Page 89 - Arkansas Confederate Women

80 Confederate Women of Arkansas

Neosho, Mo., on horseback. From there she rode the remainder
of the way in a buggy, and upon arriving in St. Louis entered

the school and remained there 18 months. This was in 1839.

Eeturning home after the finishing touches had been placed
upon her scholastic life, she remained under the parental roof
until 1847 when she was married to Jerre R. Kannady, the mar-
riage ceremony being conducted by Rev. C. 0. Townsend, the

first clergyman of the Episcopal church that ever officiated

in Port Smith. Mr. Kannady was a native of Pennsylvania
and came to this country in 1835.

Prom the date of their marriage until the blighting hand

of Northern aggression fell upon the Southern states, Mr. and
Mrs. Kanady lived a life of contentment and happiness. Mr.
Kannady opened a blacksmith and wagon shop, to which was
afterwards added a grist mill and a sawmill. Business pros-
pered and money came rapidly, but it never remained long in

—the hands of this worthy and lovable couple it went really

faster than it came for their doors were ever open and their
table ever free to all who called. They kept "open house" to all
from the time they moved into their one-story log house with
its big chimney at one end and its wide hallway from front
to rear until after the close of the war. They had no children
of their own, but they cared for the children of others, for rel-
atives less fortunate than themselves in the accumulation of
this world's goods, and for others who were not relatives hundreds

of whom were the recipients of their benevolence and charity.

Mr. Kannady passed away April 25, 1882, mourned by every-
body who knew him, and since that time his widow has lived a
quiet life, surrounded by relatives and friends, her declining
years sweetened by the land attentions of those who knew her

—in the olden times the times upon which her tenderest memories

dwell.

The most strenuous (to us a popular nowaday's phrase)
period of Mrs. Kannady's life was doubtless embraced in the four
years of the war for Southern independence. She was busy every
moment of that time, discharging not only the duties of her
home life but working night and day for the comfort of the