Lulu Fay Brown
Lulu Fay Brown, fourth of the five children of Emma Ann Martin
and Cullen Penny Brown, was born 11 October 1885 in West Plains, Howell County, MO. She and other
family members pronounced her first name as “Loo-luh,” which led to her name being recorded in certain
public records -- and on her gravemarker -- as Lula Fay Brown.
The family was in Missouri at the time of her birth, but this was an anomaly. Her father was employed there for two to five years as a lumber merchant, and probably operated or helped operate a sawmill. “Home” was still back in Martintown, Green County, WI, where her mother had been born and raised. Emma and Cullen owned one of the main houses associated with the estate of her parents, Nathaniel Martin and Hannah Strader, founders of the community.
By the late 1880s another employment opportunity brought the Browns to Fort Smith, Sebastian County, AR. Here Lulu spent most of her mid-childhood, though frequent visits were made back to Martintown. In 1898 her family established themselves in DeQueen, Sevier County, AR, where she spent her teen years and began her adult life. Her father literally helped build DeQueen, which had been founded not long before the family’s arrival. In 1906, her father was killed in a sawmill accident.
Lulu’s sisters Lena and Ethel had each married at nineteen, a typical bride age of their generation, but Lulu settled into her situation less briskly. As a single lady, she kept herself occupied with pursuits such as her involvement in the Epworth League, the then-vibrant Methodist youth organization. While serving as the DeQueen delegate of the league at a conference in Fordyce in central Arkansas in April, 1907, she developed an interest in the delegate from Warren, Bradley County, AR. He was Edgar Gardner Seay. The mutual attraction led to a year-and-a-half courtship. The pair would wed 29 October 1908 in DeQueen, the Reverend W.R. Harrison officiating.
A son of William Alexander Seay and Mary Elizabeth
Gardner, Edgar had been born
4 November 1882 on a farm near Warren, Bradley County, AR. His grandfather, Charles Hinton Seay, was
well remembered in Bradley County as a pioneer and as a pillar of the Methodists of that area, known to
neighbors and fellow parishioners as their beloved “Uncle Charley.” Though Charles had died when his
grandson was only two years old, Edgar had been impressed by the example, and had spent his boyhood
imagining that one day he, too, would preach. This ambition had become stronger in his late teens. With
his father’s death, the household had been reestablished within the town of Warren. Though the need to
contribute as a breadwinner had consumed much of Edgar’s day-to-day life -- he was obliged to work in local
mills between his school classes -- the shift into town had provided him with increased
opportunities to mingle among greater numbers of people and be more involved in church activities on a
larger scale. In particular, his involvement in the Epworth League had cemented his desire to lead
congregations, and he had received his license to preach 2 July 1904 at a mere twenty-one years of
age. He had subsequently been awarded assignments on the so-called “travelling circuits” of
Arkansas. Spreading the Word and recruiting for the church, he roamed through Sevier, Polk, Howard, and
Little River Counties. At the time of first acquaintance with Lulu, he was based out of the village of
Dierks in Howard County, about fifteen miles or so northeast of DeQueen. He was soon raised to deacon
and reassigned to the circuit based out of Vandervoort, Polk County,
a town about twenty miles north of DeQueen. Edgar is the man in the center in the photo above right.
He is posing with four friends of Lulu from the DeQueen chapter of the Epworth League. They are, left to
right in back, Alice Stevenson (later
Mrs. Dick Burtch) and Annie Wallace (later Mrs. McClure); and left to right sitting, Cynthia McKinley
and Dora Stevenson.
No sooner had Lulu and Edgar become wife and husband than they were on the road, as Edgar resumed his work on the Vandervoort circuit. The pair were still in Vandervoort when they welcomed their firstborn, Edgar William Seay, into the world. The proud father’s next assignment, received at a 1910 conference, was to Foreman, Little River County, AR. The job would last for two years. Midway during that span, at a 1911 conference, which happened to again be in Fordyce, he was raised to full minister. Another happy event that year was the birth of second child Margaret Seay on the 26th of May. Alas, unlike Edgar Wm., who was so robust he is still alive today at nearly one hundred years of age, little Margaret did not thrive. She passed away 14 June 1911 at less than three weeks of age.
