| John R. Collier | Diane Magnati Holley | Ethel Brimmage | Esta Ruth Lewis | Irene Scoggins |
Quietly and without attention to himself, North Little Rock Patrolman, John Roy Collier spent a lifetime gently reaching out to people whether they were family, friends or strangers, say those who knew him best.
It is what made him a good law enforcement officer, colleagues say, what made him content with a 25 year career as a patrolan on the streets instead of reaching for a promotion that might push him into a desk job.
And it is what made him a listening dadand step-dad, when he married for a second time 15 years ago, said his wife of that many years, Shirley Thompson Collier.
She likes to tell the story of the day he was in a doctor's office and saw a woman explaining that her husband needed medical attention.
But [she and her husband] owed a little bill, and they told her that they would not be able to see him because of that," she said."Well, that made my husband furious, and he went up there and paid the bill...And everytime [the woman] sent him a check to try to pay him back he just tore up the check. He didn't expect for them to repay it."
Patrolman Collier died Saturday, Sept. 20, in Baptist Memorial Hospital following a stroke.
Retired from the North Little Rock Police Department for a little more than a decade, he was 60 years old, and colleagues paid their respects with a contingent of 20 police officers serving as honor guard, pall bearers and a six vehicle escort to Edgewood Memorial Park cemetery for burial the following Tuesday.
Born in Beebe, he was the only child of small businessman John Roy Collier, owner of Roy Collier Plumbing on JFK Boulevard, and his wife Virginia, a homemaker.
His father's business had meant long work days away from the family, and he and his mother were always very close.
"He was an only child, and they pretty much idolized each other," Shirley Collier said. And he always raved about her cooking, particularly her homemade bread and other special family dishes, she said.
But, as was his nature, after his mother died, he reached out to his father and the two grew closer before his father's death in 1983.
His first marriage ended in divorce. And into his second, he poured energy and humor, Mrs. Collier said, regularly bringing her flowers and pulling little practical jokes on her.
"He loved to see me blush," she laughed.
He was similarly attentive to the two children from previous marriages they each brought into their union, she said, as good about spending time with her children as with his.
"More talking [time] than anything else," she said.
That had been his strength as a patrolman, too, said Billy Grace, a retired police lieutenant who is now the director of North Little Rock Animal Control.
Mr. Collier was a kind man, he said, and he showed that kindness not only to victims of criminal acts but to the criminals, too.
"He was a jailer for several years, and he was compassionate to the prisoners," Grace said.
Aubrey Hand, a retired police sergeant turned code enforcement officer who was Mr. Collier's superior at one time, said that Mr. Collier always handled all of his own calls with professionalism and calm, but what made him stand out was the way he was there for other patrolmen on the job.
"If he knew of an officer would have a problem on a call, he would be there to back them up," Hand said." He was always there if you needed him and if you didn't you never knew he was there."
Both Hand and Grace said they had never known Mr. Collier to go after a promotion, and Mrs. Collier said her husband just liked working with people.
"He thought that the promotions were all just a bunch of red tape," she said. He had served in the Arkansas Army National Guard until 1962, and he was a member of the Fraternal Order of Police.
Besides his wife, Mr. Collier is survived by two sons: John Pat Collier of Mablevale and Buddy Weatherford of North Little Rock; two daughters and their spouses, Jenia Renee and Tim Denny of Hensley and Kelly and Dan Burchof North Little Rock; and four granddaughters: Elizabeth, Katherine, Jennifer and Lindsey.
The Times - 10/2/1997
Diana "Dee" Magnani Holley dedicated her life to creating hand-woven, custom made wigs for anyone who needed one. And each order she filled was a work of art and love.
"What she did, she did for other people," said her son Frank Holley III of Philadelphia, Pa. "She would work on a wig until 1 a.m., take an hour nap, work on it until 4 am and then it was done."
Even after her health declined in recent years, she persevered.
"She came home from the hospital once and we had to hide her equipment because she needed 90 days rest and she still wanted to work," he said.
Mrs. Holley, a master hair weaver whose wigs graced the heads of people around the world, died Sunday, Jan. 4, of complications from emphysema.
She was 74.
Born in Rome, the oldest of three daughters of an Italian shoemaker, she learned wig making with her sisters as a teenager from the owner of a wig shop in their neighborhood.
Soon the three sisters had learned the craft so well that they became the hair stylists on the movie sets of the surge of movies that were produced in Italy after Mussolini banned American movies from being imported there during World War II.
