J. Frank Upchurch and his wife, Kate Miller Upchurch, and four daughters, Fredrica, Grace, Josephine, and Nellie, moved from Hackett to Fort Smith shortly after their only son, Frank, died from the flu in 1918. Fredrica Upchurch taught elementary school in the Fort Smith area from 1920-1968. Her younger sister, Grace, began working in the University of Arkansas library as a student in 1927. After graduation she became a full-time employee, where she remained for over forty years. The papers in this collection primarily concern Fredrica and Grace Upchurch.

Fredrica Upchurch graduated from Arkansas State Normal School in 1915 with a degree in education. She then received her Bachelor of Science Education in 1928 from the University of Arkansas and five years later earned a Masters degree from Columbia University in New York City. Fredrica Upchurch taught elementary school at Stuttgart (Arkansas County), (1916-1917), Hackett (1917-1918), Belle Point (Sebastian County), (1919-1921), and was at Duval Elementary in Fort Smith from 1921-1960. After her retirement from Duval, Fredrica Upchurch taught eight more years at Fort Smith's Christ the King Catholic school. In 1969, Miss Upchurch received the Golden Apple Award from the Fort Smith Classroom Teachers Association for excellence in teaching.

Grace Upchurch enrolled at the University of Arkansas in 1927, where she worked as a student assistant in the library, then located in Old Main. After her graduation in 1929, the library employed her on a full-time basis. She did take time off, however, to earn a bachelor of arts degree in library science from the University of Illinois in 1933. At her retirement in 1970, Grace Upchurch had worked forty-three years at the University Library.