| Nancy Elizabeth Pinson | John Russell | Leota G. Wolff | Rev. Ed Walker | Rayma Jean Harvey Bakalekos |
Nancy Elizabeth Pinson of Maumelle, a volunteer who brightened the emergency room at St. Vincent Infirmary Medical Center for several decades, died Monday, April 13, after several months of declining health. She was 84
A native of Winnipeg, Canada, she was the oldest of two children of a lawyer and his wife who, in search of warmer climes, had moved their family first to Florida and then to Houston, texas, in the 1920s. There Mrs. Pinson spent her teenage and young adult years until she married a salesman for the Tandy leather company in 1948.
The couple would move to Fort Worth and adopted two children in the early 1950s, then moved in 1960 to Little Rock, where Wesley H. Pinson and his friend Robert Asquite would start Arkansas Waste Disposal and later Kansas Waste Disposal.
In Fort Worth, Mrs. Pinson, a stay-at-home mom, had been active in the local newcomers and garden clubs, which, at the time, specilized mostly in floral arrangements. She even served as president of the Fort Worth Garden Club, her son said.
But here, as soon as her children were grown, she signed on with the St. Vincent Auxiliary as a once-a-week volunteer, starting in the gift shop and working her way into a niche in the emergency.
"She was a very special lady, full of vim and vigor. She ran errands, pulled charts, greeted patients and brought them warm blankets," said Ann Linebarger, the volunteer coordinator at St. Vincent during the 1980s. "And she was extraordinary with [the patients]. She always found something to talk about and something to laugh about" with them.
Over 34 years, until well past her 80th birthday, Mrs. Pinson volunteered more than 7,000 hours, most of them on Fridays, according to her son, Patrick.
She like the emergency room work and made a lot of friends there, he said. "And her smile had to be comforting to the patients," he added. "That's what people said they would remember about her."
Indeed, Linebarger, who always lunched with the volunteers, said she looked forward to Fridays, "because I would laugh my way through lunch. She was the funniest person I ever met, loved to tell jokes, and well she wasjust delightful."
In her quieter moments she talked about her two grown children and how she thought the sun rose and set on them, Linebarger said.
"But what I will remember most about her was her warmth with the patients, whatever their position in life. She welcomed them and really loved them. She was a joy." She was a member of Christ the King Catholic Church.
She was preceded in death by her husbnd Wesley H. Pinson and her brother, Edward Baker Besides her son Patrick of Maumelle, she is survived by a daughter, Ann Luer; a granddaughter, Natalie Luer of Fayetteville; sisters-in-law, Jean Baker and Addie Pearl Pinson; niece, Marianne Carrothers; and nephew, Jim Baker, all of Texas.
Funeral services were held Thursday, April 16, in the Ruebel Funeral Home Chapel with burial at Roselawn Memorial Park. The family requests that memorials be made to the St. Vincent Foundation.
The Times - April 23, 1998
John Russell of Lakewood, founder of the successful North Little Rock auto dealership that bears his name and active civic and business leader in the community, died Saturday, Dec. 9, after several months of declining health.
He had been retired as owner and president of Russell Chevrolet Honda since 1983, when he let his two sons, Bob and Rick, take over the business that he had built to be an Arkansas leader in auto sales.
And his sons say he invariably credited that to the principles he had learned from his former boss, John Critz, owner of the North Little Rock Chevrolet dealership that he had purchased.
"The main thing was honesty and a low-key approach rather than big-pressure sales," said Bob Russell. "We've always had good repeat business.
longtime friend, former Mayor Eddie Powell, said the same integrity with which he approached his business made Mr. Russell a leader in his community.
"He was a very kind, gentle person, and it was reflected in all his manner. He was one of the few true gentlemen I've ever known," Powell said.
Born in Conway to John and Sally Russell, he was the youngest of four children. He graduated from Conway High School and went on to Arkansas Teachers College and earned a degree in education. While there, he fell in love with fellow student Virginia Cochran, a young lady from Yellvile.
They married in 1935, and after graduation, moved to Scott so Mr. Russell could take a job teaching high school.
The next year, the young couple moved to North Little Rock, where Mr. Russell taught for two years, but was soon lured away by the promise of a sounder financial future as a field representative for General Motors Acceptance Corp., the finance arm of GM.
Mr. Russell's contacts with auto dealerships acros the state would lay the groundwork for his eventual success in that field, but first he took a detour into a very different line of work, when in 1940 he became an undercover agent for the FBI.
