Biographical And Historical Memoirs of Pulaski, Jefferson, Lonoke, Faulkner, Grant, Saline, Perry, Garland And Hot Spring Counties, Arkansas
Kay Lynn Pearce
Kay Lynn Pearce, 50 of Little Rock, died February 10, 2005, at her home. She was a life long resident of Little Rock, attended Memphis State University, and graduated from the University of Arkansas at Fayetteville. She was a member of Pulaski Heights Methodist Church. She loved the outdoors, especially hunting and camping. Kay was a caring, thoughtful, and loving person who would do anything for her friends and family. She will be deeply missed by all she touched.
She is predeceased by her parents W. Howard and Betty Pearce, grandparents Herbie and Patsye Branson, and Corrienne Messenger. Survivors include sisters Melissa Pearce of Little Rock and Terri Campbell Korn of Fernandina Beach, FL. One niece, Amber Owens of Little Rock, a nephew, Brian Davis (Kathy) of Southaven, NIS and two great nieces, Jordan and Lauren Davis, Moved Companion Bruce Mace and her loyal dog, Tippy.
A memorial service will be held at Pulaski Heights Methodist Church at 10:00 am on Monday, February 14. In lieu of flowers, please make memorials to the charity of your choice or Pulaski County Humane Society.
Dr. Bryant B. Pake
Dr. Bryant B. Pake, age 84, of Little Rock, died February 5, 2005. He was born in Memphis, TN on May 10, 1920 to the late S.L. and Madge Gathings Pake. He was a mason, having been past master of the Trinity Lodge. He attended Columbia Military Academy in Columbia, TN and the Virginia Military Institute. He was a graduate of the Baylor College of Dentistry and practiced dentistry in Little Rock for over 50 years.
Dr. Pake is survived by his wife of 60 years, Wyelda Pake; two sons, Bryant and his wife Barbara of New Hampshire and David and his wife Melody of Maumelle; four grandsons, Bryant Glenn, Daniel, Brady and his wife Christy, and Jason; and one great grandson, Tyler.
Private Graveside Services were held on Tuesday.
Memorials may be made to The Donald W. Reynolds Center on Aging, 4301 West Markham Slot 748, Little Rock, AR 72205, or Alzheimer's Arkansas, 140411 West Markham, Little Rock, AR 72205.
Dr. Linda K. Overstreet
Dr. Linda K. Overstreet, 64, of Little Rock, daughter of the late J.C. and Helen Overstreet, died Sunday, February 13, 2005. She was a member of the Pulaski Heights Presbyterian Church, and a member of the Little Rock Chapter of the Daughters of the American Revolution.
She was an honor graduate of Hall High School and graduated Summa Cum Laude from the University of Arkansas at Little Rock with a BA degree in English and Languages, where she was a member of Phi Kappa Phi Fraternity.
She earned the Masters and Doctor of Philosophy degrees in English from the University of Arkansas at Fayetteville, where she was a member of Phi Beta Kappa Fraternity.
Her Dissertation was "This Globe, Full of Figures, " an archetypal study of Virginia Wolf's, THE WAVES.
She taught English at the University of Arkansas at Little Rock.
The body will be cremated and a graveside service will be held 1 p.m. Friday, Feb. 18, at Plumerville, Arkansas. Arrangements are by Ruebel Funeral Home.
James Cecil Moseley
James Cecil Moseley, 85, of Little Rock, died Sunday, February 6, 2005. He was born in Decatur, Alabama. Cecil joined the U.S. Army during World War II serving in the European, African, and Middle Eastern Theatres with the Darby Rangers. Sergeant Moseley received the Purple Heart after being wounded, and also received the Bronze Star and four battle stars as a light mortar Crewman. After the war, and a period of recovery from wounds received in the war, he returned to Little Rock in 1946 where he started his career in the heating and air conditioning business, working 19 years for Pfeifer Plumbing and Heating Company. In 1976 he started the Cecil Moseley Air Conditioning and Heating Company, which is still in operation today. He was a member of the Iron Springs Lodge #342, a 32 Degree Mason and a Shriner. He loved being with his family as well as hunting and fishing, and was once served as a Deacon and Elder at First Presbyterian before moving to Westover Hills Presbyterian Church.
He is survived by his wife of 59 years, Ruth Moseley of Little Rock, one son Jim Moseley and wife Pat of Paron, one daughter Sarah Jane Greubel and husband Gary of Ferndale, two brothers Pete and wife Pat of South Lyon, Michigan, Bob and wife Helen of Redfield, two sisters, Billie Fawcett of Decatur, Alabama, Doris Fortner and husband Farris of Bryant, and 5 grandchildren, Blake, Forrest, and Lisa Moseley, and Nathan and Melissa Greubel, and 2 great-grandchildren, Kaeden and Kylie.
