BENTONVILLE — Martha Waymire of Bella Vista went to work Dec. 20 after reading a newspaper report about two women hoping to return a family Bible to its rightful owners.
Armed with the names and dates of some of the people listed in the mid-1800s Bible, Waymire was able to find birth records, marriage announcements and obituaries, all of which could be linked back to the names in the Bible, Waymire said.
“I read about it and I thought I can find those people. So I got on the Internet and I did what I do best,” Waymire said.
After an hour and a half of searching, Waymire found what she was looking for when she discovered one of the remaining family members, Angie Schuldt, lives in Fayetteville.
Waymire then called Mary Hogue in Durant, Okla., to tell her the news. Hogue and Brenda Wood had found the Bible in a box of books bought at an estate sale.
“I was tickled to death. Me and Brenda both could not have asked for anything better,” Hogue said on Monday. “The Bible is going home and that is where it needs to be.”
When Schuldt received a phone call from Hogue on Dec. 20, she was not sure what to think until Hogue began listing some of the names found on scraps of paper shoved into the Bible.
“My mother passed away when I was 10, so for me, it was important to get (the Bible) back,” Schuldt said.
Schuldt will be able to fill in many of the blanks she has about her family history using the information contained in the Bible.
“I have two daughters and it will be important for them to have it one day so they can see where they came from,” Schuldt said. “It was quite an honorable thing for (Hogue and Wood) to find me.”
There is one more mystery surrounding the Bible that Schuldt hopes to solve.
Hogue and Wood “found it between Dallas and Durant and my mother grew up in Bentonville, so it will be interesting to find out how it got down there,” Schuldt said.
“Most people search for years for this kind of stuff. (Schuldt) is going to have all of it dropped in her lap and she is going to be able to present all of that information to her daughters one day,” Waymire said.