"I really don't know what possessed him to do that," his son Bob noted. His young family pulled up roots and headed north, living first in Detroit, then Pittsburgh and Charlotte, N.C.
His son Bob has fond memories of going to pro baseball games with his dad while living in Detroit and Pittsburgh. His mother however, in time, grew weary of her husband's unusual occupation that meant unpredictable comings and goings.
She reached the end of her patience, her son recounts, the time Mr. Russell left home for an assignment with the promise he'd be back in two or three days, but instead was gone for six weeks with no word of his whereabouts. Instead, an FBI agent would show up about every week to drop off dirty laundry and pick up clean clothes to take to Agent Russell.
"She had no idea where he was or what he was doing," Russel recalled. "She kind of got her fill."
Thankfully, North Little Rock car dealer John Critz contacted Russell and asked him to return to Arkansas to be his truck manager at his North Little Rock Chevrolet dealership. That was 1946, and you might say the rest is history.
The Russells moved to Little Rock, then settled in Lakewood in 1955 to be closer to the business of which he became manager, the owner in 1963.
Bob Russell said that he has endeavored to follow the words and example of his father, who exhorted his sons to "give back to the community, to get involved."
Mr. Russell was a founder of the American National Bank of North Little Rock and according to Powell, "helped carry that bank to very good heights."
Over the years, he was active in local government and many civic projects. He was a member of the Lions Club and the board of the North Little Rock Boys and Girls Club. He was served as chairman of the North Little Rock Civil Service Commission, as a member of the boad of the North Little Rock Chamber of Commerce and an officer of the board of the National Automobile Dealers Association.
An avid Razorback fan, he faithfully attended every basket ball and football game up until last year and served a time as president of the North Little Rock Razorback Club.
In his retirement years, he enjoyed investing, traveling, fishing and continuing weekly poker games with a close knit group of friends, a pastime that endured for 30 years, "about the only vice he had," his son Bob noted.
And he enjoyed a good joke. In his later years, even as his memory faded and "he might not remember what happened two days ago, he could still remember every joke he told in his life," his son said.
Mr. Russell was preceded in death by his wife of 62 years, Virginia Russell. He is survived by two sons and daughters-in-law, Bob and Beverly Russell and Rick and Cindy Russell, all of North Little Rock; one daughter and son-in-law, Renee and Phil Wright of Russellville; seven grandchildren, Brett Russell, Giner Miller, Shan Russell, Jarrod Russell, Rory Russell, Russ Wright and Richie Hipps and nine great-grandchildren.
A funeral service was held Tuesday with the Rev. Ben Jordan officiating. Entombment was at Rest Hills Memoril Park Mausoleum. The family requests that memorials be made to First United Methodist Church of North Little Rock, 6701 JFK Blvd., North Little Rock, 72116 or to the North Little Rock Boys and Girls Club, 1212 Jim Wetherington Pl., North Little Rock, 72114.
The Times - December 14, 2000
Born in Pottsville, Ark., the youngest of 10 children of James E. Gray, a Methodist circuit rider preacher and his wife Sarah Florence Gossett Gray, Mrs. Wolff was herself a longtime member of the First Presbyterian Church in downtown North Little Rock.
She and her husband Roland, a newspaper photographer for many years, had operated Wolff's Photography and Gift Shop, located in the 400 block of Main Street. Although she had lost a leg to osteomyelitis at age 15, she wore her prothesis as though it were her own limb. She was so busy at work and at living life, she never thought of "condition" as she called it as handicapping. Her smile and cheerful greeting and gracious manner endeared her to all who knew her.
Referred to as "Odie" by her family, she spent her last eight years at Westlake, where she loved and was loved by the nurses and attendants. At age 90 her remaining leg was amputated, but she never lost her vitality or good humor.
In fact, so revered was she by he great-niece, Deborah and husband, Prof. Andrew Collins of Sydney, Australia, that when Andrew was working in a small village in Papua New Guinea, and was asked, out of their respect for her, to help name the granddaughter of some close friends there, he suggested they call her leota. And as is the custom there, that family will keep her biography and picture in their records and the name will be give to the first girl in the succeeding generation.
Preceded in death by her husband of 67 years, her parents, four sisters and five brothers, Mrs. Wolff is survived by numerous nieces and nephews amoung them: Vestel Corder of Hot Springs, Frances Waller of Overbrook, Kan., Jim Wilks of Hondo, Texas, Alice Smith of Chester, Va., and Aileen Taylor, Gwen Reddoch, Leroy Gray, Edward Wilks and Pauline Wilks, all of North Little Rock.
