Ancestor Archives: The Death of Little Jimmie Roark

by Rocky Macy

(Note:  Recently while digging through some old records I found a letter containing a few obscure family stories from Julia "June" ROARK JOHNSTON, my mother's cousin, that she had written to me in August of 1988.  June has since passed away.  June had been orphaned as an infant and had grown up in the home of her paternal grandparents, Sam and Nancy ROARK of rural McDonald County, Missouri.  Sam and Nancy were my great-grandparents, and they both died well before I was born, Sam in 1925 and Nancy in 1935.     The old farm couple had eleven children and all but two survived to adulthood - but their first born, James W. ROARK, was one of the two who did not survive.  What follows is the tragic account of how little Jimmie died, a story that was preserved through the thoughtful attentions of June ROARK JOHNSTON.)

 The Death of Little Jimmie Roark

Samuel James ROARK and his bride, Nancy Anthaline SCARBROUGH, had been married nine months and eleven days when their first child arrived April 24, 1879, a little boy whom they named James W.  ROARK.  His name was most likely James William ROARK in honor of Nancy’s only brother, James William SCARBROUGH.  Nancy and her three siblings had been orphaned at an early age and had lived at the Newton County, Missouri, farm home of their maternal uncle, William C. SMITH, and his wife, Lucinda, for most of their young lives.

 

At the time of “Jimmie” ROARK’s birth, his uncle, James William SCARBROUGH, was only eight-years-old. Nancy, Jimmie’s mother, was twenty-years-old, and his father, Sam, was twenty-two.

 

Sam and Nancy were undoubtedly very proud of their first child, and on the fourth day of February in 1879, they presented little Jimmie with a baby sister, Lucinda Comfort ROARK, a child named for Lucinda SMITH, the woman who had raised Nancy, and Comfort POE ROARK, Sam’s mother.  It was certainly a happy little farm family near Hart, a community located in the northwestern corner of McDonald County, Missouri.

 

That happiness was tragically interrupted, however, on Thursday, April 24^th of 1879, when Jimmie, who was just learning to walk, slipped outside of the farm home.  Nancy later recalled to Julia “June” ROARK, her granddaughter, that little Jimmie had not been out of his parent’s sight for very long when he somehow fell headfirst into a rain barrel that the family used to catch water for doing laundry.  When they found the child he had died from drowning.  Nancy told June that there had not been much water in the barrel at the time of the accident, yet still there was enough to bring about the little boy’s death.   In a letter to me in 1988 June related that she had not been very old when her grandmother told her the story of Jimmie’s death (it would have been approximately fifty years after his death), and June stated “I’ll never forget how painful it was for her to even talk about it.”

 

Sam and Nancy ROARK had a total of eleven children, and all but two of them survived to adulthood, and all but one of their adult children married and had children of their own.  Julia “June” ROARK, the grandchild who related the story of Jimmie ROARK’s death to me, was the only child of another of Sam and Nancy’s sons, Samuel Lafayette ROARK and his wife, Bertha Ellen BAILEY.   Samuel “Fayette” and Bertha ROARK each passed away when June was only a few months old, and she grew up in the home of her grandparents, Sam and Nancy ROARK.

 

June is gone now, too.  She passed away in 2006 – but before she died June took the time to send me two letters with several family tidbits that would have been lost to history if not for her caring enough to share them with one of Sam and Nancy’s great-grandchildren – and now I have the privilege of passing June’s memories on to others.

 

Rest in peace, Jimmie.  Your life was short, but you are remembered!