Bella Vista and the Bentonville Library

October 17, 2013

Back in Bella Vista, AR to visit with friends, Tom and Sandy. We have just about come full circle. A few more days, and this trip will be over. I’m looking forward to getting home, but one part of me doesn’t want to go home, I want to go see what’s around the next corner. Alas, home it must be.

Sandy cooked dinner for us tonight and then we played Hand and Foot, girls won tonight!! Yea!!

October 18, 2013

Big craft fair going on in Bella Vista this week end, Tom and Sandy were working it this afternoon, so Phil and I went over and visited the fair. This was one of the nicest we have ever been to. The vendors at this fair are researched, nothing from Mexico here, it must all be hand made by the vendors themselves. There was some really beautiful stuff, could have spent a huge amount of money here, but I watched the pennies.

After the craft fair we drove into Bentonville to try the Mellow Mushroom restaurant, their specialty is pizza. Being a Friday night, the place was absolutely packed, we had to wait about 45 minutes for a table, then another 45 minutes to get our food. Not a good place to go on the week end!

October 19, 2013

Today we went into Bentonville to visit the genealogy section of the Bentonville Library. Phil has ancestors that spent some time in the Bentonville outskirts, so he is looking for information about them.

Had dinner at Tom and Sandy’s, then played Hand & Foot and the guys beat us bad tonight!

October 20, 2013

Phil and I took a drive out to Stonetown which is west of Bentonville. This is where his Smiley ancestors lived for several years. One of them had three 40 acre sections of land, and Phil believes that several members of the family lived on this land.

As we were driving down the hill, we passed the city hall/fire department and Phil stopped to talk to a few guys who were working outside. Turns out that one of these guys was the Mayor of Stonetown and he had the land maps with him in his vehicle, and he knew the current owners. He took Phil’s information and said he would talk to the local genealogist/historian to see if she had any info on the Smiley family. The Mayor said he would contact Phil if he found anything out.

The acreage they had is very pretty, gentle rolling hills with green pastures, even a little lake. No way of knowing if the place looked anything like it does now. Most amazing thing was that to register a claim on the homestead, they had to go all the way to Harrison, AR. That’s about 82 miles, in the mid 1800’s, by horse that would take about 8-10 days. You would have to be pretty determined to make that trip!

October 20, 2013

We went back to the Bentonville Library today to do more research, spent most of the day there. They have a small deli type café for those of us who need to have a little substance during the day.

Tonight we met Tom and Sandy at the little Mexican Restaurant for dinner, then went back to their house for another game of cards, that the guys won again!