The sisters would work with such international stars as actor Rozzano Brazzi, actresses Anna Magnani, Sophia Loren and Gina Lollibrigida and Italian director Vittorio DeSica, and "everybody used to tip them in gold pieces," Holley said. "They had shoe boxes full of gold pieces."
But Mrs. Holley's fate would change afte she met a young Arkansan in the U.S. Army, Frank Holley Jr., in 1944 when he was stationed in Florence. Though she could barely speak English and he could speak only a little Italian, the two were married in July 1945.
"It took almost a year to get her over here," her son said, "It took a special place on a hospital ship to get her over here."
After the war, Mrs. Holley's younger sisters Elda and Renata, got jobs as makeup artists and hair stylists with RKO Pictures in Italy, said Little Rock hairdresser Tommy Morrison, who eventually became a business partner with Mrs. Holley.
"They tried to get her to [join them], but she was a homebody, she loved being at home," he said.
Morrison met Mrs. Holley in 1960 when he was a barber in downtown Little Rock and Mrs. Holley's husband, the late Frank Holley Jr., was a customer.
One day, Morrison confided to Holley that he wanted to get into wig making for men and Holley told him that his wife was a wig maker and a hair stylist. After a meeting over dinner in 1965, their partnership was forged.
"I just designed the wigs, and she made them for me," he said.
Morrison would measure out the bald spot and give the measurments to Mrs. Holley to make.
She did all of her work at home, weaving her creations one hair at a time using real human hair that she purchased from the DeMeo Brothers Inc. in New York.
Her daughter Debbie Holley Hollowell said her mother used what looked like a little crochet hook that she always called her needle.
"It was real tiny, real thin [and] she would insert it under the net [and the hair would be in a loop]," she said, "she would twist the needle and then bring it through the net."
A full woman's wig would take her mother about three weeks to make and command a price of $375 way back in the 1960s; men's wigs were quicker and cheaper.
And as word got out about the superior quality of her work, Mrs. Holley began receiving orders from all over the world.
"She was one of the finest hair weavers in the country," Morrison said.
In his travels to different parts of the country, including New York, Morrison said, he had never seen anyone who put the amount of time and quality Mrs. Holley put into her wigs.
But she did it mostly because she believed "People counted on her," he said, and indeed Minnesota Vikings quarterback Fran Tarkenton had a mustache she created and Miami Dolphins coach Jimmy Johnson wears a hair peice she created.
Mrs. Holley had a long memory for her craft and could remember how she set and styled every wig she ever created, her children said.
"I wanted her to teach me how, but she never did," said her daughter But it was so second-nature to her, it seemed difficult for her to explain.
"She'd just go 'I just know how to do it'," Debbie said.
Still she never let wig making interfere with family, working in the wee hours when all of them, including her insurance salesman husband, were alseep. And she didn't even start her business until all three of her children were school-aged.
She was similarly devoted to St. Patrick's Catholic Church, where she believed people also counted on her, her son Frank added. "They'd bring her letters from Italy, and she'd translate them," he said.
Her priorities were also such that even when times were hard and she could barely afford to buy hair for her wigs, she still gave to the St. Jude Shrine.
"St. Jude was always her patron saint," said her daughter, "I don't think 'devout Catholic' would adequately describe her."
"That's just what kind of person she was," her son Frank explained. "All she did was for other people."
She was preceded in death 18 years ago by her husband Frank Holley Jr.
Besides her son Frank and his wife Kim and her daughter Debbie of California, survivors include her other son Tony Holley of North Little Rock; two sisters, Elda Laurenti and Renata Magnanti of Rome, Italy; a niece, Daniela Laurenti; and seven grandchildren, Shannon Holley, Jenifer McDougal, Leli Fondo, Holley Sanders, Drew Hollowell, Shade Holley and Amber Holley.
A funeral mass was held Friday, Jan. 9 at St. Patrick's Catholic Church with the Rev. Paul Worm officiating.
The family requests that memorials be made to the Altar Society of St. Patrick's Catholic church.
The Times - 1/15/1998
A deep and abiding dedication to family and church characterized the life of Ethel Brimmage.
"She loved her family and her home," said her daughter Ray Dell Stricklin. "That was what her life revolved around."
But she also had a talent for needlework and a special touch for growing things, especially flowers, family members said. And over the years, she quietly used those skills to brighten the lives of other people.
Mrs. Brimmage died on Monday, Nov. 17, of complications from a stroke she had suffered several months ago. She was 83.
Stricklin said her mother's principal activity outside of the home was the quilting circle that she started 16 years ago at her church, Glad Tidings Assembly of God Church in Levy.