The family wishes to thank the staffs of St. Vincent North Hospital and Westlake Nursing Home for the care of this special lady.
Funeral services were held Wednesday, Dec. 6, at North Little Rock Funeral Home Chapel with the Rev. David Reddoch officiating. Burial was at Pine Crest Memorial Park.
The family request that memorials be made to Westlake Living Care Center Family Council, 245 Indian Bay Drive, Sherwoodk, AR 72120 or the First Presbyterian Church, 201 W. Fourth Street, North Little Rock, Arkansas 72114.
The Times - December 14, 2000
It has been more than a month since the Rev. Ed Walker, pastor of Crystal Valley Baptist Church for 18 years and the athletic director and boxing coach of the North Little Rock Boys Club from 1945 to 1951, died quietly at age 75 in the nursing home where he had spent the last 10 years of his life.
But the contributions of this innate encourager to the lives of so many longtime residents would seem to merit more note in his home town newspaper than the short announcement of his death that appeared in these pages a few weeks ago.
The son of a phone company lineman who died when Mr. Walker was a toddler, he had grown up on Melrose Circle in a household where making ends meet was a struggle. And he started hanging out at the Boys Club at age 10, about the time it got its own building on Main Street in 1936.
In Joe Red, the club director back then, he would find support and encouragement as well as the most basic of necesities of life.
"I don't know how he did it, but somehow he would come up with shoes, trousers, whatever was needed," he recounted at a 1988 Boys & Girls Club Hall of Fame Club banquet, where he was honored.
The story goes that he took up boxing after he noticed the big meal that several teenagers were eating at the club one night and was told that only the club boxers got to eat. But he would excel in the sport and go on to become one of the smoothest boxers in Mid-South Golden Gloves history.
Then after a stint as an Air Force gunner pilot following his graduation from North Little Rock High School, he would be hired by Joe Red to coach the swimming and boxing teams at the club and go on to groom some of the best boxers in the country. Among them was the late Paul Holderfield, a boxer of some renown, and North Little Rock's boxing great Sonny Ingram, winner of the AAU championship five times as well as countless national championhips before his undefeated days as a pro.
Today Ingram still recalls with great affection those days of training at the club with Mr. Walker in his corner. "He was responsible for all my successes," he said.
For the next few years Mr. Walker would balance coaching with boxing as a pro featherweight, light-weight, losing only about 5 of 50 bouts.
Somewhere during those years he would neet his wife-to-be at the Wonder Grill restaurant, then right across the street from the club, where she worked as a waitress. The two would marry in August 1950, settle in Levy and raise one son and one daughter.
He would leave the club job for better pay with the railroad, where he learned to be an electrician just by doing the job, his daughter, Karen Page of North Little Rock, said.
But much like his good friend Holderfield, his life was not without personal struggles with self-destructive drinking, friends and family members say, and his problems were only compouned by a vain ttempt to reenter the pro boxing world in the lste 1950s.
"I became a drunk, a thief, a liar and broke most of God's commands," he told a newspaper reporter years later.
He would be wooed back to church gradually by an aunt and uncle who lived in Levy, and declare himself born again after one life-changing day when he did not have enough money to pay his rent, his duaghter recalled.
In time he became a preacher, visiting the sick in local hospitals and nursing homes and filling in as an interim pastor or revival leader at numerous local santuaries. In 1971, he was ordained a preacher and made the senior pastor of Crystal Valley Baptist Church where he helped boost the congregation from 43 to several hundred members.
"His sermons were fire and brimstone. He just preached God," his daughter said. "He would take off his coat and tie and walk up and down the aisle preaching loudly."
Out in the community he was gregarious and caring, greeting his flock with a kiss on the forehead and always extending his hand, always preaching the good news, always ministering, his daughter said. "He was a people's man. Always smiling, always generous," she said.
In his spare time, he also loved to hunt and fish, and it was while he was fishing at Cooks Landing one day in March 1990 that he suffered a massive stroke that damaged his brain stem and left him paralyzed. "It was extremely difficult," his daughter said. "He had never stopped."
Still he remained a fighter, she added, as if he couldn not leave what he had learned at the Club."I never though about what I was learning at the Boys Club when I was growing up," he told a reporter back in 1988. "Then on May 18, 1944, when I was over the German oil fields with a couple of engines shot out, I realized what it was. It was never give up."
