A place where time stands still

There's a place, a stretch of sacred ground, in Southwest Arkansas that was settled back in the early 1800s.

For more than five generations it has been called The Andres Place. Charles Montgomery and Nancy Ann Andres settled on a small rise near the front edge of 100 acres in the community of Sutton in 1870. They built a strong dogtrot house and raised a strong herd of raw-boned, tough children who, in turn, increased the size of the Andres herd mightily.

The land, once dotted with pine thickets separating fields of grassland and row crops, was left to tend to itself decades ago and a majority of the Andres Place became the Andres Thicket.

Over the past year, it has been a pleasure, nay, an obligation, to reclaim part of that land. With my wife Bobbie Jean McCarty Smith, we build a house of which the ancients would be very, very proud. The new house is a dogtrot, bigger than the original, but the fireplace is built from rocks and bricks from the original chimneys. A couple of pieces of furniture from that original house stand as proud sentinels the two main rooms.

An old single bedspring, once the haven of sweet dreams for a revered aunt, but discarded after it was no longer useful, stands in front of the house, a strong tree having grown up through it.

Over the past 100 years, the main road has changed course, like a river finding a smoother path to flow and grow. Old trails became overgrown and new trails were cut. It's important, as the ancestors knew and we are learning, to visit the land and view its wonders.

A corner cabinet made from wood rescued from a sway-backed, two-room house on the place, holds family relics and precious photos of family members ... those that are gone and those who hold a firm grip on the future.

To those that set the pattern for all the Andres blood kin, and their inlaws and outlaws, and for those who are new to the land and stories (and love them fiercely), history and a hope for the future abound in the place now called Bedspring Ridge on Andres Thicket Farm.