There, family members said, Mrs. Brimmage was a perfectionist and a "task master," insisting that these projects be exceptional works of art since they filled orders from people all over the world.
One was even ordered for by someone who wanted a present for Johnny Carson for his last wedding several years ago, her oldest daughter Mary Swift said.
"She was very conscious of everbody making nice stitches and being the best possible," Swift said. "If it wasn't right, they had to take it out and do it all over."
Mrs. Brimmage was born in rural Mount Vernon, Ark., the youngest of nine children of a cotton farmer. At age 18 she married neighbor Basil Curtis "B.C." Brimmage, who eventually moved the family to Conway and then to North Little Rock for truck driving and construction jobs that could support his family better than cotton.
Growing up, Mrs. Brimmage had been particulary close to her mother, whose easy, God-fearing ways made her respected in the community as well as accessible to her friends and family, said Swift.
"She always said she had no secrets from her mother, she told her [mother] everything," she said.
Mrs. Brimmage, an immaculate housekeeper, would develop a similarly close relationship with her two daughters, dressing them alike for many years and imparting to them her priority for family and church.
As a child, Stricklin recalls how her mother would offer to sew things for neighborhood children in need.
"Some of our friends who weren't so well off would come spend the day and she'd sew for them," she said.
A woman of high energy, she worked hard all her life, first in the fields on the farm and then taking in sewing and laundry for extra money in between taking care of her young family.
Then, when they moved to Conway in the late 1940s, she worked in a shoe factory for a year while her husband drove a truck for a grocery company.
And in the early sixties, when they moved to North Little Rock where her husband first worked in home building, she worked in Sterlings Department Store in Pike Plaza.
In her leisure time she grew flowers, creating a beautiful garden every year everywhere she lived.
"That always made her feel better," Stricklin said. "And she could make anything grow," turning a property with just a few shrubs into a mass of beautiful flowers that she would then share with everyone.
Early this summer, Stricklin said, the new pastor at Mrs. Brimmage's church looked out and saw a woman digging in the dirt underneath the church sign and went out to find Mrs. Brimmage had come to plant some flowers to beautify the front of the church.
It was just something her mother loved to do, Stricklin said.
"I saw her working out there [in her garden] the day before [her stroke]."
She was preceded in death in 1980 by B.C. Brimmage, her husband of almost 50 years.
Besides her two daughters, she is survived by one son, Doyce Edwin Brimmage of Jacksonville; one sister, Myrtle Paul of Conway; eight grandchildren; 16 great-grandchildren; and two step-great-grandchildren.
Funeral services were held on Thursday, Nov. 20, at Glad Tidings Assembly of God church in Levy.
Interment was in Chapel Hill Cemetery.
The Times - 11/27/1997
Esta Ruth Lewis did not start out wanting to be a teacher, but in the end, she couldn't help herself. She enjoyed being around children too much to do anything else with her life.
"Her idea was that kids could do no wrong," said her husband of 58 years R.E. Lewis, "she loved children."
Mrs. Lewis a first grade teacher at Sylvan Hills Elementary for 20 years and a life member of the Parent Teacher Association, died Feb. 2 of pneumonia. She was 81.
Born in Hainesville, La., the oldest of three daughters of a couple from Lockesburg, Ark., Mrs. Lewis lost her father when she was 2 in the flu epidemic of 1918. Her mother remarried a man who worked in the local oil fields, offering the family a middle class lifestyle and Mrs. Lewis a chance to attend Southern Arkansas University in Magnolia, a two year college, to major in home economics.
She would meet her future husband, who was a few years ahead of her in school there and who after graduation would go to work for Southwestern Bell.
As soon as she graduated, she went to work for the Hainesville News, a small paper in her hometown run by a friend of the family.
"She was the society editor, she sold ads and sometimes she was back there when they were printing." he said describing his wife as a "jack of all trades."
But Mrs. Lewis had had no overriding ambition to be in the newspaper business, he added: "There's not that many opportunities for jobs in a small town like that," he said.
A year later, after being transferred to Sherwood, Lewis sent for her and they were married on Sept. 19, 1939. They had three children and after they started attending Sylvan Hills Elementary, Mrs. Lewis began spending a lot of time there being involved in the PTA
Just being in the school piqued her interest in education.
"She decided she might as well go to school and get paid for it," Lewis said.
Sara Henson, who taught second grade at Sylvan Hills with Mrs. Lewis said she, Mrs. Lewis and other active PTA members were encouraged to try teaching by Harvey Young, who was principal at the time.
