Last week I spoke to the Hot Spring County Historical Society about some interesting experiences during my career as a historian and archivist. I titled it "Attics & Smokehouses," hinting at some of the places I have explored in seeking to locate that rare map or cache of manuscripts. Best of all, preparing this speech gave me the excuse to spend time thinking about the remarkable people who helped me--men and women who had the vision to hold on to their documents, pictures and manuscripts, and the desire to share them with future generations.
A good place to begin would be John R. Hume, a man I never met but who did a great deal to preserve the history of our state road system. Born in Doniphan, Mo., in 1911 to a prominent family, both of Hume's parents were medical doctors. He was educated at Cumberland University and the University of Virginia, but did not take a degree. National Guard training brought him to Little Rock in 1939. In 1950 he joined the Arkansas State Highway and Transportation Department as a researcher, later becoming an analyst. He retired in 1981 and died in December 1987. I saw his obituary during the Christmas holidays.
Archives directors are always reading the obits. We are looking for potential acquisitions, and the heirs of the recently deceased are often faced with the task of disposing of the departed's archives. Approaching a family too soon after a death runs the risk of appearing insensitive. But you cannot wait too long or the family will heave everything in the rush to settle an estate.
Hume's obituary mentioned his work in recording Arkansas highway history through a series of articles in Arkansas Highways, the magazine of the Highway and Transportation Department. My hope was that Hume's research files would still be intact, perhaps including some historic photographs. I read the obituary closely to identify heirs, trying to find a specific person to call.
According to the obituary, Hume had no family except a foster brother and nieces. I later discovered that this "foster brother" was Hume's long-time gay partner. They had lived together in a wonderful old house on Marshall Street in Little Rock since the 1940s. All this I learned over the phone from a niece--and from whom I received an invitation to come take a look at the "huge" amount of stuff "Uncle John" had accumulated.
I can't recall the exact date I went to see the collection, but it was shortly after Christmas 1987. The streets were thawing from a heavy snow storm, so travel was slow. Arriving at a slowly deteriorating but still grand old home of two floors, a full attic, and a basement, I noted that all the shrubs around the house had been flattened by the heavy snow.
Inside the house I was given a tour by Hume's partner and cousin, and the sight was amazing. Books and papers filled the first floor. Hume was constantly rescuing Highway and Transportation Department records that had been discarded. The second story contained four large rooms, and I was told that they had each contained many Highway and Transportation Department records, but the rooms now stood empty. My heart sank! It was so difficult to miss a possible collection by what had to be only a few days. Seeing my crestfallen look, my guides quickly informed me that all the records had been put into plastic bags and thrown out the windows and were still outside. As it turned out, what I thought were snow-covered shrubs were actually piles of records three to five feet deep--all covered with at least a foot of snow.
I ventured into the attic and found the crumbling remnants of the Hume family heirlooms. At one point as I wandered about the fully floored attic, using a flashlight to make my way through the boxes of World War I uniforms, stacks of 1890s women's magazines, and medical instruments, I came face-to-face with three family death masks that were hanging from the rafters. Never having seen a death mask before, especially in such a gloomy and foreboding setting, I should be forgiven for momentarily fearing they were human heads.
The good news is that the John R. Hume Manuscript Collection at the University of Central Arkansas Archives in Conway is today a rich trove of information on post-World War II transportation history, replete with highway construction photographs going back to the era when mules were still used.
The amazing thing is that almost all the records excavated from the snow banks were salvaged. The death masks were sold at an estate sale.
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Tom Dillard is a historian and retired archivist living in rural Hot Spring County. Email him at Arktopia.td@gmail.com.
Editorial on 06/08/2014