Pages from the past

Family Bibles more than just God’s word

Holy Bible

Old and New Testaments

Preserve Your Family Heritage

“Realize what you’ve got,” said Carolyn Reno, collections manager and assisstant director of the Shiloh Museum of Ozark History. She offered some tips for handling family heirlooms.

• Store old Bibles in living areas of your home, places where there is some heat and air control.

• If there are family record pages in the Bible, consider getting good digital copies of the pages to share with family members.

• To protect the spines and covers from breaking, use a pillow to support the book when it is open.

• Protect old and delicate covers by wearing cotton or latex gloves, or alternately, washing and rinsing your hands well before handling.

Brenda Pianalto of Tontitown shares the history of her family Bible.

My mom, Elsie Mae Fiori Pianalto, kept our family Bible as one of the family’s most treasured possessions. Our Bible was always found on the kitchen table and only moved when it was time for a family dinner. Once the dishes were done and the table was clean and dry, the Bible would be put back in its place. Not only was the Bible on display at all times to encourage the reading of God’s holy word, but it held family memories. It included pictures the grandchildren made for Elsie Pianalto in school, the names and birthdates of her children, grandchildren, great-grandchildren, sons-in-law and daughters-in-law. Obituary cards of loved ones who had passed, with a little prayer offered for them each day. Our Bible held pictures, newspaper clippings, greeting cards … as you can tell it was a family treasure. The Bible’s stories of our Lord Jesus Christ were accompanied with our family stories. To my mom and my family, they go hand in hand through life.

in the Original Tongues

Diligently Compared and Revised

American Bible Society

New York

The artfully decorative spine of the leather book has become detached, and handwriting in pencil and quill pen have faded, but the 1844 "Mecklin Bible," preserved in the collections of the Shiloh Museum of Ozark History in Springdale, stores within its pages the history of the world, the history of Northwest Arkansas and the history of the family that treasured it.

The museum keeps several priceless volumes in its collection, and about 20 Bibles fill a glass case in the new permanent exhibit, "Settling the Ozarks," in the log cabin in the museum's gallery. Some in that collection contain the "DNA of very early settlers," said Susan Young, outreach coordinator for the museum.

"Religion and Bibles were an important part of life for Ozark pioneers," Young said. "If they had any book at all, it would be a Bible."

Robert W. Mecklin purchased his family's Bible in 1848 from John Buchanan, an early Cumberland Presbyterian preacher in south Washington County, who also sold Bibles for the American Society of Bibles, Young said.

Pasted inside the tattered covers of the Mecklin Bible is an obituary for Robert W. Mecklin, written by his son William, which ends in a poem calling Mecklin's death "a weak knot." Mecklin founded a boys' academy at Mount Comfort, the Far West Seminary, in 1842. The school burned three years later, but Mecklin rebuilt it as the Ozark Institute. He also was elected state senator in 1860.

Mecklin (1798-1871) and his wife Louisa Ann came to Arkansas in 1833. He also taught in Little Rock and Sophia Sawyer's Fayetteville Female Seminary.

A handwritten note inside the Bible states it was "on exhibition at the Centennial held in Fayetteville, Arkansas, which closed on July 5, 1928," reads information about the artifact one museum's website. "This Holy Bible was presented to Helen Louisa McGowan (Hoge) by her cousin, Hon. Hugh A. Dinsmore, on Aug. 9, 1928. It was the property of her grandfather who was Robert W. Mecklin."

But the story of the Mecklin Bible wouldn't be complete without the story of how the tome entered the museum's collections. It was donated as a gift in 2010 by Roy Werkentin of San Francisco in memory of Corliss Eshwig -- but neither had a connection to Northwest Arkansas. A teen-age Eshwig bought the Bible for Werkentin, her boyfriend, as a present in the early 1960s from a California book store, Reno shared.

"We don't know why she gave it to him as a gift or how it got to California," said. Reno and Young think someone must have carried the Bible from Northwest Arkansas on travels or a move to the western state.

The museum's collection includes letters written by Mecklin during the Civil War, Young said. "He was too old to fight," she added.

The letters were written in 1863 to 1864 by Robert W. Mecklin (1795-1871) of the Mount Comfort community to his sister-in-law, Katherine Dinsmore, who had fled Northwest Arkansas with her family to Texas, Young reported. In the letters, Mecklin describes the hardships of life on the home front and the activities of soldiers, bushwhackers and guerrillas during the Civil War in Washington County, mostly in the present-day Fayetteville-Springdale area. The Mecklin Letters collection was published by the Washington County Historical Society in 1955.

"(The gift of the Bible) came as a complete surprise," Reno said. "We had known of the Mecklin Letters, but here -- out of the blue -- came his Bible. (The benefactor) did not talk about himself, he just didn't know what to do with the thing."

"Who wants to throw away a Bible," Young asked.

Bigger Than a Book

A family Bible might be the only place early dates of birth, weddings and deaths are recorded for remembrance, Young continued.

Birth certificates weren't issued in Northwest Arkansas in the pioneer days, she explained. Perhaps a local church or even the county government kept such records, but those were easily lost to fire, flood, time.