At the late 1912 conference in Little Rock, AR, Edgar was offered the position of pastor of College Hill United Methodist Church in Texarkana, Miller County, AR. This was an honor of which he could be proud, and he accepted. However, he was in fact already in the the early stages of a tremendous decline in health that would all too soon claim his life. He had been accidentally crushed by his own buggy at Foreman, and was not recovering as well as everyone had hoped. Unlike his vigorous pioneer grandfather Charley Seay, Edgar was a somewhat frail man. Thanks to his injuries, he had not even been able to attend the conference, which that year was held in Hot Springs, AR.
At the beginning of 1913, when Edgar was somewhat better, the household was reestablished at Texarkana and the new pastor began his ministry. He had hardly taken up active pursuit of the job when he was obliged to have an appendectomy. The surgery was successful and he recovered well from it, but he had only been back at the pulpit for less than a month when he was struck down by infantile paralysis, the disease usually referred to today as polio, which was widespread in the area at that time. His case was severe, involving a considerable loss of function, and for the first several weeks, during which the family lingered in Texarkana, it was expected he would probably die. Had that development occurred, he would not have had the chance to enjoy the babyhood of his third child, Mary Juanita Seay, who was born on the 20th of March. However, for the moment Edgar was spared, and he gradually gained back a little strength. Lulu took him to his mother’s home in Warren, hoping that familiar surroundings would buoy him up. To a small degree, the plan was successful. Edgar could not pursue his profession and had to give up the College Hill pastorage as well as any other formal assignments, but over the next two years his condition stablized somewhat. He was able to continue his church studies and to attend the Autumn, 1913 conference in Pine Bluff, AR and then made it to the 1914 conference in Little Rock. At the latter event, he was made an elder of the church by Bishop Morrison, and had the joy of showing off his parchment to Lulu upon his return. Achieving that distinction proved to be his “last hurrah.” Weak and always subject to lung and and other organ problems due to paralysis and enforced inactivity, he developed the grippe and then pneumonia. He succumbed Friday, 18 December 1914, at the age of only thirty-two years.
The Seay family had spent the last few months of Edgar’s life
in DeQueen. Lulu kept them there for a brief period, where she could count on the support of her
mother and sisters, but she did not linger as long as one might expect from a woman
of her generation, even though she had been left a widow with very small children. She was an
independent and self-reliant person -- so independent, in fact, that she never married again. She
chose instead to support herself. She became a florist and nurserywoman and, on at least one occasion,
took in a single young female schoolteacher as a lodger in order to help make ends meet.
Lulu finished raising her kids in Arkadelphia, Clark County, AR, and then remained in Arkansas through the 1940s. Her son Edgar grew up with a fascination for model airplanes, a hobby that was wildly popular with boys of the World War I era, and that interest translated by the dawn of the Great Depression into jobs within the aircraft-construction industry. In the late 1940s, Edgar would go on to make the building of model airplane kits his full-time occupation. Having struggled through hard times to support a young family, Lulu more than once commented that she wished her son had waited until he was older -- i.e. until he no longer had a small child at home -- to lose himself in a hobby, but in fact, she need not have fretted. Model Aircraft Laboratories, Edgar’s company, was so successful it is still in business today.
Daughter Mary Juanita stayed at home somewhat longer, helping Lulu to operate the florist business. In 1936, she became Mrs. Paul Abel. The young couple established themselves in Elgin, Bastrop County, TX. Lulu relocated there in about 1950. The photograph at left shows her during her first few years there. She was still a resident of Elgin when she passed away 29 January 1970 of a sudden heart attack. Her body was taken back to DeQueen and interred near those of other Brown family members -- and with her husband -- at the city cemetery, also called Redmen Cemetery.
Above and below are two views of the four Brown sisters. (There would have been five sisters if Minnie Edna Brown had lived past early childhood.) Above is a studio portrait taken in the mid-1890s. Lena is the teenager on the left, Lulu is in back, Ethel is on the right, and a very young Ada is in the center front. Below is the same quartet more than sixty years later at a family reunion in 1955. The scene is Martintown or a spot near there. Left to right, youngest to eldest: Ada Vonner Brown Luton, Lulu Fay Brown Seay, Ethel Irene Brown Cannon, and Mary Lena Brown Hastings.
Children of Lulu Fay Brown with Edgar Gardner
Seay
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