Sesame Club met recently in the Oak Room at Pine Bluff Country Club. President Donna Davis called the meeting to order and led in the reading of the collect.
Jo McKeown presented the last program in the 2011-2012 theme of study: “Celebrating Life in Pine Bluff, Arkansas.” Her subject was “Pine Bluff Citizens — The Famous and the Infamous.” Several sports figures from Pine Bluff were named, among them were Jackie Harris, Willie Roaf, Don Hutson and Bill Carr. The actress Mary Matilyn Mouser was mentioned, as well as, Peggy Shannon.
Another Pine Bluffian, Martha Beall Mitchell, became very well-known during the Watergate era of the Nixon administration. She was born in 1918 and graduated from Pine Bluff High School in 1937. Beside her picture in the yearbook was this quotation: “I love its gentle warble, I love its gentle flow, I love to wind my tongue up And I love to let it go.”
She married John N. Mitchell in 1957. He was appointed attorney general after Nixon’s election to the presidency. The Mitchells separated in 1973. After the Watergate break-in, Martha Mitchell began talking to reporters when her husband’s role in the scandal became known, which gained her the title “the Mouth of the South.” Nixon later told interviewer David Frost in 1977 that Martha was a distraction to John Mitchell so no one was minding the store and “If it hadn’t been for Martha Mitchell, there’d have been no Watergate.” In 1976, in advanced stages of myeloma, she slipped into a coma and died in New York at age 57. She is buried in Bellwood Cemetery in Pine Bluff.
The Quapaws helped civilize the frontier, later to be the state of Arkansas. The most famous of the Quapaws was Chief Saracen who was born around 1735. The legend of Saracen, rescuer of captured children, happened in Pine Bluff. A band of Chickasaws stole two children from a young mother who begged Saracen to return them to her. He agreed to attempt the rescue, followed the Chickasaws down river and overtook them late at night. His Quapaw war hoop sounded repeatedly out of the dark woods, driving off the frightened Chickasaws. Saracen then returned the children to their mother.
Independent reporting for Pine Bluff & Jefferson County since 1879.
When the Quapaws agreed to move to Oklahoma in 1833, Saracen was given permission by the governor of Arkansas to remain on the river of his youth. Acreage where the Port of Pine Bluff is now located was given to him. When he died he was buried in the town cemetery behind the Methodist Church at Fourth Avenue and Main in Pine Bluff. In 1888, the cemetery was moved to Bellwood. Father J.M. Lucy at St. Joseph Catholic Church obtained permission from the bishop to have Saracen’s remains buried in the Catholic Cemetery where he lies in peace.
Following the program, a brief business meeting was held. The hostesses, Jacque Walker, Laurie Pascale, Ruth Roberts and Katy Walt invited the members to beautiful rose bouquet-centered tables for dessert.
The next meeting of Sesame Club will be Sept. 25. The study theme for 2012-2013 will be “Faces of Poetry — Poets and Poetry.”