Myrtle McCormick Parks Family Papers

Collection

Identifier: MC 723

Staff Only
Select files to request

Scope and Content Note

Papers and photographs of the McCormick and Parks families of Prairie Grove.

The three volumes include a United States Army ledger with incomplete entries recorded by Dr. McCormick's father, James W. McCormick (1833-1886). In the back pages of his ledger, the captured Confederate soldier documented his journey to a Union prisoner of war camp, which was possibly located in Grafton, West Virginia. Private McCormick of Company B, 35th Battalion, Virginia Calvary, was accompanied by his uncle, Joseph I. McCor- mick, and other captured Confederate soldiers. The ledger also contains a daily journal, hymns, and sermons. Two medical ledgers owned by Dr. McCormick record turn of the century visits to his patients, their treatments and payments. Dr. McCormick's own personal expense account is found at the end of Volume I.

This collection also contains a diary that Mrs. Parks kept for three of her sons who were enlisted in the military during World War II. Correspondence, genealogies, and over 130 photographs and photographic post cards of McCormicks, Parks', their rela- tives and friends, complete the collection.

Dates

1865-1945

Creator

Parks, Myrtle McCormick (Person)

Language of Materials

Materials are in English.

Access Information

Please call (479) 575-8444 or email specoll@uark.edu at least two weeks in advance of your arrival to ensure availability of the materials.

Use Information

No Use Restrictions Apply.

No Interlibrary Loan.

Standard Federal Copyright Laws Apply (U.S. Title 17).

Biographical Note

Minnie Myrtle McCormick Parks (1886-1978), the daughter of Dr. E.G. and Mamie McCormick, lived her life in Prairie Grove. Married in 1910, Myrtle McCormick's husband, James Clay Parks, worked for the Prairie Grove Telephone Company and eventually became its president. After his death in 1958, one of his sons, Barry, was named president and Mrs. Parks was appointed vice-president.

Myrtle Parks' father, E.G. McCormick, moved from Virginia to Prairie Grove with his parents and six brothers and sisters in 1875. He later became one of Prairie Grove's family physicians and played an instrumental part in helping the area develop from a community to a small town. Dr. McCormick assisted in the incorporation of Prairie Grove in the 1880's, and together with his brother William, opened the town's first drug store. He also helped organize the canning factory, a local newspaper, and Prairie Grove's Southern Presbyterian Church. Dr. McCormick, along with several others, started the Prairie Grove Telephone Company which was incorporated in 1906.