Andrew Preston Kelley
Sex: M
AKA: A.P.; Pres;
Individual Information
Birth: 18 Sep 1903 - Ione, Logan, Arkansas
Christening:
Death: 29 Oct 1990 - Fort Smith, , Arkansas
Burial:
Cause of Death: Injury in Golf Cart Accident
Events
Notes
• Marriage Fact: Marriage fact. Social Security # 432-22-8150
Parents
Father: James Alexander Kelley
Mother: Martha Anna Stevens
Spouses and Children
1. *Audrey Mavis Hartsell (19 Aug 1907 - 27 Nov 1994) 4
Marriage: 7 Nov 1923
Children:
1. Harold Andrew Kelley
2. Ara Mozell Kelley (1927-1976) 4,5,12
3. Max Preston Kelley
Notes
General:
Delayed Birth Certificate Issued June 16, 1959 for Andrew Preston Kelley born at Ione, Logan County, AR Sept. 18, 1903 Father James Alexander Kelley born in NC 48 years old at time of birth , Mother Martha Ann Stevens born in AR 28 years old at time of birth. This was her 8th child. Attested to by Nettie Kelley Collins 7 May 1959, she was age 68 at that time.Marriage Notes (Audrey Mavis Hartsell)
A note by James Coy Kelley about where they lived, "Old records show some things that brings a smile to one. The post offices at Carolan, AR was known as the Belva, AR (north of Ione). I was born Dec. 6, 1899 at Belva. I lived in the same house where I was born 41 years- never moved. Yet, when I left the old home place in 1941 I discovered I lived at Ione, AR. The Belva, AR post office went out about the year 1906. Jim Holland, Edgar Holland's father was post master and also owned the general merchandise store. (Edgar married Eva Kelley). He resigned as postmaster and sold his store and moved to Booneville to become City Marshall."
Original Marriage Certificate between Preston Kelley of Ione, Logan Co. AR aged 21 and Miss Audey Hartsell of Barber, Logan Co. AR age 17 on 27 Oct. 1923. Recorded 28 Oct. 1923 in Logan Co. Book A page 182. By Geo. L. Hayes. Married by Harry Earhart Clerk of the County Court Logan County. With a note from the parents of the bride giving permission for a minor to marry. They had been married 67 years at the time of A.P.'s death.
Last Will and Testament of A. P. Kelley of Fort Smith, Sebastian County, AR dated 9 Oct
Certificate of Death for Andrew P. Kelley 3:30 PM October 29, 1990, date of birth Sept. 18, 1903. Died at St. Edwards Mercy Medical Center, Ft. Smith, Sebastian Co. AR while residing at 6115 Old Greenwood Rd. Ft. Smith, AR 72903 SSN 432-22-8150. Died of Internal Injury to chest of being run over by a Golf Cart. Coroner A. J. Parish . Wife Audrey Hartsell Kelley. Entombed at Woodlawn Mausoleum, Ft.Smith, AR Parents James Alexander Kelley and Martha Anna Stevens
OBIT A. P. Kelley, 85, of Fort Smith died Monday, Oct. 29, 1990 in a Ft. Smith hospital. He was a farmer, dairyman, insurance agent, road builder, trucker, real estate developer, horse breeder and entrepreneur and once played baseball with Dizzy Dean and Dean's brothers.
Noted for his service to the Farmers Cooperative, Arkansas Dairy Assn., Rodeo Fair Board, Carnall riding Club, and Sebastian 4-H Clubs. Kelley was the recipient of numerous dairy, horse and agriculture awards, including the Skelly Agriculture Award.
Funeral will be 11 A.M. Thursday at Woodlawn Mausoleum under the direction of Edwards Funeral Home.
He is survived by his wife, Audrey; two sons, Harold Andrew of Toledo, OH and Max Preston of Braden; two sisters, Ada Carlon of Booneville and Era Ricatto of San Clemente, CA; a brother Roy of Kileen, TX; Seven grandchildren, eight great-grandchildren and twin great great granddaughters.
Pallbearers will be Fred Trobaugh, Roger Mawson, Kenneth Smith, Earl Wofford, Jack White, Roy Elkins, Ron Easley and Jim Grizzle.
Memorial contributions may be made to the Sebastian County 4-H Foundation, P.O. Box 1165, Fort Smith, 72902.
Of note: Just a few days before his death, he had several pictures made of himself, Audrey and his favorite horses. Probably in anticipation of a Christmas card photo.