There will be a visitation Tuesday evening from 5 to 7pm at Ruebel Funeral Home. There will be a graveside service Wednesday 10am at Roselawn Cemetery with full military honors, followed by a memorial service at 11am at Westover Hills Presbyterian Church officiated by Reverends James and Debbie Freeman.
Arrangements are under the direction of Ruebel Funeral Home.
Memorials in lieu of flowers should be made to Arkansas Hospice, 2200 Fort Roots Drive, North Little Rock 72114, or The American Parkinson Disease Association, Inc., 2150 Hylan Boulevard Suite 4-B, Staten Island, New York 10305.
Virginia Rollwage Grobmyer Mitchell
Virginia Rollwage Grobmyer Mitchell, 91, widow of William Starr Mitchell, Jr., died Saturday, February 19, 2005.
Born with a positive spirit, nurtured by a grandmother who taught her God is Love, Virginia was gifted with intellect and given the talents of writing, leadership and organization. Her home and family, the Episcopal Church, community organizations that invited her membership, and her eclectic array of friends benefited from these gifts.
Virginia's life was affected by every major event of the 20th century. She recalled when some of her German relatives in Arkansas changed their names during WWI. In 1931 she learned, a few weeks before departure for college, that the Great Depression would keep her from attending Radcliffe College in Cambridge, MA. Soon after Pearl Harbor, with a new infant and young toddler, she boarded a train to travel with her husband to three different states as he trained infantrymen for WWII. Events that followed the 1957 Little Rock desegregation of Central High closed the high school where her son would have had his junior year in 1958?59, when all Little Rock high schools were closed. It also propelled her husband Will into leadership of the STOP campaign (Stop This Outrageous Purge), for which they expected he would lose his job. Instead, his leadership and the STOP campaign reopened the Little Rock schools. A decade later their son landed for a nine-month tour of duty in Vietnam in the first days of the TET offensive.
These challenges, and others to come, she met with her characteristic grace and regal determination. She kept the secret of not being able to enter Radcliffe from her older sister, who was packing to return to a second year in college. Her travels in WWII she related as great adventures (not hardships) from an aunt's house in St. Louis to windswept Lawton, Oklahoma, to a tiny apartment in Florida. Hers and Will's response to a son in Vietnam was By Lines, a newsletter they produced with three other couples that sent the state's servicemen good news from Arkansas.
Her dream of a college education she finally accomplished after a hiatus of six decades. She had received her associate degree from Little Rock Junior College in 1933; it was in 1992, at age 78, when she completed her BA at UALR. She accepted her diploma, at the same time her oldest grandson accepted his, from the hand of her daughter Frances, a member of the UALR history department.
Virginia was born in Forrest City, Arkansas on November 24, 1913. She was the third of five children of Tolise Rollwage and John Rudolph Grobmyer. She arrived in Little Rock in 1926 when her father moved the family to open a lumber company. At Little Rock High School, now Central, she was vice president of her 1931 graduating class. In 1981 she headed up their 50" reunion, a success that led to another three reunions over the next 15 years.
She marriage Will Mitchell, a young attorney, at her Charles Street home in February 1938. They began their marriage life at his family home on 1404 Scott Street. They moved into their Hawthorne Road home in 1946, where Virginia lived for the next 59 years.
Virginia served as vice president of the Little Rock Junior League, board president of the Elizabeth Mitchell Children's Home, and president of the Aesthetic Club, the oldest women's study club west of the Mississippi.
The Episcopal Church was her sustenance. In the 1980s a new congregation was forming in west Little Rock and searching for what they called "missionary members." Virginia eagerly responded to help St. Margaret's Episcopal Church open, saying that she had always wished she could be a missionary.
In her life as an Episcopalian, she was president of the Arkansas Churchwomen and a vestry member of both Trinity Cathedral and St. Margaret's. Her Trinity vestry tenure was soon after women were first permitted to serve. In January 2005, she graduated from the Education for Ministry (EFM) Program, awarded by the the University of the South in Sewanee, Tennessee.
The dining room table in her home has seated six generations of Mitchells. Around that table Virginia and Will passed on their faith, the power of family connections and stories, and the hospitality and manners of their southern tradition. But when southern traditions conflicted with doing justice, loving mercy, and walking humbly with thy God, their children saw them thoughtfully depart from those ways, modeling respect for all.
The strong connections of love and friendship that Virginia built through her life were blind to age. During her last illness she was nurtured by people of all generations who, with a gift of food, flowers or their time, received, in return, her gratefulness and loving encouragement for their own lives.