"But there was no fancy certificate," Young said. "Just an old record book. Nobody had easy access to the courthouse. This is a way to tell their story.

"It speaks to the fact that it's important to us who came before. They were not only writing for the now, but for the future, for descendants they'll never know."

The display of Bibles at the museum signifies "how important religion was to our pre-Civil War pioneers," said Marie Demeroukas, research librarian, who curated the log cabin exhibit. "Some didn't have much, and some had a lot. But a Bible was a common denominator."

The significance of a Bible is also shown by its size, Demeorukas said. "They wanted it to be a presence. It was usually kept in the front of the home."

"This was the 'family' Bible," Young added. "They'd carry something else to church with them."

The significance of Bibles can be seen in old photographs. Many people were photographed holding a Bible -- they posed with a cherished possession, Young continued. Often, newly married couples received Bibles as gifts.

The Holcombe Bible

Another Bible in the Shiloh Museum's collections started with the Rev. John Holcombe, who with his wife, Dorothea Wilbanks, moved to Washington County. In 1840, John was a founding member and pastor of Shiloh Baptist Church, the first in the town later known as Springdale.

"The Primitive Baptists were an important part of Northwest Arkansas history, with numerous churches, Young said. Holcombe also helped found a Primitive Baptist church in West Fork.

The marriage of Holcombe's son Joseph to Cener Boone is listed in the Bible as "1860 Dec. 12." The Holcomb men helped plot the first blocks in Shiloh in 1870 and 1875, and Joseph Holcomb was elected the town's first mayor in 1879. (At some point, Joseph dropped the "e," changing the spelling of the family name.)

No highlighter marks or penciled underlines mar the texts of these highly prized possessions. But Reno pulled from between the pages some crushed flowers held in a 1920s napkin. "It's not original (to the 1851 Bible), but it's still historic," she said. "And it obviously meant something to the person who put it in here."

The Clark Bible

In February 1899, John A. Clark listed what his family would provide as his daughter's dowry: a bed, a quilt, a pound of feathers and a sheath. Perhaps to ensure the promise of the gift, Clark entered and signed Mary Salina (Molley's) dowry in the family Bible -- twice. She would earn the dowry when married or in two years of the date, according to the writing on pages in the Bible. Molley married Charles Vaston Gance, an engineer on the Fayetteville & Little Rock Railroad branch to St. Paul. Family lore says Gance saw Molley picking blackberries and stopped the train to help her. They had two girls. Today's descendants figure she received her dowry.

Today, Mary Todd, 91, of Fayetteville keeps the Clark family Bible. "It was at my grandmother's house," she said. Then it passed to Todd's parents. "And my mom told me to take it. It stays back there in an old shoe box."

The hand-written dates in the Bible start with Ambrose Clark, born in 1818 in Ohio. Washington County records first include him in 1841. He married Salina Hash. Their son,William Ambrose, born in 1850, married Sarah "Dollie" White. They lived on the family farm in Durham, and all of the family is buried at McCord Cemetery in Elkins, Todd noted.

Todd is the daughter of Elbert Clark, born in 1883, who married Irma McKee 8 June 1912. Then the Bible lists Todd, three brothers and two sisters, nearly filling their own page, with Todd the youngest and the only one without a date of death.

As she ran through the list of names, Todd remembered her cousin Norma Jean Poole. "I know I wanted to sit with her at school, but the moved to California, and I've never seen her anymore," Todd recalled.

She also remembered looking at the Bible as a child and the excitement that came when a new baby's name was added to the family genealogy.

The front cover of the Bible long ago disappeared, and with it, the volume's exact date. The back cover is nearly gone. Todd applied duct tape in an effort to keep the remaining pages together.

"Somebody started it, but I don't know who," Todd said. "Some of the names I wrote myself."

"Did I get in there," asked Todd's niece, Cheri Lynn Clark Coley, last week. Coley is the daughter of Todd's brother Carl.

"I don't see your name," Todd replied. "There you are. You're listed in 1959, after I got (the Bible)."

The Bradley Bible

Yet another Bible in the museum's collection is the "the Bradley Bible." The Bradley family settled in Marion County, and the Bible came to the museum in 1979.

"It's been with the museum for 31 years," Reno said. "Many, many descendants of the family make a pilgrimage to see the Bible. We get one at least once a year -- like clockwork."

The genealogical resources of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints note the Bible is held at the Springdale museum. Early on, museum staff made photocopied "masters" of the book as it is very fragile, Reno said. Only trained museum staff, wearing white cotton gloves, handle the book.

The Bradley family history is written in the margins, although it is faded. A modern book about the Bradley family includes all the information and it is available online. "But people want to see the Bible," Reno said. "They want to see the real thing. They want photos of it."

"That speaks of (the family Bible's) significance in many families," Demeorukus said. "It was more than just God's word in the same room."

Although Shiloh Museum, because of limited storage space, only accepts donations of Bibles with a strong historical connection to Northwest Arkansas region, the family should talk about the final dispensation of the volume, Young said.

"If y'all just want to store it, store it with family," Young said. "But the Bible should be preserved for research, for the future. Give over the family heirloom for good."

NAN Religion on 04/25/2015

Upcoming Events