Narrative from Samuel Reyburn Poe, Jr in email dated August 13, 2003. On identity of the older woman in the image.
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My
mother was Elizabeth Emma Meyer. Her youngest sister was Bernadine. Doesn't
seem likely that the youngest daughter would be named
after the mother, but it's possible (on question of whether the first name was
Emma or Bernadine).
I'm
virtually certain her maiden name was Kirchoff. Her sister, Regina Kirchoff
Rolf, and her family ran a huge vegetable farm near Little Rock (Arkansas).
Bernadine Meyer Schmuck was the mother of my first cousins Julia Elizabeth and
Susie. Her husband, Bill, died of a heart attack in their backyard on Camp
Robison Road in his 30's.
Pat and I loved going to great aunt Regina's vegetable farm, to swing on a huge
rope swing and, if we were lucky, they'd take us to the cool, dark cellar and
let us pick out whichever watermelon we thought looked the
"tastiest."
The other sister, Marie Meyer Nabholz and her husband, Julian [who owned
A&J Electric Co. in Little Rock where your dad (William Eugene Poe, father
of William Arthur Poe) and Pat (Patrick Meyer Poe) and I all worked from time
to time] adopted Mary Ann who, as far as I know, still lives in Conway (Arkansas).
They had no other children.
Their brother, Uncle Buddy (Herman like Ming's husband, his father), ran the
Meyer Florist (Little Rock, Arkansas) that Popan (Herman Joseph Meyer) and Ming
started and built over the first half of the 20th century.
Herman immigrated from Baden Baden, Germany about 1901, settling first at
Subiaco (Arkansas), the large Catholic monastery and boys' school near Fort
Smith. Ming was born in Morrilton (Arkansas), shortly after her parents came
here from Germany. I don't have a clue how they met, but I do know they had to
teach themselves English so they could adapt to this country, operate their
business Meyer Florist and
raise their family.