The Hoggard-Stevenson Union Valley Farm in Faulkner County dates back to 1878, when William C. Hoggard purchased about 80 acres from his brother, Thomas Hoggard. That first parcel grew to eight parcels, with William’s daughter, Eva Dee Hoggard, and her husband, Marvin Felix Stevenson, purchasing additional land in 1917.
Those eight parcels include 311 acres that were recently honored by the Arkansas Century Farm program as one of 30 2020 Arkansas Century Farms. Eleven grandchildren of the late Eva and Marvin Stevenson now own the farm.
One of the Stevensons’ grandchildren, Dee “Ann” Elizabeth Stevenson Grigsby, and her husband, Grady Anthony Grigsby, of Little Rock attended the Dec. 11 ceremony in Little Rock to receive the official sign denoting the land as a Century Farm. Thirty farms from 23 counties in Arkansas received recognition in the 2020 Arkansas Century Farm Program, administered by the Arkansas Department of Agriculture. The program, established in 2012, recognizes Arkansas farms of 10 acres or more owned by the same family for at least 100 years.
“The Hoggard-Stevenson Union Valley Farm not only survives in our family’s collective memories, but our ancestral home lives on as a working farm where our kin still tend the land, harvest hay and raise cattle,” Ann Grigsby wrote in the Century Farm application. “We are thankful for their stewardship and for our shared 142 years of continuous family ownership. With its longevity, constant care, use and agricultural productivity, we believe the Hoggard-Stevenson Union Valley Farm qualifies to be honored as an Arkansas Century Farm.”
Ann said another family, that of Tennessee “Tandy” Harned, has owned and farmed part of the land as well.
In addition to 120 acres Harned bought from W.C. Hoggard and sold to Marvin Stevenson, Tandy Harned also owned other neighboring land, passed down to his descendants, two of whom are his great-great-grandsons, brothers Jeffrey and Billy Todd Harned, who own land adjacent to the Hoggard-Stevenson farm.
“One of Tandy Harned’s sons was William Walker Harned,” Ann said. “He became our uncle Walker when he married Jenetta ‘Nettie’ Hoggard, a sister of our grandmother Eva Hoggard [Stevenson]. The other son was Nollie Hoggard, who was the grandfather of Jeffrey and Billy Todd, the brothers who now look after our farm.
“Our Harned cousins have always been esteemed members of our family,” Ann said.
Eva Dee and Marvin Stevenson had four children — Raymond Felix, born in 1916; Marjorie Marie, born in 1918; Millard Gail, born in 1922; and Amaryllis Marguerite, born in 1918. All are now deceased.
Raymond and his wife, Ann Calvert, are parents of Ann Grigsby, the late John Raymond Stevenson, who died in Vietnam in 1968, and Kent Calvert Stevenson of Oregon.
Marjorie Marie and her husband, Valmar V. Hendrix, are parents of Brian Stevenson of Florida, Craig Stevenson of Tennessee, Anita Stevenson of Maryland and Susan Stevenson Swanson of Arizona.
Millard “Gail” and his wife, Joyce Biggs, are parents of Michael Gail Stevenson of Texas.
Amaryllis “Amy” Marguerite and her husband, Don Jones, are parents of Charles Jones of Georgia, Beth Jones of Missouri, Katherine Jones of Colorado and Scott Jones of Little Rock.
“My grandfather Stevenson — ‘Granddad’— was an extremely hard worker and a no-nonsense man whose word and will were law,” Ann said.
“Granddad’s father had died before he was born, and the loss of never having known his birth father was always a sorrow to him, even though his very stern mother eventually remarried and had more children,” Ann said.
“Fortunately, Granddad was also a man of very high ethical and spiritual standards; he truly loved his children and grandchildren but didn’t often express such feelings in direct affection. He had a very commanding voice — and a temper when riled —and expected his four children to work right along with him on the farm. Granddad carefully taught his two sons and two daughters — and eventually us 12 grandchildren — to be helpful workers on the farm, stressing the importance of using caution around the animals and machinery,” she said.
“Granddad farmed all his life and, in an early part of his adulthood, also ‘carried the mail’ … in a horse-drawn buggy and eventually also taught school. He had graduated college with complete command of American history, teaching the subject for decades in Faulkner County and later in Pulaski County. His brother-in-in-law, our Uncle Walker Harned, also taught in the local schools …,” Ann said.
“In later years, Granddaddy drove to Little Rock to teach in the Pulaski County Special School District, but he remained active in Faulkner County,” she said. “Because of his prominence in the community and his speaking skills, whenever the preacher had to be absent in the little Church of the Nazarene he and Grandmother attended, Granddad was often the substitute in the pulpit. … I loved to sing and was often asked to sing a ‘special’ [solo] on summer Sundays,” she said.
