The Old Independence Regional Museum invites the community to an early “Black Friday” sale from 5-7:30 p.m. Friday.
In addition to the sale, the event will feature a book signing by local author Freda Cruse Hardison to promote her new book, Frank and Jesse James: “Friends and Family.”
“The museum is very excited to offer a great sale for Christmas shoppers,” said Amelia Bowman, director and humanities educator at the museum. “Everything will be at least 10 percent off, including Freda’s book, and there is no sales tax.
“This is a great opportunity for shoppers to purchase unique and interesting gifts from the gift shop’s wide variety of locally crafted items, historic games, books on local topics and much more,” she said.
Claudia Nobles, gift-shop manager, said the gift shop has stocked up for the sale with many new items for kids and families. Select items may be marked down as much as 40 percent.
Bowman said the museum often features local authors, such as Hardison and others familiar with life in the early days of Arkansas and the United States.
Hardison is a native of Mountain View and now lives at Livingston Creek, which is between Mountain View and Calico Rock. She is a photojournalist and an author.
She left Arkansas in 1975 and moved to California. She graduated in 1980 from the University of California at San Diego, where she studied social psychology. She has written books and articles in the field of social psychology.
In 2009, she published Voices of Our People, the first in her “Vanishing Ozarks” series featuring the history and people of the White River Valley and Ozarks region. That book featured 52 interviews with Stone County residents. She followed that with Places of Our People in 2011. The next book in this series is scheduled to be Music of Our People.
Hardison’s latest book on the James brothers was released earlier this month.
“This book ends at the end of the Civil War,” Hardison said. “Actually, it begins in January 1866 just before the planning and execution of the James brothers’ first robbery.
“I’m now working hard on Frank and Jesse James “Rebels and Outlaws,” which is book 2 and takes in all the relationships from the first book,” she said.
Hardison said Jesse and Frank James were born and raised in Missouri and had family throughout north Arkansas. While she was doing research for her earlier books about life in the Ozarks, “everyone had a James gang story,” she said.
“I thought, ‘sure,’ and tucked those notes away for another day. Then Juanita Stowers, who was my friend and fellow researcher, was diagnosed with terminal cancer, and she gave me all her work,” Hardison said.
“I couldn’t let her down,” Hardison said, noting that Stowers, who lived in Izard County, died in 2013. “She had spent so much time before the Internet walking cemeteries, sorting through deeds and
records at courthouses.”
Hardison said that when she looked at the combined research, it was “like a light bulb went off.”
“Pieces to a puzzle began falling in place. Familiar names, dates and events emerged, revealing a never-before-told story of the early lives of the famous brothers,” she said.
“Much of what they lived isn’t in any book I found, but in the treasured family stories that have been handed down. Many of the people I talked to weren’t even sure the stories held water. Many were unsure if there was any truth to them or not, but when I researched the family trees of the person, I found the men who Frank had ridden with during the Civil War, people he’d grown up with and family,” Hardison said.
“The James brothers are remembered for some odd 20 days of their lives they committed robberies when their lives were full of families and friends,” Hardison said, noting that some of these stories of family and friends form the basis of her new book.
In addition to Friday’s book signing at the Old Independence Regional Museum, Hardison will also hold a book signing from noon to 4 p.m. Dec 12 at the Calico Rock Museum, 104 Main St. in Calico Rock.
The Old Independence Regional Museum serves a 12-county area — Baxter, Cleburne, Fulton, Independence, Izard, Jackson, Marion, Poinsett, Sharp, Stone, White and Woodruff counties. Parts of these present-day counties were included in the original Independence County in the 1820s when Arkansas was a territory. The building that houses the museum was built in 1936 by the Works Progress Administration and is on the National Register of Historic Places.
The museum is at 380 S. Ninth St. between Boswell and Vine streets in Batesville.
For more information, call (870) 793-2121 or visit www.oir.org.