From the fingers of fast typists taxing typos tumble.
I have been thrilling myself, as anyone who read last week's Old News now knows, with the thought that a simple Google search had miraculously identified for me an unnamed Arkansas Gazette "Staff Correspondent" who in 1916 accompanied the Arkansas National Guard to its deployment at Deming, N.M.
I'd found a Personals column item in a trade paper, The Fourth Estate, announcing that one "Earl W. Plowman" was called off his vacation to do just that.
I still think Plowman was the snappy writer whose dispatches for the Gazette so entertain me, but thanks to correspondence from A Helpful Reader, I no longer am quite sure his middle initial was W. That initial might have been E, for Edward. One Earl E. Plowman had a long career at newspapers in this region.
I am looking at my computer keyboard and noticing the proximity of W and E. Do you suppose some quick-fingered clerk at Fourth Estate typo'd Plowman's Personals submission? Or is it possible that Plowman signed his name in a slanty, looping hand? Hmm.
Here is another caution of a tale that unfolded on front pages of the Arkansas Gazette 100 years ago. It began as the Arkansas National Guard prepared for deployment to Deming. (Quotation marks indicate the Gazette's words.)
Aug. 9, 1916
"A romantic marriage culminated what the participants termed an 'unromantic courtship' at Fort Roots yesterday, when Second Lieutenant J.B. Rigdon of Company G, Second Regiment, of Russellville and Miss Mabel Archer, 922 College Street, Little Rock, were married on the rock at the fort, known as 'Lovers' Leap,' overlooking the Arkansas river ...
"The witnesses were First Sergeant William Funston of Company G and Mrs. Funston. ...
"Both the bride and groom denied there was any romance connected with the marriage. They had known each other eight years, they said, and had been engaged for several years. The groom is 30 and the bride 23."
Sweet, right? Alas, the reporter got Archer's first name wrong.
Aug, 24
Dispatch from Deming, N.M., written "By a Staff Correspondent of the Gazette":
"Guard officers are worried over the disappearance of Second Lieut. J.B. Rigdon ...
"Monday night Rigdon came to Deming with First Sergeant William Funston, of his company. Funston says Rigdon had $75 which he intended to telegraph
to his wife, with instructions to join him here. The railroad agent could not learn the cost of the ticket and they started back.
"In a mesquite thicket between the town and camp, Funston says they met three men wearing sombreros, apparently Mexicans, but the night was too dark to tell accurately. The three men started to attack the Arkansas men who, being unarmed and outnumbered, ran. When they distanced their pursuers they were off the road. In trying to find it they became separated. Funston returned to camp, but Rigdon has not been heard of since. Rigdon lives at Dardanelle. He formerly served in the regular army."
Aug. 25
"Fearing the wrath of his 'war bride' and probably criminal prosecution more than army discipline, Second Lieutenant J.B. Rigdon, Company G, Second Arkansas Infantry, concocted a tale of a fight with Mexicans, left his first sergeant to tell the yarn to inquiring superiors at Camp Deming and came to Little Rock to explain to Mrs. J.B. Rigdon rumors that he has another wife.
"Lieutenant Rigdon and Mrs. Mattie Archer of Little Rock were married romantically at Lover's Leap at Fort Roots several days before the guardsmen went to Deming. They were reunited yesterday morning at the Imperial laundry, where the bride worked while the husband soldiered. Police last night were seeking them, believing they had not left the city. ...
"Her first husband, Elgin Archer, died. She has a five-year-old daughter, Evelyn, who is with her grandmother at 1209 College street."
Aug. 27
"I came here to get myself straightened out," said Lieut. J.B. Rigdon ....
"I had received a letter from my first wife, formerly Miss Hattie Hall of Carbondale, Ill., from whom I thought I was divorced, telling me that she had not obtained a divorce. I had another letter from my wife here, formerly Mrs. Mattie Archer, asking me about the matter, and I could not stay down there and trust to letters to get the matter straightened out. I couldn't get a leave of absence, so I just came on anyhow.
"I married Miss Hall at Carbondale January 9, 1911, and we separated in December of the same year. I then went to Australia and worked for the Cudahy packing company. Later, in China, I enlisted with the United States Army. I was assigned to the Fifteenth Infantry. I got transferred from there to the First Infantry, stationed at Honolulu. I paid out of the service, receiving my discharge August 1, 1915, and returned to my home in Dardanelle. ...
"When I arrived home, my folks told me that my wife had obtained a divorce. That was what got me in bad, for it seems that she started to get a divorce, but did not get it.
"I have communicated with her, and she is now willing to get a divorce. I have taken steps to have my marriage with Mrs. Archer annulled. When my first wife obtains a divorce, then I will remarry Mrs. Archer.
"I don't know about the matter of my leaving Camp Deming and what will be done to me. I think, however, that that is the least of my troubles. They will take some pay from me and may confine me to quarters and may even give me a dishonorable discharge. In that case I will return to Dardanelle, where I own an automobile garage, and continue my business. I am sure, though, that my troubles are not as serious as they seem."
He was incorrect.
Let's skip over quite a few reports, about Rigdon's next two escapes and his court-martial for "conduct unbecoming an officer," including "uttering" a reported $300 worth of bad checks at Deming. Gazette reporters took to calling him "Jack" B. Rigdon. One awfully jeering report called him "Little Rock's soldier of fortune" and "the dashing lieutenant."
March 7, 1917, the Gazette reported the president had approved Rigdon's sentence: five years of hard labor.
And that was the last reference in the Gazette. I keep thinking about how awful it must have been for Archer the day her hometown paper published her photo and called her a "war bride," in quotes.
And what happened to Rigdon next?
A few old newspaper stories never tell the whole story of anyone's life.
With great trepidation but a greater sense of duty, I submit my email address:
cstorey@arkansasonline.com
ActiveStyle on 09/05/2016