Viney Grove, Prairie Grove, Washington County, Arkansas
Mattie Louise Hill, "Honey"
On September 9, 1937, Dr. J. J. Baggett delivered me, Peggy
Jane Converse, to my parents, Mary Stella Roberts and Everett
Russell Converse in Prairie Grove, Arkansas. Dad drove a bus for
Santa Fe Trailways so we lived in several small towns in
northwest Arkansas, northeast Oklahoma and southwest Missouri
before moving to Wichita, Kansas.
In 1962 I married Jerry Gilbert Drennan and moved to his
home town of Winfield, Kansas. Our son Mark is married to
Mary Ann Hogan and they live in Rochester Hills, Michigan
where he is employed by the Chevrolet Division of General
Motors. Our son Steven is a sophomore at Southwestern College,
Winfield, Kansas.
Mattie Louise Hill was the grandmother who nurtured my
love for Arkansas. When I was young, I would visit her there and
she would let me go through her old trunk filled with pieces of
my history while listening to stories of family, many of whom
were born and lived in Washington County, Arkansas.
Mattie Louise Hill was born June 23, 1893 in Viney Grove,
Arkansas to Hypasia Amanda West and Robert Thomas Hill. She
outlived three husbands, Prof. Wm. H. Roberts, Henry VanHoose
and Anthony Rosebud. No children were born to any of these
marriages. She married my grandfather, Prof. Wm. H. Roberts,
after his wife, Mary Stella Hill, passed away a few days after
giving birth to my mother, Mary Stella Roberts. She raised Mary
Stella, Arline and James Roberts, her sister's children.
While visiting with her about our 1975 vacation that included
Gettysburg, Pennsylvania, she told me her grandmother, Martha
(Rogers) West, was held prisoner in her home by two Northern
generals while the Battle of Prairie Grove was being fought. The
officers used the house as a hospital for the wounded and stacked
five or six hundred dead in the smokehouse. They buried them
in a large trench east of the house. After the war they were dug
up and buried in a National Cemetery. Her grandfather, Robert
Gentry West took his negro slaves south, possibly to Georgia
while the war was being fought.
I visited my great-great grandparents home with my
grandmother in August of 1944. The next time was in 1976 and
the smokehouse had been torn down and the house had been
moved about one mile to the north. Frank and Judy West have
built a new home on the original sight.
My dear grandmother, Mattie Louise Hill, passed away in
Wichita, Kansas, February 19, 1979 and is buried in the Wichita
Park Cemetery. "Honey" is on her grave marker as that is what I
always called her and that was how Mark and Steven knew her.
The aroma and taste of her homemade clover-leaf rolls and the
unconditional love she gave each of us is her legacy.
By: Peggy Drennan