"There was a shortage of teachers and Harvey Young sort of recruited several of us," she said, "he knew that we had degrees...and he just sort of said "why don't you all come teach over here',"
So Mrs. Lewis enrolled in UCA, which was the State Teachers College in 1953, to finish two years of teaching credits. In 1955 she began teaching at the school she spent so much time at when her children were small, Sylvan Hills Elementary.
And there she remained, teaching first graders who could do nothing wrong in her eyes, challenged by the introduction to education she could offer them for 20 years until her health began to fail. Suffering from arthritis and some respiratory illnesses, she retired in 1975.
"She was an exceptional teacher-innovative," Henson said of Mrs. Lewis' teaching skills. "I mean challenging children and making it interesting.
And Henson said there was hardly ever a sad face in Mrs. Lewis' class.
"They were happy children," she said.
Inez Hall, a fellow church member whose children were taught by Mrs. Lewis, heard the raves about Mrs. Lewis at home.
"They always talked about how she was a good teacher," she said of her children's accolades to Mrs. Lewis.
And Henson has her own theory about why Mrs. Lewis never in 20 years wavered from teaching first graders.
"You just find your niche," she said, "and you love that age."
But the classroom was fun for Mrs. Lewis, and you could tell that by the way she approached everything about her job, Henson added.
"She really enjoyed what she was doing and that's a real compliment to a teacher."
Besides her husband, R.E. Lewis, other survivors include a son, R. David Lewis and his wife, Rebecca of Little Rock; two daughters, Linda Lang and her husband, Andrew of Malvern, Penn. and Kathy Sanders and her husband, Jeff of Richardson, Tex.; a sister, Loucille Fulmer of Homer, La.; seven children, Ken Lang, Cindy Lang, Tim Lang, Robbie Lewis, Courtney Lewis, Laura Sanders and Emily Sanders; and great-granddaughter, Monica Lang.
Funeral services were held at 2 pm Thursday, Feb. 5, at Sylvan Hills United Methodist Church with the Rev. Jerry Collins officiating.
Burial was in Forest Hills Memorial Park.
The family requests that memorials be made to Sylvan Hills United Methodist Church, 9921 Sylvan Hil Highway, Sherwood, Ark. 72120
The Times - 2/19/1998
Even though a two year battle with bone cancer kept her from attending her high school reunion this summer, Irene Scoggins never did give up, planning right up until the end to catch up with her former classmates two years from now, when Scipio A. Jones High School graduates from around the world are set to get together again.
Ms Scoggins, a life long resident of North Little Rock, died Tuesday, Aug. 27, from the effects of the disease that had beset her.
"She always believed that she was going to beat it; she never gave up hope," her brother, Ira Scoggins, said this week, remembering his quiet but cheerful "baby sister," the youngest of six children in the family.
"She was a sweet person, and she was loved." he said.
A 1956 graduate of the former Scipio A. Jones High School, Ms. Scoggins attended Shorter College for one year. Prior to her illness, she had been employed by Harvest Foods for 18 years.
Besides her brother Ira, a North Little Rock alderman, she is survived by two sons, Eric Roy and Darryl Scoggins; two sisters, Francica Scoggins-Wood and LaRue Young; brothers, S.M. Scoggins Jr. and John Wesley Scoggins; five grandchildren; and a nephew, Kenneth Thompson.
Hers was a life that revolved around family, and family celebrations often revolved around her superior cooking skills, her brother recounted.
But Ms Scoggins also found pleasure in such pursuits as reading, traveling, listening to the popular music of the 1950s and 60s and shopping, he said.
"She loved to buy clothes," he smiled, "and she loved to travel," to places like California, Washington, D.C., Memphis or "just riding throughout Arkansas, not really going anywhere. She just loved to go," he said.
"Taking after our mother and grandmother," she also became a memorable cook, producing what her brother said was "the best chicken and dressing I ever had. If I could just get her chicken and dressing, I wouldn't eat anything else," he said of the big, family meals she prepared.
"She took a lot of care in preparing a meal. Cooking was just an art for her," he said.
Ira Scoggins said he and the other siblings will also miss their frequent, cheery-and lengthy-phone conversations with Ms. Scoggins, who loved to call them to discuss a newspaper story, some hometown news or some tidbit she happened across in one of the magazines she loved to read.
"She read a lot and she would be on the phone to one of us, asking 'Did you see? Did you read? Did you know?' If I didn't see Irene every day, I was on the phone with her," he said.
"It's going to leave a big void in our lives. She could always keep you laughing," he added.
Funeral services for Ms Scoggins were held Saturday, Aug. 31, at Bethel A.M.E. Church in North Little Rock.
The Times - 9/5/1996