Barbara S. Duncan, CRS, GRI, e-PRO Searcy AR

White County folks are in love with the mansion in Judsonia that survived the 1952 tornado that did such massive damage and caused so many deaths. Several blogs have been done with the latest one being OMG! It's for sale!

We got to tour the mansion because it was on the tour of homes. Here's a view of it from the side as we walked up to it.

We got to see the size of the columns at the front.

We could see the front from down under.

And we could view from the top porch looking down.

And then we could go see what was in the once wonderful yard. How about this huge fireplace. Do you think it was an outdoor kitchen, an early version of what folks are doing now with those $20,000 outdoor kitchens.

And this next picture takes you back SO far.....to carriage houses! At least that is what I'm calling this building.

And while we are dreaming of old by-gone days, imagine this little cement pond in the back yard. It probably was surrounded by a lovely garden with flowering plants and the concrete bench was for sitting and reading and watching the goldfish.

Oops! My little vine-covered cottage of which I have dreamed. Never end a sentence with a preposition. Oops! Was that a sentence fragment? What I meant to say is this.

We have always heard of vine-covered cottages where love lives on and on. Now that I'm in real estate, I have learned that vines growing on houses is bad for the house. One needs to go outside and jerk those crawling, clinging suckers down as soon as they touch the house.

So when I saw this one today I knew I needed to take a picture. It is a perfect example of a vine-covered cottage.

If any of you sleuths have free time take a walk around Searcy with Mr. Google and see if you can find it.

When I stopped at Sexton's Grocery Store I couldn't help admiring.....again....this old house at 601 East Race. It is becoming somewhat bedraggled but the lines are so nice. It also has a FSBO sign in the yard so it is up for bids and someone may think the spot is great for a business and then the house will just be "what-used-to-be" on East Race.

The house was placed on the National Register of Historic Places in 1991 and the courthouse says it was built in 1925. It was called the William H. Lightle house but I have always known it as the Dr. Biggs house. Perhaps a Sleuth can clear this up for me.

I like the curved window detail. And I like the way the windows go all the way to the floor. In fact, the windows are larger than the door!

Here's an older picture of it and I wish we had one even older.

Perhaps someone will buy and restore and that would be great for historic Searcy. That's why I have a FSBO on this blog.

Hubby got a notice in our mailbox that said he had a letter that had to be picked up at the postal service center on Race Street in Searcy.

20 cents postage was due.

Who would send us a letter lacking 20 cents postage? Who? Who? Who? Could it be important?

Well, Hubby directed me to pick it up during my day while he was busy on the golf course.

That service center looks like an arsenal with nothing but a peep hole for the workers to see out and you have to ring a bell for service and they want identification. Geesh....

But I got the item, paid the 20 cents. It was nothing but a folded sheet of paper secured with a staple and it was from Yarnell's Ice Cream bankruptcy court with a notice of a hearing which hubby could attend.

I said to the lady, "It has 44 cents postage on it. Why do we owe 20 cents more?"

Her reply was that they had stapled it together and the staple kept them from putting it through the usual mail processing and it had to be hand processed.....thus it required 64 cents postage. She also said that if the mail had had a return address they would have returned it to the sender.

SOOOO......who messed it up? Yarnell's? Yes. But they probably didn't know that a staple could cost more and they didn't think a return address was needed.

The United States Post Office? Yes. They made me call on them to pick up what was almost junk mail. I made a remark to her, hopefully in a nice way, that this was one of the reasons the Postal Service is going broke. They could have left us the mail as easily as they could have left the pick-up note.

Moral to this story?? Don't secure mail with a staple and put your return address on it!

I collected my 20 cents from Hubby so all is well!

This picture has been loaned by Ramona Palmer Riddle, who grew up in Searcy Arkansas and knew everyone! It even has the names on the back to tell us who they were.

Standing with the dirty apron was Bob Barlow and granddaughter. Year was 1947

Left to right were J. C. Hart, J. B. Plant, Elzie Darden, Carthel Angel, Melvin Phelps, Bud Collins, Tom Walker, Bud Moye, Orvil Rouse, Emil Hart, M. M. Garrison, Hubert Coward, Bill Price, Harold Humphey, Harry Price, F. P. Girkin, "Fat" Westbrook, Jake Nelson and Sam Lanier.

Where was this taken? Sleuths will surely say.

I enlarged and did a closeup of the guys so we can do a better scrutiny.

Now, there are two guys with the last name of Hart. One may be the father to our Anita "Tart" Fuller. And I really think the fourth from the front on the right is Henry Fonda. sigh......drool.....

Notice the old old jukebox in the rear of the room!!