Growing up near the farm of my grandparents, I used to hear my Dad tell of the Yarbrough children that lived with them on the farm for a considerable period of time. This would have been in the 1930s ???(depression years) and hard times but in many ways good times. I never heard my dad complain at any time of his hard life in growing up. He always had positive comments about the times especially when he was talking about the Yarbrough family. My dad was one of ten children (my grandparents raised one orphan child and one died at age 6) and then there were about 6 Yarbrough children. (check out the number) The Yarbrough children were all first cousins to my father. Never once, did I ever ask him why all the Yarbrough children were there. As I grew older I often wondered why they stayed with my grandparents and it was not until I was in my 50s that I discovered the answer and by that time my father was gone.
My grandfather’s sister, Annie Stephenson Yarbrough, lived in Arkansas and she had married William Penn Yarbrough—they had fifteen children. Annie died at the age of 40 in 1911 and her husband died at age 45 in 1915. In 2003 while going through records in the Woodruff County, Arkansas Courthouse I discovered that my grandfather had become guardian to 6 or 7 of these children (look this up). At that time I knew why my father had so many cousins around that he used to talk about so much. But I also remembered that my grandfather's farm house was not very large--a four room house with 17 people living there. My father never mentioned that.
Many people have told me my grandfather was a good man and always like to have fun. I was only seven when my grandfather died so I don’t remember a great deal about him. He could play the fiddle and taught all of his children to play musical instruments. I grew up with that music
Return to Jenk's autobiography