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Claude Pearson Garner Sr.

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Claude Pearson Garner Sr.

Birth	:	22 Sep 1909
Death	:	1 Oct 1997
Burial	:	Union Cemetery, Union, Woodruff County, USA
Coordinate	:	35.2997017, -91.2696991
Description	:	Claude Garner came to Riverside in 1920 and stayed there until his death Oct 1, 1997 at age 88. With a population of 200, it had its own post office, jail, drugstore, blacksmith shop, three general stores, a hardware store, three doctors, four saloons, three cotton gins and three hotels. Garner recalled the board sidewalks and the deep ruts cut in the roads from years of wagon traffic. He could point out the streets--Main, Front, Elm. "It was a wild west town, like Dodge City, Kansas," he said. "The saloons and cotton gins stayed open all night." Garner was born... Read More	Claude Garner came to Riverside in 1920 and stayed there until his death Oct 1, 1997 at age 88. With a population of 200, it had its own post office, jail, drugstore, blacksmith shop, three general stores, a hardware store, three doctors, four saloons, three cotton gins and three hotels. Garner recalled the board sidewalks and the deep ruts cut in the roads from years of wagon traffic. He could point out the streets--Main, Front, Elm. "It was a wild west town, like Dodge City, Kansas," he said. "The saloons and cotton gins stayed open all night." Garner was born at Old Glaize in Jackson County in 1909. His parents were John Henry and Sarah Harrison Garner. When he was three, his family moved to Woodruff County and farmed for Paul Martin. Garner's father died in 1915 and their house burned the same year. The family then moved to Riverside. "We lived in the Hocott home," Garner says. "Hocott was a lawyer. He practiced law with the hangin' judge Judge Parker of Ft. Smith. He traveled back and forth by surrey, and Judge Parker came here to Riverside to visit Hocott."Garner's stepfather, W.H. Lacey, owned one of the general stores in Riverside. The living quarters built onto the store became Garner's home, and those rooms, though the store itself is gone, remained his home for the rest of his life. ..Garner left Riverside briefly when he was 19 to stay with his brother, Frank, and attend high school at Jelks (now Patterson). While in school, Garner excelled at broad jumping and won several medals for the event, but during one jump, he seriously injured his leg. "I shivered the bone in my left knee," he explained. "It set up an infection and caused a bone disease, osteomyelitis." ..Garner's mother took him to a bone specialist at the Campbell Clinic in Memphis. He struggled for five years with the disease that left him permanently crippled. Two of those years he spent in a wheelchair and something came from it. "I used to set up till 11:30 at night just to hear Deford Bailey, play the harmonica on the Grand Ole Opry." ..In his stepfather's store, three types of harmonicas were sold-Marine Band for 45 cents, Old Standby for 30 cents and American Ace for 25 cents. With all those to choose from, time to fill, a talent for music and the help of local African American boys who frequented the store and knew how to "blow the blues", Garner became a master of the harmonica. ..When he had healed enough to leave the wheelchair, he signed up to be a brakeman on the Rock Island Railroad that ran through Riverside. "I was learning to be a railroad engineer," he said. "I could ride any passenger or freight train anywhere I wanted to. But what he liked was riding the locomotives with the engineers, and he earned that favor by playing his harmonica. "They liked for me to do the imitation of the train on the harmonica." ..Garner's railroad career was sidetracked in 1937 when he visited his brother Frank in Little Rock. While there he went to a country music show featuring Lonnie Glosson and the Sugar Creek Gang. He met Glosson and was invited to come on stage and play a number with them. Garner continued playing with Glosson until he teamed up with his nephew, Marion (Marty) Garner. The pair began playing on local radio stations-KGHI, KLRA, KARK-and eventually landed their own show on KLRA. "The Garner Brothers Show" with announcer Dave Goodman ended when World War II broke out and all local talent was taken off-air. Garner's love for performing led him to Memphis where he played with the Swift Jewel Cowboys and Buck Turner on WREC radio. Back in Little Rock in 1946, he began playing with James Evans and the Dixie Mountaineers, then with George Morgan (father of Lorrie Morgan) and the Ozark Playboys on KLRA. ..But bigger things were waiting for Garner. While playing with Evans in Hot Springs in 1948, he received a call from Eddy Arnold, a top country star at that time. "Eddy asked me if I could play as well as Jimmy Riddle (Roy Acuff's harmonica player)," Garner recalled. "I told him if I couldn't beat him, I'd throw my harmonicas in the river. Later I had a chance to play with Riddle and I did beat him." ..Arnold told Garner to be in Houston, Texas, at the Big Rice Hotel at 8 o'clock Friday night. Garner went and joined Arnold's show. Working with Arnold, Garner began performing regularly on the Grand Ole Opry at the old Ryman Auditorium in Nashville. When Arnold signed for his own show with the Kraft company, he let all his players go, but by then Garner had gained a reputation as "The Harmonica Wizard".He began working with Ken Montana, brother to popular country singer Patsy Montana. They went east and joined the Opry Boys in a tour of Pennsylvania and West Virginia. They also had a regular program at a hotel in Bloomberg, Penn., where all the big country stars of that time came to entertain and be entertained. While performing there, Garner met and played with many of the biggest names in country music--Roy Acuff, Tex Ritter, Grandpa Jones, Ken Curtis, Ken Maynard (western movie star), Montana Slim, Red Foley, Patsy Montana and T. Texas Tyler. He remembers well a conversation he had in the hotel hallway with bluegrass legend Bill Monroe. Monroe said, "Where are you from, boy?" I told him Arkansas, and he said come September I'd better get home," Garner recalled. "I asked him why and he said because the snow would get four feet deep there (Penn.) in the winter." .. Garner took Monroe's advice. "I told the boys, 'I'm goin' home to Mother.' They wanted me to stay, but I wouldn't. I wanted some turnip greens, whippoorwill peas and cornbread.From then until 1952, Garner's professional music career consisted of playing twice a year at the Big Jamboree at Joe T. Robinson Auditorium in Little Rock. In 1953 he married a Riverside girl, Nellie Vaulner. They settled into the living quarters of his stepfather's store at Riverside and raised a family of eight children there-Nancy Hyatt, Claudia Higginbotham, Sarah Crews, Frances Haverstick, Claude Garner Jr., Jeannie Knight, Betty Garner and Peggy Whitledge. .. Garner continued with his music, playing on various local radio stations, at county fairs, at Senior Centers and entertaining nursing home residents. In 1991, he received the Golden Guitar Award presented by the Texas Country Music Association for his contribution to Country Western Music. He appeared twice on Chuck Dovish's "Traveling Arkansas" show on KTHV, Channel 11 in Little Rock. Dovish and his crew came to Riverside to interview Garner and filmed shows there. "They liked our stove (a wood-burning cook stove) in the kitchen," Garner said. "We had to heat it up and show them how it worked.: ..Garner's wife Nellie said he couldn't make it through the winter without that old cook stove, but Garner was hardly a typical grandfather nodding his days away by a warm fire. "I'm still going strong and playing the harmonica at 85," he said during an interview in 1994. "I've been keeping the law here (at Riverside) for 50 years now. We don't have any crime out here, no break-ins. I guess I've got so many friends in Woodruff County if I was to run for sheriff, I'd get elected." Then he turned thoughtful. "But I guess I'm too old for that. Things are different now. Country music's different. They've got into big money. When I worked for the Opry, each man got 30 minutes to play with his own band, and each band played different, sounded different, it was real, pure country music. Today if you listen to one, you've heard them all."