“Grandmother tended to be shy, but in the growing seasons, she always brought huge bouquets to church, setting the vases atop the piano and also near the pulpit. … I loved that old church and the covered ‘campground’ directly opposite from the church, an arbor where revivals were held every summer,” Ann said.
“I spent every summer of my young life on the Union Valley farm, and also the second farm my grandparents eventually bought in Vilonia, roaming all over both farms with my cousins and two brothers,” she said. “But we also harvested hay and fished for crappie and catfish with bamboo poles on the grassy banks of the farm ponds. …
“They bought the second farm while continuing to farm the Union Valley land. The ‘new’ farm had a wonderful apple orchard and pear trees. … The local Amish family would bring their horse-drawn wagons to harvest some of the fruit, paying the small price Granddad asked by writing their bank check in pencil.”
Ann said her grandparents “started a dairy business on the ‘new’ farm, which Grandmother managed largely on her own … but occasionally hired a local boy to help. Every summer, my two brothers, cousin Mike and I helped with the cows and other farmwork. The dairy was a huge job. …
“Grandmother finally sold the Vilonia farm several years after Granddad died very unexpectedly,” Ann said. “He farmed up to the very day he died, even though a decade earlier, he had lost his left hand in a hay baler when he was attempting to redirect some hay into the machinery. He never allowed that handicap to slow him down, and we never heard him complain about the prosthetic hand that was minimally useful.”
After losing her husband, Eva Stevenson continued to live alone on the farm for several more years.
“Ultimately, she was persuaded to move to Conway. There she lived in one side of a new duplex while her sister, Nettie, who had also been widowed, lived on the other side …, Ann said.
“Both lived for many more years; Aunt Nettie died in 1981 at age 91, and Grandmother died in 1992 at 95,” Ann said.
“This Union Valley farm was the ‘home place’ of our forebears,” she said. “For we grandchildren who are Eva Dee Hoggard Stevenson heirs, all our lives, we’ve known and cherished the farm as the ancestral home. Our grandfather … predeceased our grandmother … and their last surviving child and heir died in 2018.
“We 11 surviving grandchildren are now Grandmother Stevenson’s only heirs. The farm has been a prominent figure throughout our entire lives as we shared childhood adventures in its broad fields and dense forests, helped with hay harvests and gathered countless heartfelt memories.”
Michael Stevenson of Texarkana, Texas, 78, is the oldest of the Stevenson grandchildren and the executor of Eva Dee Stevenson’s estate.
“I have many memories of our Union Valley farm. I’m not much of a cattle farmer, but my wife and I do live on a beautiful farm near Texarkana owned by her family,” he said.
“I help take care of pastures, feed the cattle and keep an eye on the herd. This is after 50 years of living away from the area and working as an engineer and science administrator. So, though it’s somewhat accidental, I’ve gone full circle with my early farm life in Arkansas,” Michael said.
“I’m the only grandchild in this family who now has any association with farming. As to the children of Marvin and Eva, only my dad, Gail, ever tried farming, but only for a few years after he came back from World War II service. He and Ray were both engineers and lived in a number of different places, as did Margie and Amy,” Michael said.
“I lived most of my younger years with my parents and Stevenson grandparents on our ‘home farm’ near Vilonia, but made many trips, especially during haying season, to the Union Valley farm. I would go with my grandfather Marvin almost daily to the Union Valley farm and started hauling hay from there by age 12 or so. I moved with my parents to New Boston, Texas, in 1956, the year I started high school, but still went and stayed summers with my grandparents on the Vilonia farm while working hay and cattle,” Michael said.
“My most vivid memories are from the summer of 1963. This was after my junior year in college at the University of Texas-Austin. I had gone with my parents to Cape Canaveral, where my father would be working on the Saturn program and where I hoped to find summer employment,” he said.
“On the way there, we got word that Grandfather Marvin had lost most of his left arm in a hay-baler accident, so I was sent back to help out that summer. My grandfather was slowed down for a few weeks but went right back to driving and haying with a vengeance,” Michael said.
“The Union Valley farm was always beautiful to me, and I roamed all over it as a kid,” he said. “Granddad always cared for the pastures and … he told me a lot about the history. … He was a history teacher, among other occupations.
“We are all very proud of the Century Farm honor, as it reflects on the hard work and perseverance of our Stevenson grandparents and their parents before them. Land was always so important to all those folks.”
For more information about the Arkansas Century Farm Program, visit agriculturearkansas.gov.