FAYETTEVILLE — Lyell Thompson, a former Washington County justice of the peace, University of Arkansas agronomy professor and Fayetteville civil rights activist, died Monday. He was 89.
Family members and a Quorum Court colleague said Thompson, a recipient of the Purple Heart and the Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. Distinguished Service Award, left a legacy of open doors, years of work to improve life in the area and genuine interest in almost anyone and anything.
"Lyell was a friend, Lyell was a companion," said Jessie Bryant, who served on the Quorum Court with Thompson in the 1980s and 1990s. "Oh, I'm going to miss him."
Thompson's life carried him through some of the 20th century's most historic events, from the Great Depression to the Civil Rights era.
He was born May 10, 1924, in Rock Island, Ill. When he was 8, his family moved to Perry, Okla., a small town near Stillwater with a one-room schoolhouse. It was the height of the Dust Bowl, a decade-long series of droughts and dust storms that stretched from Montana to Texas.
On the first day of high school he met a girl named Marcella. He would tell the story of their meeting for the rest of his life, but the clothes she was wearing would always change with the telling, Marcella Thompson said with a laugh in her home Tuesday.
While she made a lasting impression on the boy, his early attempts to talk to her often fell flat, Thompson said with a laugh.
"He and I were so different," she said. "He was one of the most social people in the world. But we supported each other completely."
They were engaged to marry when World War II "slammed the doors," she said. He was sent to Europe with the Army and fought in the Battle of the Bulge, a month-long fight that cost more American lives than any other single battle in the war.
He came back Jan. 30, 1946, Thompson said, and two weeks later they were married, eventually having five children. He earned a doctoral degree at Ohio State University in 1953 and joined the University of Arkansas faculty in 1958.
Thompson immediately fought for equal services for black people, his wife said. Whether it was taking in kids who needed a home regardless of race, pushing local restaurants and swimming pools to open up to blacks, or taking on his university's first black graduate student, Thompson was in the civil rights fight.
"Lyell helped all of the community to move forward," said Bryant, who is black. "He didn't tackle the whole thing by himself, no, but he was a major part of it. Restaurants, schools, all of Fayetteville -- Lyell was part of that."
Thompson also received pushback because of it, his wife said, noting some colleagues told him he "ought to find somewhere else" to live.
Through the war and the civil rights struggle Thompson wasn't bitter or haunted, she said. Instead he loved poetry and storytelling and Mark Twain impressions, made easy with his moustache and flyaway gray hair.
He was elected to the Quorum Court as a Democrat in 1980 and officiated hundreds of weddings during his 18 years there. And he was a major proponent of tree-planting and recycling, filling the car with recyclables he found while driving.
"Lyell loved to take seedlings of any type of tree, especially tulip poplars," said Kevin LeBlanc, who dated one of Thompson's granddaughters and became part of the family, according to Thompson. "He could go all over town and tell you where he planted."
"He was a hell of a man," LeBlanc added.
It was a broken hip after a fall two weeks ago, followed by a stroke in the hospital, that brought Thompson down, said his youngest son, Kevin Thompson.
"He was a fascinating person and found everything interesting," Marcella Thompson said. She looked across the table, over a vase of pink tulips on a sunny tablecloth, to where their youngest son was sitting.
"I kind of look over there and expect him to pop in, and probably will for a long time," she said. "It's been a wonderful life."
NW News on 03/12/2014