Hammonsville Band

--photo courtesy Fran Tolliver

 

No one knows who they are but their photo survived a tornado.

 

This photo of the Hammonsville Band was provided by Historical Society member Frances A. Tolliver of Roland, Arkansas, who says it “came from my grandmother’s photo album that miraculously survived the Rosebud tornado in 1982.  Nobody (including Hammons who moved to the area in 1975) knows any of these men.  But just look at the brass in this photo!  Mr. [John] Hammons tells me this was taken at the foot of hill just below the cemetery – at a spring surrounded by large flat rock formation you can see in the snapshot.

“When I was a kid (10-12) on up ‘til about 1958 my grandma Nina (Mrs. Lewis Stone) [Kimbrell] would take me to reunions at Hammonsville every August.  The families all came with food.  After lunch there was singing, but never a band.  Now hardly anyone shows up.  My great grandfather, Joe Kimbrell, was a country peddler.  He would travel all over White County (and once a month to Little Rock) in a wagon selling and buying, when his wife (Lou) ran the general store at Hammonsville.  He was injured … when his team got stuck on the railroad tracks at Beebe.  The team was killed when the train hit them.  He died soon after.”