I have Elizabeth Dupslaff Minton to thank for forwarding these two pictures from what appear to be from the late 1930's, one made at the entrance of the Crocketts Bluff Lutheran Church that stood adjacent to the "Pete" Prange homestead along the river road between the Prange Store and the entrance to what would be the lane leading up to the Woodiel homesite, the other of the members of the Pin Oak School that stood five miles or so south of the Bluff. [
A double-click on the pic should reveal for you a much fuller version of the figures. Perhaps those of you closer to the age of those pictured will be able to help identify them.] 
L to R: one of the Prange daughters, the church pastor, Ruth Dupslaff, unknown girl, and Herbert Dupslaff, Jr. 
L to R: Liz believes the boy (second boy from right side, second row) to be her brother Bill and two of those in the middle of the front row to be Norma June and "Charlie Boy" Krablin. Activities surrounding the Luthern Church are among my earliest memories, though I don't believe anyone in my family attended it. I associate it in my memory with the W.R. Smith, the Herbert Dupslaff, and the Prange families. I believe I recall the daffodils that lined the picket fence along its entrance and (if this is not a fantasy) the sound of its organ. Sometime, perhaps during the War years when we were away living in Little Rock and the Prange family had moved to California, it vanished. I have been told it was dismantled and moved to by the Black Poplar Creek congregation to a site three or five miles west of the Bluff toward Stuttgart where portions of the original structure remain standing. The Pine Oak School House, similar to those that dotted the praires across Arkansas County, I clearly recall, since the road from the Bluff ran directly into the face of it exactly five miles to the south where it took its turn eastward toward St. Charles. It was a one-room structure similar to the one at the Bluff where I first remember being in school -- most of my introduction to reading and aritimetic coming from a fifth grade girl who functioned as a most efficient "teacher's aide -- before we moved in 1941 briefly to DeWitt and then to Little Rock and the Robert E. Lee Elementary School which to this day I remember with great fondness, for it was there that my first formal education really began.
L to R: one of the Prange daughters, the church pastor, Ruth Dupslaff, unknown girl, and Herbert Dupslaff, Jr. 
L to R: Liz believes the boy (second boy from right side, second row) to be her brother Bill and two of those in the middle of the front row to be Norma June and "Charlie Boy" Krablin. Activities surrounding the Luthern Church are among my earliest memories, though I don't believe anyone in my family attended it. I associate it in my memory with the W.R. Smith, the Herbert Dupslaff, and the Prange families. I believe I recall the daffodils that lined the picket fence along its entrance and (if this is not a fantasy) the sound of its organ. Sometime, perhaps during the War years when we were away living in Little Rock and the Prange family had moved to California, it vanished. I have been told it was dismantled and moved to by the Black Poplar Creek congregation to a site three or five miles west of the Bluff toward Stuttgart where portions of the original structure remain standing. The Pine Oak School House, similar to those that dotted the praires across Arkansas County, I clearly recall, since the road from the Bluff ran directly into the face of it exactly five miles to the south where it took its turn eastward toward St. Charles. It was a one-room structure similar to the one at the Bluff where I first remember being in school -- most of my introduction to reading and aritimetic coming from a fifth grade girl who functioned as a most efficient "teacher's aide -- before we moved in 1941 briefly to DeWitt and then to Little Rock and the Robert E. Lee Elementary School which to this day I remember with great fondness, for it was there that my first formal education really began.
Regarding the photo with the five people in front of the church: the girl on the left is Ruth Prange, the girl third from the left is Cora Lee Turner, who later married Richard Prange, brother of Ruth.
ReplyDeleteJim Prange