Virginia was preceded in death by her husband Will, (November 1981), by her parents, and by three siblings: Elizabeth G. Stanton, John R. Grobmyer, and Dorothy G. Tedford Bowen, all of Little Rock. She is survived by her sister Marilyn G. McLean of Alexandria, VA, and her children Frances Ross and her husband Bob Ross, Virginia Starr Mitchell and her husband George West, Marilyn Mitchell and Jeff Llewellyn, all of Little Rock; and Jim Mitchell and his wife Libby, of Vassalboro, ME.
Her nine grandchildren are: Mitchell Ross and wife Kelly, Virginia (Ginny) Deuschle and husband John, Mary Starr Ross, Logan West and Cane West, all of Little Rock; Charlie Mitchell and Lisa Prosienski of Washington, D.C.; and Elizabeth Mitchell and her husband Alex Kriekhaus, Will Mitchell and his wife Kristan and Emily Mitchell and Michael Ritter, all of Portland, Maine.
Her eleven great grandchildren are Courtney and Mitchell Ross Jr; Starr, Lila, Blakeslee and Hollis Virginia Deuschle, all of Little Rock; Hannah Stein, Sophie and Abigail Kreikhaus, and James and Anna Virginia Mitchell, all of Portland, Maine.
A memorial service will be celebrated at 10:00 on Tuesday, February 22, at Trinity Episcopal Cathedral at East 17th Street in downtown Little Rock. A reception will follow at St. Margaret's Episcopal Church.
In lieu of flowers, Virginia asked, for those wishing to make memorials, that gifts be made to Centers for Youth and Families, P.O. Box 251801, Little Rock, Arkansas, 72205 or St. Margaret's Episcopal Church, 20900 Chenal Parkway, LR 72223
Royce O. Griffin, Jr.
Royce O. Griffin Jr., 58, a native of Little Rock and a nationally recognized expert in securities law, died Sunday, Feb. 13, after a brief illness. Griffin was a partner in Griffin & Block Law Firm.
The general counsel to the North American Securities Administrators Association from 2000-2003, Griffin worked to protect investors against fraud via a multi-state task force he conceived and helped structure to investigate faulty research reports generated by investment banking firms. He testified as an expert witness in securities lawsuits nationwide.
As Deputy Attorney General under Bill Clinton, 1977-1980, Griffin created the agency's first antitrust division with a grant he won from the Department of Justice. He successfully prosecuted antitrust claims against Arkansas dairies in a school-milk price-fixing case and handled complex multi-state federal cases, public utility proceedings and constitutional challenges. After briefly serving as Assistant Securities Commissioner for the state, he was hired as the Colorado Securities Commissioner and moved to Denver. He also served as senior counsel to the Telecommunications and Finance Subcommittee in the U.S. House of Representatives and as Special Counsel to the New Mexico Securities Division, where he rewrote the division's rules before returning to the Arkansas Attorney General's Office in 1991, where he was Chief Deputy under Winston Bryant.
Griffin attended public schools in Little Rock and earned a Bachelor of Arts degree in history from Harvard University and his juris doctorate from the University of Texas Law School, where he was on the Texas Law Review. After law school and a brief stint with the Owens, McHaney and McHaney Law Firm, Griffin was made senior law clerk in the U.S. District Court in Little Rock. It was at this time that Griffin began what would become his legendary forays into Chinese cooking, serving feasts to guests seated at his ping-pong table, the only table in his home large enough to accommodate his friends. In 1981, Griffin, forehead wrapped in his customary red bandana, prepared a 10-course meal for more than 100 people at a celebration of the 10th anniversary of Arkansas Consumer Research, commandeering the kitchen of the old Fu Lin Restaurant downtown. As each course was brought out, dignitaries, including future President Bill Clinton and Attorney General Jim Guy Tucker, gave a toast.
Griffin was an avid fisherman all of his life and more recently enjoyed sailing at Lake Ouachita. His wife, Brenda Lilly, and their dogs, Nato, Pepper, Kona and Lucy, were his greatest loves. He enjoyed adventures in good eating, reading science fiction and watching movies.
Besides his wife, Griffin is survived by an aunt, Bertha Hargis, and several cousins. He will be remembered by his friends for his brilliant mind, an often acerbic wit, his love of rock and roll, his hot beef shreds and his quiet generosity.
The family wishes to thank Dr. Paul Zelnick and the staff of St. Vincent Infirmary's coronary care unit for their attention and care.
A memorial service will be held at 10 a.m. on Thursday, Feb. 17, at Ruebel Funeral Home. The family will be receiving at their home. Memorials may be made to the Pulaski County Humane Society and the Union Rescue Mission.