Besides his daughter, Karen, he is survived by his wife, Leta Smith Walker; a son and daughter-in-law, Eddie and Joni Walker of North Little Rock, five grandchildren, Johnnie Mayfield Jr., Michael Pae, Katie Burnett, Deanne Spease and husband Timothy; and one great-grandson, Joshua Mayfield.
Funeral services were held Tuesday, March 28, at North Little Rock Funeral home chapel with the Revs. Tim McMinn and Gene Davis officiating. Burial services were private. The family requests that memorials be made to North Little Rock Boys Club or Friendly Chapel Church of Nazarene Soup Kitchen.
The Times - April 27, 2000
Rayma Jean Harvey Bakalekos, a lifelong North Little Rock resident, passed away on Dec. 15 from heart problems. She was 53.
Family members say her death was not unexpected - she had been ill for a year and a half - but her passing has left a large family without the steady warmth that she had brought to their every day lives.
"Everybody else came first," said her son Michael Bakalekos Jr. Even though she had worked as a teacher's aide in the North Little Rock school district to help support the family, her schedule revolved around setting up a household for her children. "she was a full-time mon," said her son Donnie Bakalekos. "She raised kids her whole life."
So she was home every day after school. When her kids became involved in sports - all three of her sons played baseball, and her daughter softball - she was in charge of making sure everybody was on time for practice and games.
She literally went to more than 1,000 baseball games," Donnie Bakalekos chuckled.
During their 38-year marriage, Bakalekos and her husband Michael divided up their labor traditionally. Michael Sr. is a 21-year veteran of the Little Rock Police Department, and Bakalekos was a 35-year veteran of raising children and her children's children. Together, they converted to Catholicism a few years ago, and she then became more involved in the church.
Still she never got too busy for her home. "It wasn't where she could be," her husband said. She simply saw caretaker of the house as her place.
When she and her future husband first met in 1962, theirs was a love that bloomed at first sight. "It was for me," said Michael Bakalekos Sr. said, Although he was 18 and she was only 15, they felt they were doing the right thing when they eloped in Benton despite both their parents resistance to the marriage. "We kind of talked them into letting us try for a while,"Michael Bakalekos Sr. said.
Their first son was born 2 1/2 years later, followed by two more sons and their first daughter.
"She always wanted a girl," said her son Donnie. With the boys growing older, her daughter Christine got even more attention. Her parents traveled around the state and the region to watch her softball games.
Eventually all the sons joined the Little Rock police force, following in their fathers footsteps. And if the career choice ever made Mrs. Bakalekos worry about their safety on the job, she kept it inside for her children's benefit.
"She was glad everybody had a good job," said Michael Bkalekos Jr. Donnie agreed, but he also knew his mom felt some fear about her family's chosen profession."We tried to keep her from worrying," he said, "But we weren't very good at it."
Her love for her children expanded to include her grandchildren."It wasn't typical," said Angelo. "It wasn't like just grandkids, it was more like the kids." Indeed her whole house was decorated with items that her grandchildren had made or given to her, small and constant reminders of the lives she was touching every day. "She liked spoiling the grandkids," Donnie said. "That was probably her favorite hobby."
Her grandson William, a sixth-grader at Southside Middle School in Cabot, knew exactly what word best described his grandmother.
"Loving," he said softly. "She came to all my talent shows and told me I was her favorite singer."
Mr. Bakalekos was preceded in death by her parents, Ray Harvey and Melba Jean Huffman, and grandparents, Ira and Fannie Huffman. She is survived by her husband Michael Wayne Bakalekos; three sons, Michael Bakalekos, Jr., of Sherwood, Angelo Bakalekos of North Little Rock and Donnie Bakalekos and his wife Heather, of Sherwood; one daughter, Christine Bakalekos of North Little Rock; one brother, Michael Harvey of Cabot and four grandchildren, William Ray Bakalekos, Rebecca Jean Bkalekos and Jacob Michael Bakalekos of Cabot, and Hanah Elizabeth Bakalekos of Sherwood.
A vigil service in her honor was held at 7 p.m. Monday at the North Little Rock Funeral Home.
A Mass of Christian Burial was held at 1 p.m. Tuesday at St. Patrick's Catholic Church in North Little Rock with the Rev. James Mancini serving as the celebrant.
The Times - Dec. 21, 2000