frequently asked questions (FAQ):

Where is Claude Pearson Garner Sr.'s memorial?
Claude Pearson Garner Sr.'s memorial is located at: Union Cemetery, Union, Woodruff County, USA.
When did Claude Pearson Garner Sr. death?
Claude Pearson Garner Sr. death on 1 Oct 1997 in
Where are the coordinates of the Claude Pearson Garner Sr.'s memorial?
Latitude: 35.2997017
Longitude: -91.2696991

Family Members:

Parent

John Henry Garner

(1866 - 1915)

Sarah Melissa Harrison Garner Lacy

(1879 - 1968)

Siblings

Frank A Garner

(1898 - 1957)

Charlie Wesley Garner

(1902 - 1994)

John Delmus Garner

(1907 - 2001)

Anton K. Garner

(1912 - 1966)

Emmitt Cecil Garner

(1914 - 2002)

Children

Claude Pearson “Bubba” Garner Jr.

(1959 - 2017)

Flowers:

Nearby Cemetories:

1. Union Cemetery
Union, Woodruff County, USA
Coordinate: 35.2997017, -91.2696991

2. Jelks Cemetery
Woodruff County, USA
Coordinate: 35.2916985, -91.2778015

3. New Salem Cemetery
Woodruff County, USA
Coordinate: 35.2949982, -91.2872009

4. Garner Family Cemetery
Patterson, Woodruff County, USA
Coordinate: 35.2677890, -91.2236370

5. Thomas Cemetery
McCrory, Woodruff County, USA
Coordinate: 35.2832985, -91.2052994

6. Morning View Cemetery
Woodruff County, USA
Coordinate: 35.2799988, -91.2039032

7. Mount Olive Cemetery
Augusta, Woodruff County, USA
Coordinate: 35.3582993, -91.2953033

8. Old Fakes Cemetery
McCrory, Woodruff County, USA
Coordinate: 35.2731970, -91.1998590

9. Fakes Cemetery
McCrory, Woodruff County, USA
Coordinate: 35.2785750, -91.1940340

10. Fakes Chapel Cemetery
McCrory, Woodruff County, USA
Coordinate: 35.3273940, -91.1971770

11. Holly Grove Cemetery
Woodruff County, USA
Coordinate: 35.3485985, -91.3230972

12. Ashley Cemetery
Augusta, Woodruff County, USA
Coordinate: 35.2411003, -91.3202972

13. Quiet Cemetery
Augusta, Woodruff County, USA
Coordinate: 35.3114014, -91.3569031

14. Mason Cemetery
Augusta, Woodruff County, USA
Coordinate: 35.2924606, -91.3603241

15. Augusta Memorial Park
Augusta, Woodruff County, USA
Coordinate: 35.2907982, -91.3610992

16. Martin Cemetery
McCrory, Woodruff County, USA
Coordinate: 35.2456017, -91.2005997

17. Pace Burial Site
Tupelo, Jackson County, USA
Coordinate: 35.3721466, -91.2327225

18. Hough Cemetery
Augusta, Woodruff County, USA
Coordinate: 35.2865750, -91.3657800

19. Angus Cemetery
Woodruff County, USA
Coordinate: 35.2358017, -91.2091980

20. Saint Johns Cemetery
McCrory, Woodruff County, USA
Coordinate: 35.2542000, -91.1864014

21. Gray Cemetery
Woodruff County, USA
Coordinate: 35.2289009, -91.2146988

22. Easton Cemetery
Woodruff County, USA
Coordinate: 35.2252998, -91.2217026

23. Huff Cemetery
McCrory, Woodruff County, USA
Coordinate: 35.2425003, -91.1828003

24. Antioch Cemetery
Woodruff County, USA
Coordinate: 35.3927994, -91.2789001