For many years when I thought of Holly Grove in Monroe County, I thought of Sonny Gordon. He was the coach at the high school for four decades, a legendary mentor whose football teams won 21 consecutive games at one point in the early 1960s. The annual Thanksgiving game between Clarendon and Holly Grove once was a major event in east Arkansas.
Gordon was inducted into the Arkansas Sports Hall of Fame in 1984. He coached another Hall of Fame inductee, Ken Turner, who spent 17 years as an assistant football coach at the University of Arkansas and another decade as the head football coach and later the athletic director at his alma mater, Henderson State University. My father sold athletic supplies across the state, and Gordon was among his friends in the coaching profession.
Following a night spent last month at the home of Raymond and Mockie Abramson, I began to think of Holly Grove in a different light. I contemplated the fate of similar towns across the Delta that served sharecroppers and tenant farmers who lived in surrounding rural areas. The streets were full on Saturdays when farmers would come to town to buy supplies during the day and find entertainment at night. With the increased mechanization of agriculture and the subsequent loss of Delta residents, dozens of such communities are struggling to find an economic reason to exist.
For most of the 20th century, cotton was king in the Delta. Turner says he went out for football "to keep from picking cotton after school. I told people a hoe handle and a cotton sack made a coach out of me." Holly Grove's population peaked at 977 residents in the 1920 census and was down to 602 by 2010. The town is named for the holly trees that are native to the area. When the Arkansas Central Railroad came in 1872, John Smith and James Kerry platted a new city. Holly Grove was incorporated in 1876 and had seven general stores, a drugstore, a restaurant, a livery stable, a cotton gin, a gristmill, a grocery store, three churches, a funeral home and two doctors' offices by 1890.
Rue and Venda Abramson, who built the 1921 house where I spent the night, were Holly Grove natives. Raymond Abramson, who now serves as a judge on the Arkansas State Court of Appeals, is the grandson of Rue Abramson and part of a rich tradition of Jewish farmers and merchants in the Delta that's rapidly disappearing. The official listing of the Abramson house on the National Register of Historic Places notes: "The Abramsons were active in the commercial life of Holly Grove as merchants, ginners and plantation owners. By 1922, they also founded the First National Bank of Holly Grove. They were active in civic affairs. They were leaders in such organizations as the Crowley's Ridge Council of the Boy Scouts of America, the Monroe County Fair Association, the Sahara Temple of Pine Bluff, the American Red Cross, B'nai B'rith, Temple Beth El of Helena and various other Jewish organizations."
Rue Abramson selected a well-known Memphis architect and Marianna native, Estes Mann, to design his home. The elaborate Craftsman-style home was designed to make a statement. A few blocks away in the city's commercial district, Rue Abramson's R. Abramson Co. owned four buildings. Rue's son, Ralph, later took over the family's businesses.
Ralph's wife, Rosemary, was a Memphis native who married Ralph in 1946 and spent the rest of her life in Holly Grove. Rosemary died in January 2013 at age 93. She had become a familiar figure through the years on the Mid-South horse show circuit, winning championships in Arkansas, Mississippi, Missouri, Kentucky and Tennessee. Raymond Abramson keeps his mother's riding trophies on display in the family home along with photos of the horses and paintings by Mockie, an artist.
Raymond Abramson received his undergraduate degree from the University of Virginia in 1973 and his law degree from the University of Arkansas at Fayetteville in 1976. He and Mockie, a Virginia native, split their time between Little Rock and Holly Grove but maintain deep ties to Monroe County.
"Even into the 1950s, Holly Grove flourished, with bands playing in downtown establishments that offered beer and dancing," Steven Teske writes for the Encyclopedia of Arkansas History & Culture. "Meanwhile, railroads diminished in importance as automobile traffic increased. Interstate 40 crosses northern Monroe County more than 20 miles north of Holly Grove. State highways 17 and 86 intersect in Holly Grove, but they do not host nearly as many travelers as the interstate."
A history of Holly Grove, written for the city's 1976 centennial celebration, sounded a hopeful note, noting that the town is "situated in one of the best cotton-growing areas in the country and ships a large quantity of that commodity. Rice and soybeans are grown extensively. Herds of fine cattle may be seen grazing in lush pastures. Holly Grove is noted for its lovely trees, old Southern atmosphere and hospitality. Although the town is small, it's an active little town, developing into a prosperous community."
Almost four decades after those words were written, Holly Grove struggles to hold on. Between the 2000 and 2010 census, Monroe County lost a larger percentage of its population than any county in Arkansas. Like other farming communities in the Delta areas of Arkansas, Mississippi and Louisiana, Holly Grove celebrates its past while wondering if there's a future.
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Freelance columnist Rex Nelson is the director of corporate communications for Simmons First National Corp. He's also the author of the Southern Fried blog at rexnelsonsouthernfried.com.
Editorial on 09/02/2015