Also, the day before his death, he had just finalized the sale of some $100,000 in securities.
The Arkansas Quarter horse Assn. published a full page article including one of the above mentioned pictures in their 1991 membership Directory. The following was the last paragraph of the article.
"Pictured above with "A.P." is Impressive Joan. The picture was taken the day before he died. On that special day, he and his beloved wife, Audrey, celebrated 67 years of marriage. "A.P." will always be remembered by his friends in the AR Quarter Horse Assn. as the feisty gentleman who would always take time to help a fellow horseman even though he might have been your competition at 87 years of age. "
A.P. obtained possession of the 32 revolver that George W. Hampton used to kill his brother in law Phillip Ward in the old Carolan General Store. A.P. used it to kill hogs for slaughter for years. On one occasion, the hog dodged, A. P. missed and then chased the hog all over a one acre pen trying to dispose of the animal. A.P. had a notorious temper.
ANDREW PRESTON KELLEY AKA A.P.--PRES
Preston was born on the farm near Ione, AR. The eighth of 13 children, 5 boys and 8 girls, spaced over a period of 26 years. Grew up on the family farm with lots of chores and later hard manual labor as farm hands. Preston told everyone he only went to school one day, in his brother Jim's place and was send home for fighting. He actually went 8 years, but if you take out the short year and days missed for farm labor, it wasn't much schooling. All 8 grades were in one room, with the teacher alternating teaching each grade in turn through each subject.
Preston played baseball. It was an integral part of the summer social outings, when entire communities gathered for a picnic, socializing and a baseball game with the neighboring village. This provided one of the few social for families and facilitated many romances budding and/or flowering. Preston met Audrey at such a game and supposedly "fell head over heels in love at first sight." Two of his teammates went on to play professional baseball. The Dean brother Jerome (known as Dizzy) and Paul Dean played ball with the St. Louis Cardinals. Dizzy was a star pitcher, winning 30 games one year at least. He and Paul together won 50 games to satisfy a Dizzy boast. Preston said the Deans were good pitchers because they grew up hunting squirrels with rocks. If they missed the squirrel, they might not have had anything for supper. The Dean family were the poor families of the neighborhood.
Dizzy went on to be an announcer and was very successful, perhaps his announcer salary made up for his days of poverty.
Preston suffered a bad arm as the result of his baseball playing. His shoulder would pop out of joint, if he lifted his hand over his head.
Preston and Audrey married Nov. 7, 1923 at Ione, after getting a marriage license with Audrey's parents note and Audrey telling a fib about her age. They lived for a couple of months in a house near the school in Ione. Then Audrey's parents helped them move to Boothe into a house near the Hartsell near the Country Store and between the Trotter and Hartsell houses. This is where Harold was born. Mozell was born in a different house on the same road, but near the crest of Boothe Hill.
The first year in Boothe, they worked a part of the farm on "shares". For their labor they were given a part of the yield. The next year they were "loaned" a field that they worked. The cash crop was cotton; corn was grown for livestock and household meal. Preston and Audrey used to tell the story that one winter their only food was turnips that they had buried in the ground to preserve. During the depression, which started in the early 20s in the south because of the drop in the price of cotton, there was very little cash available. If a man could get work, it would be for no more than 50 cents a day (daylight to dark).
Remember that one should not judge people by the mores of today for what they did at some time in the past. And you should understand the circumstances. During the 1920's the south had already entered the depression that came to rest of the country in 1929. The south had one dependable crop, it was cotton. There was a ready market for cotton and there were gins set up for processing it. But in the early 1920s the bottom fell out of the cotton market. Records in Scott County, AR indicate that a farmer got about 6 cents per pound of ginned cotton (seeds out). that was about $30 per 500 pound bale. A family usually made about one bale per year, and after paying for seeds, picking, etc. it was slim pickings for a cotton farmer in those days. Other farm products had no marketing process and transportation was not available to take it elsewhere.
So, the farmers were desperate during those days. But one thing they always had was corn, because it was the staple bread product and it was necessary to feed the livestock. And they usually made some moonshine for domestic use. After probation was passed in the US in 1919, it became possible to make ends meet by marketing some of the homemade moonshine. But it was against the law and the Federal government Alcohol and Tobacco department were keen on collecting revenue from those products. So an elaborate policing system was set up to arrest those selling alcohol without paying tax and against the law to make it. Keeping out of trouble became a problem but it was the revenuers against the country. They might catch someone but they had to bring them before a jury and in most cases the juries refused to find them guilty. If a moonshiner was careful and popular with his neighbors they could usually get off.
