Page 86 - Arkansas Confederate Women

A SKETCH OF MRS. SALLIE WALLACE

RUTHERFORD.

By Mrs. Emilise Dowd, of Fort Smith.

Sallie Wallace, daughter of Dr. Wallace and Jane Perry
Butler, was born at Greenville, S. C, in 1837, and moved to
Ft. Gibson, I. T., then a frontier, post near Fort Smith, Ark.,,
in 1849, when her father was appointed by Pres. Taylor agent
for the Cherokee Indians.

Upon the death of Dr. Butler, Mrs. Butler moved to

Fayetteville, Ark., in order that her children might have the
educational advantages for which, even at that time, Fayette-
ville was justly famous; and there in 1854, Sallie Wallace was
married to Robt. B. Rutherford of Fort Smith, who had just
graduated from The University school, together with many
others who afterward achieved distinction in the service of their

State.

Mr. and Mrs. Rutherford moved to Lewisville, Ark., just
prior to the Civil war, and when the men were called to the
defense of their State and Southland Mrs. Rutherford, like
most Southern women, was left to provide and care for her
family, and with it all to give abundantly of her little to a
hungry or distressed Confederate soldier.

Her cheerful self reliance and wonderful strength of
character, inherited from her Scotch and English ancestry,

through the New England mother and Cavalier father, stood her
in good hand now during these dark and perilous times and the

yet darker ones of the Reconstruction period.

Mrs. Rutherford has always felt the deepest interest in all

that affects her adopted State and no woman in its borders
enjoys to a higher degree the love and respect of all who know

her. She is not only the possessor of a happy and optimistic
nature, but of a rare and practical' intellect, which has made
her for years an important factor in church and philanthropic