Ar_home_b_search
 

This great old picture showed up on ebay and I splurged and bought it to share with Searcy readers.  It is the best photograph that I've seen of the clinic.

The clinic, as I understand, was actually a hospital.  My husband says that his children were born there and he may have had a surgery or two himself at this hospital.

This shows it in 1940 and there is no need to go take a picture of the parking lot that is there now.  A parking lot is a parking lot is a parking lot.  Right?  It's location was right in the middle, almost, of what is now Harding University in Searcy Arkansas.

The Hawkins Clinic Searcy AR

Now here's a picture of the house that was on the other end of the block.  I loved this house and I regret that they ever tore it down for a parking lot!!  I believe it was called the Sears House.

Sears house Searcy ar

Barbara S Duncan

Hopefully, your chosen agent in

Searcy Arkansas!

www.barbarasduncan.com

 

22 Comments on The Hawkins Clinic 1940 at the corner of Grand Avenue and East Market.

AUG
24
2009
161,018 Points Outside Blog Hit Router

You are always coming up with great old photos.
12:27pm • #1
210,501 Points 5 Featured Posts

Ahhh! Barbara, I love this house. That stone work is unbelievable and only surpassed by the windows to the left of the front door. Thanks for splurging. Kate
12:38pm • #2

First of all, you are blogging too fast.  I'm still "into" the rubber guns and clotheslines!

I worked at Hawkins Clinic Hospital: first as a nurses aide, then when I was a student nurse I would work there on vacations, then later as a Registered Nurse....I worked in the operating room and delivery room.  In those days a delivery nurse scrubbed in, along with the doctor. I have helped deliver many a baby in the wee small hours of the morning.  The surgeries done weren't very big deal: appendectomies, hysterectomies, D&C's, gall bladder removals, hernias....anything else "exciting" had to be sent to Little Rock.  It was just a 27 bed hospital.

That hospital in the late 40's had nurses' quarters upstairs and many nurses who worked there lived up there.  This is when nurse's uniforms were white cotton, sent to the laundry - not tacky old polyester or scrub suits like today.  

The rock house was one of my favorites in Searcy:  it was the residence of Dean L.C. Sears, I THINK that is his name. He would have been Dean of the college.

Again, more than you asked for about Searcy.   I have many fun stories about experiences there at Hawkins.

Anita Fuller

 

 

 

 

 

 
Anita Fuller
1:48pm • #3

Paula knew the Sears.  She had Patti Sue Sears in the 1st. and 2nd.  grades at the academy. L.C. Sears was the Dean of Students at Harding. Paula had biology from their son Dr. Jack Wood Sears.

Here's their house from the 1940 Petit Jean Annual (Harding College Annual)

Sears House 1940

Paula also worked at Hawkins as a nurses aid in 1954.

 
1:50pm • #4

Now that I look at the two pictures some more, I wonder if those are the same houses. If so, the remodel job was something.

Sears House Comparison
2:03pm • #5
547,108 Points 15 Featured Posts Localism Sponsor Outside Blog

Makes me wonder, too, Don.  I have had this picture in my junk for a long time and evidently drove by the house to make sure it was it.  I even have the floor plan.  Some lady whose husband built several houses in Searcy was throwing them away and guess who picked them up!  I need to put up some more.  Wasn't the Art Center at Harding a former home of some President?  More sleuthing jobs have developed. 

Anita, you must give us all your stories about the clinic.  We're listening.

Kate, I like that house too!  Now we must figure out if it is the same house that I thought it was!
2:26pm • #6
547,108 Points 15 Featured Posts Localism Sponsor Outside Blog

Look at this aerial view.  I think the houses may be different.Harding College
2:30pm • #7
547,108 Points 15 Featured Posts Localism Sponsor Outside Blog

Alan, thanks for looking at the old photos.
2:33pm • #8
547,108 Points 15 Featured Posts Localism Sponsor Outside Blog

Anita, I would love to hear more of your stories about Hawkins Clinic and other stories.

Barbara, What is the word under the picture of Clinic.....Grand Avenue at ________ Market?

Sherry

 
2:54pm • #9
547,108 Points 15 Featured Posts Localism Sponsor Outside Blog

Sherry, East Market.  Can you clarify these Tudor houses and where they were?

