting a favorite dive, picking up a bakery dessert or playing some penny slots; this is written, however, during business hours, so this virtual toast must suffice for now.

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Richard Robert “Bob” Bailey died in Little Rock on June 16. He was the last surviving child of Arkansas Governor Carl E. Bailey. He graduated from Little Rock High School and the University of Arkansas, served in the U.S. Air Force during the Korean War and then came home to Arkansas to work in his family’s farm and power equipment dealership, retiring in 1994. His first wife was the former Nancy Anne Hall, daughter of longtime Arkansas Secretary of State C.G. “Crip” Hall.[3] He was widowed in 2007; he later married Elsie Weaver Mears.

I first met Mr. Bailey briefly, at an event at the Old State House. He later attended a Lifequest class I taught on the topic of the Arkansas Capitol, in which he patiently set me right on a few points. I remember him most vividly, however, for his return to the Arkansas Capitol of a picture long thought to be “missing in action.”  In the 1950s, the Arkansas Legislature commissioned a portrait of Secretary of State Hall; it was given to the office with the injunction that it be displayed there perpetually. It portrays Secretary Hall at his desk; visible behind him, through a window, is the distinctive profile of the Arkansas Capitol.

Crip Hall died in early 1961; his wife Nancy completed his term before serving as State Treasurer from 1963 to 1981. It is not known how long the “permanent” portrait of Crip Hall remained on view in the Capitol but at some point, it was taken down and eventually found its way into the state surplus property system. It was there that Bob Bailey found it and saved it. In 2011, he proudly re-presented the portrait of his onetime father-in-law, the consummate Democratic Party insider of other days, to the Hon. Mark Martin, Arkansas’s first Republican Secretary of State since Reconstruction. During the Martin Administration, the portrait was displayed first on an easel in the main office, then hung in the office of Deputy Secretary of State (and current Washington County Judge) Joseph Wood.

Mr. Bailey told me this tale with evident enjoyment. After that, I spoke occasionally with him, always with pleasure. I did not know him well, but “I knew enough.” He had good stories to tell and shared a few with me. He also embodied something special in my own mind: worth knowing in his own right, he was also a living link with one of Arkansas’s most capable governors and a political era not yet forgotten.

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The obituaries of these two eminent Arkansawyers distracted me from telling out a small piece of welcome news. About 20 years ago, Dr. Blake Wintory set out to correct decades worth of neglect on the part of Arkansas’s historiographers by researching and identifying the African Americans who served in Arkansas’s Legislative Assembly from the 1860s through their elimination after 1893. Previous chroniclers of Arkansas had alluded to there having been several or “a number” of such, but most made little effort to find who had served and when. Dr. Wintory broke this pattern. He compiled two useful rosters: a chronological listing of eighty-four African American legislators who served between Reconstruction and the era of disfranchisement and one summarizing biographical data for each one.[4]

Since then, Wintory has not rested on his laurels. Some years ago, he added two names to the roll of honor. This summer, thanks to his research, one more has joined them: Lawrence C. Crute of Chicot County, a member of the House in 1873. Wintory notes that Crute was identified as being involved in Republican politics in Chicot County as early as 1872 and that the Arkansas Gazette for January 3, 1873, listed him as a Chicot County legislator. Journalism of the day indicates that attempts were made to prevent Crute and other Republican legislators from taking their seats in the old Capitol; this may explain why his name does not appear on some official rosters of the session and the rosters included in successive Secretary of State biennial reports. Crute’s name disappeared from the rosters and official memory, but, happily, it was not lost to history. There is much left to discover about the lives and work of the at least 87 (more are possible) African American legislators of the Nineteenth century, but Blake Wintory’s efforts have ensured that we know their names and more. Their names will be spoken and in this way, they will remain alive for us to acknowledge and honor.

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The quotation that heads this piece may be familiar to many readers or at least seem so, but its author may prove a surprise to some. I’ve always thought that it had the sounds of something Elizabethan—Shakespeare, or Francis Bacon—or something from John Aubrey or John Donne. Or, I thought, it might be a version of something that descends to us from the Classical world. If so, my culprit of choice would be Juvenal, the Roman poet and satirist who, suggests classicist, novelist, podcaster and (yes!) standup comedian Natalie Haynes, is responsible for coining many memorable Classical phrases.

A little digging, though, reveals a much more recent author: English satirical novelist Sir Terry Pratchett. The phrase crops up in his 2004 novel, Going Postal; the full quote is: “Do you not know that a man is not dead while his name is still spoken?” History is about large things, mass movements, and the small ones, even individual lives.[5]  Historians carry the responsibility of making sense of the bigger patterns of human events and behavior, which can be a perplexing thing, but with this duty comes a pleasure and honor: to keep alive the names and stories of humans past. These people may prove to be every bit as perplexing as the large patterns or movements of history, but this is part of the fun: we look at past lives, document, wonder, analyze, generalize…and always, always, speak their names.