(Photo above) Ira O'neal Westbrook and his sister
Dell Westbrook Carter. Mrs. Westbrook, Euvalah Lucinda Brandon,
is the large woman between and behind Ira and Dell. I think the
photograph may have been made in Galveston Texas. Aunt Dell had married
a Texan and they lived in Arlington, Texas."
Ira O'neal Westbrook circa 1922 is pictured on a railroad flatcar on the
Creamery Package Company side spur off the Frisco Railroad Main Line in
Blytheville. He was the manager of the CPC plant at that time.
The CPC plant manufactured butter barrel staves from non-staining ash
lumber and other packaging materials. I believe the CPC in Blytheville
was the first all-electric powered factory
in NE Arkansas. The CPC factory shut down for Mr. Westbrook’s funeral
and never opened again. The factory was sold to the Blytheville Ice
Company or Blytheville Electric Power Company and that company was
merged into the
Arkansas-Missouri Power Company headquartered in Blytheville. The ice plant continued to operate at least through the 1960s when it was known as
Ark-Mo Ice Plant.
Ira
O'neal Westbrook came to NE Arkansas and SE Missouri from Tennessee in
the 1890s as a saw mill and lumbering camp manager for the then small,
Chicago lumber company that later grew into the huge
Chicago Mill and Lumber Company (CMLC). About 1898 he moved his
family to Blytheville where he was the Regional Construction Manager for
CMLC. The family lived on Cherry Street 1 block away from the large
CMLC plant near the Frisco RR Station which
was convenient both for his traveling to construction and logging sites
and to his office at the main mill. A group of Christian families met
each Sunday at the Westbrook home on Cherry Street
Then, about 1903 he moved this family to Burdette where he oversaw the construction of the
Three States Lumber Company Mill, including the railroad spurs for relocating the equipment from the old mill in
Luxora to Burdette and the RR spur from Burdette to Burdette
Landing first used to transport the large, new machinery shipped down
the Mississippi River to the Three States Mill in Burdette, then later
used to ship milled lumber from Burdette to the Main
line of Frisco Railroad to ship North.
When
the work at Burdette reached the point that he no longer needed to be
on-site on a daily basis, he bought the block of lots (4) on the south
side of 800 block of West Ash Street in Blytheville, where
he built a new house for his family at 819 West Ash, another house for
his brother at 801 Ash, then later built a house next door to his own at
813 Ash for a wedding present for his daughter
Mattie Dell Westbrook when she married Don Fletcher of Paragould. When the family moved back to Blytheville, the Westbrooks helped organize and became charter members of the
First Christian Church in Blytheville.
As the
construction manager for the largest employer of heavy construction
contractors in NE Arkansas and SE Missouri, Ira O'neal Westbrook knew all
and employed most of the construction contractors that built
the railroads and mills in the St. Francis River Basin. He owned a
beautiful property, “Dell Farm” named for his sister. It was located on the south bank of the Pemiscot Bayou next to the
Jonesboro, Lake City & Eastern Railroad (JLC&E RR) where
he intended to retire. CMLC was JLC&E’s largest shipper.
I believe the major owners of CMLC, Three States Lumber Company, Creamery Package Company and
Blytheville, Leachville and South Arkansas RR were all the same
and my Grandfather Ira Oneal Westbrook was essentially employed by the
same people from the mid 1890s until he died in the mid-1920s.
There
is another, tragic tie between my grandparents Westbrook and the Dell
Farm where they had intended to retire. While on a picnic at the Dell
Farm one Sunday afternoon, their youngest child,
William Paul Westbrook fell into a hole where a tree stump was
still smoldering. He was burned over most of his body, but survived and
learned to walk again after a year of being bedridden in bandages. The
danger during that year was from infection
of the deep burn wounds.
During
that year in bed, Uncle Willie Paul was tutored so he would not fall
behind in his school work. And, when the new school year started, Uncle
Willie Paul wanted so badly to go back to school with his
friends, Grandfather and Grandmother Westbrook, with the doctor’s
approval permitted it even though a few wounds had not completely healed
and had to be bandaged before school and when he got back home. But,
during that first week in school, the wounds became
infected and within a few days Willie Paul was dead. My mother, Eula Miriam Westbrook Dedman
said Willie Paul’s death broke all their hearts, but her father could
not get over it and that sorrow led to Ira Oneal’s early death.
The Westbrooks never resided at the Dell Farm--it was intended to be their retirement home. But, my Uncle William Paul Westbrook fell into a burning stump hollow there and ultimately died, and the story told was that neither my Grandfather or Grandmother Westbrook never set foot on the place thereafter. Willie Paul was the beloved 'baby brother' of the family.
Some of my mother's favorite 'cousins' were Garrigons and Gays from Half Moon. They were not close blood cousins--maybe not cousins at all, but some were related to either the Brandons or Westbrooks several generations removed.
Rick Dedman
3313 Bennington Court
Winter Park, Florida
Mrs. IO Westbrook, SE Quarter
Section 34..