 
3:29pm • #10

I would have sworn the first house Barbara showed was the Sears House.....but now that Paula had id'ed the REAL Sears house I'm stumped as to whose house is the first one?  My 1957 phone book doesn't help as it just says....L.C. Sears, residence Harding College, phone 93.  I've called my friend Eliz. Capps, she doesn't know the other house, either.  We MUST find out if it was, indeed, in Searcy.

Anita
Anita Fuller
5:24pm • #11
547,108 Points 15 Featured Posts Localism Sponsor Outside Blog

Anita and Don, I think I've solved the problem.  I found another picture showing the Clinic and an English Tudor house beside it.  It is the one that was torn down recently and the one in the picture I put up.  I think the Sears house was further back in the campus.  It was probably torn down for dorms and the whole area past Center Street became dorms and offices.  The old Sears house in the aerial view shows it to be about a block or two further into the campus and no streets went into the campus.  My aerial is in the 1973 Petit Jean.....when I was a student! 
8:47pm • #12
1,103,553 Points 45 Featured Posts Outside Blog

Barbara,

I have heard that one before -- They tore it down to make a parking lot.
11:33pm • #13
AUG
25
2009

You sorta solved the mystery of the house but Alice Ann Formby Keller, definitely solved it.  It is (was ) down from Hawkins Hospital, still on Grand Avenue.  It was the Armstrong house.  When they moved it was used by the Associated Women for Harding.   Now that I know all of this, OF COURSE, I remember the house and where it was.   And I just love the outside looks of both houses.

Anita Fuller
Anita Fuller
7:07am • #14
547,108 Points 15 Featured Posts Localism Sponsor Outside Blog

Steve, those parking lots take a lot of historic houses away.  It's too bad.

Anita, you're right now!  I need to change the name on my picture from Sears to Armstrong.  And I remember now the sign for the AWH.  I wish they hadn't torn it down.  It was apparently in great condition and could have been a Harding landmark for many more years.  Who were the Armstrongs?
7:20am • #15

J.N. Armstrong was the first president of Harding before Dr. George S. Benson.  I THINK he was still around (meaning alive) during a lot of Dr. Benson's tenure....in his day he was a legend to the young men becoming ministers and teachers.  I've heard of him all my life....

Tearing down that beautiful old, historic home is another example of people who have no sense of history, just a sense of how to make money and destroy.

Anita
A
8:16am • #16
547,108 Points 15 Featured Posts Localism Sponsor Outside Blog

Anita, I believe the Harding Art Department was in the old Benson house when I was there in the early 70's, at least the gallery part was.  I found this picture of the two featured properties in the 73 Petit Jean.  I do not remember the Armstrong house being as big as this picture shows, however.Aerial view of Armstrong house
9:56am • #17
547,108 Points 15 Featured Posts Localism Sponsor Outside Blog

In case anyone cares, this is the original floor plan.  Remember these pictures and plans were given to me by an old old friend who was going to throw them away.  I had to match them up.  Looks like this was an original 2 bedroom 1 bath house.  Note "furnace room."  Floor plan Armstrong house
10:05am • #18

LC Sears was my grandfather, and the house on the right is definitely the Sears house although this picture was taken before it was moved closer to Center Street (in the late 50s or early 60s) to make way for Kendall Hall.  The house on the left is the Armstrong House but again this picture must have been taken before they added onto it in around 1951.  It's just wonderful to see these pictures.
Sarah Sears
10:36am • #19
AUG
28
2009
1,103,553 Points 45 Featured Posts Outside Blog

Mrs Barbara,

I was reading the other day that, unless it comes from Nigeria, you should anticipate that sort of thing to be a scam. I guess that things from Nigeria are guaranteed by the government. I have no ears in the photo below, because much of this goes right over my head taking my ears with it.

Nutsy
5:35pm • #20
210,501 Points 5 Featured Posts

And what is left of your puny little brain too. Ms Kate
6:01pm • #21
547,108 Points 15 Featured Posts Localism Sponsor Outside Blog

Nutsy, you are smart.  You just don't understand Searcy Arkansas but you will when you come here to live!! 

Ms Kate!  Be kind!!
7:49pm • #22

What does the graphic say?

Leave a response…

(optional)
What does the graphic say?
 

Find AR real estate agents and Searcy real estate on ActiveRain.