However, A.P. ran out of luck. A prosecutor in Booneville ran on a platform to put the moonshiners out of business. During the trial he used language that wouldn't be allowed in a court room today to intimidate the jurors. He claimed that he had been told that no moonshiners had ever been found guilty and that he would have no chance to get a conviction. A.P. was his first case and he went all out. A.P. was convicted, his case was appealed and in any fair court would have been overturned because of the prosecutors improper use of evidence and prejudice. But A.P.'s attorney didn't do a very good job either, so the decision was upheld. I have not been able to find his sentencing decision. But I read the trial transcript when I was a 9 year old (hidden in the bottom of a trunk, and it disappeared shortly after I had read it). As I remember, A.P. got a sentence of one year and a day. Whether he served the entire sentence I don't know.
This all happened in 1927 when I was 2 years old. Can you imagine the anguish of my mother, then 20 years old, in a depression and with a child and no husband. I am sure her family took us in, but they didn't have much to share. And two more didn't help their situation.
I never mentioned to anyone that I knew about the situation until after my father and mother's death. No one said anything to me until I was visiting relatives in Booth, AR and one of Dad's partners told me some about it. He assumed that I had been told and referred to it as "the business".
All of which proved to me that one should not assume that children are too young to know about the facts of life.
I never thought that my father had done something bad, I knew that things had been hard and he could be forgiven for trying to feed his family. The government finally admitted that probation had been a failure and a poor idea by repealing it in 1933?.
In the late 1920s, Preston worked building roads and bridges in southern Arkansas. He started with his team of mules, hiring out to move earth for the roads. He later organized a group of friends, neighbors and relatives to hire out to contractors for earth moving. Most of the power was mules, but at one time they obtained a steam shovel to assist the work. While this work was going on the family lived in rental houses, where ever the work took place.
In 1930 Preston bought the farm and house from Bud Hartsell. He improved the farm for pasture and raised some different crops. A cattle herd was obtained.
In 1932 they sold the Boothe farm and moved to Maness, AR (near Ft. Smith) and bought a farm that turned out to be a large rock pile. It was not great for farming but did provide good pasture after many years of improving it. During the years of farming bean, tomatoes and other "truck" crops were raised.
A 1 1/2 ton truck was bought and hired out to haul farm produce and other stuff. When the WPA program was started by the Roosevelt administration, the truck was used to haul men, supplies, and dirt for road construction. The truck proved to be a great investment. The farming continued with Audrey, Harold and Mozell doing more of the work.
We had always milked a few cows for our use and to sell the cream. The family decided to switch to selling whole milk, which was much more profitable. More cows were purchased and a dairy barn constructed to meet health requirements. We milked by hand while Harold was home to help. Upon his leaving a milking machine was purchased and installed. Through Harold's 4-H club work we begin to purchase registered dairy cows. Harold had Jersey cows and later Preston started purchasing and raising Guernsey cows. A quality herd was built up of registered stock.
About the time Harold went to college, World War II started, and the army took the farm to include in the acreage needed for an army camp to train Armored Divisions for the war effort. Preston was very unhappy about the way they calculated payment for the farm but had no recourse. He took the money they gave and bought another farm that lay between the old one and Ft. Smith. It turned out to be a wise investment because later Ft. Smith expanded and the farm became prime real estate development property. Preston subdivided one area himself and sold the lots at a good profit. Other parts of the farm were sold for airport construction and commercial development. Preston realized many times his purchase price and still had 27 acres and two houses when he died. During the war he constructed 6 rental houses and made out well on those. During this period the dairy cows were sold off at auction to yield a good profit.
Preston then started selling insurance for the Farm Bureau organization. He was a natural salesman. He liked to talk to people and he knew most of the farmers in the area. He was very successful at that business. Audrey was his secretary, bookkeeper, and assistant. They operated the business for 10-15 years.
Preston then started buying, breeding, training, racing and selling Quarter horses. He kept up this hobby-business until his death.
One of his major disappointments in life was not getting one of his quarter horses to the final in the National Meet. He had one mare that had won enough events to be eligible. He was taking her someplace in his two horse trailer, when she got one leg over the divider and injured her leg. He was determined to cure her so that she could still go to the show, but all his efforts of doctoring, rubbing, and other care could not make it happen. He blamed himself for hauling her in a way that she could be injured and for not being able to cure her. Harold has the trophy that the horse won to make her eligible for the event.
Reference Number:1622