Teaching in Northwest Arkansas

[This is an excerpt from a transcript of interviews between Emmilou Collins Edmonds Adams and her father, Carlos C. Collins, recorded February 14, 1982. Passages in italics are his actual words, although portions may have been omitted for brevity. Portions in brackets [] were added for clarification.]

Emmilou Edmonds –
 
In the meantime [while you were in France], Mother had moved to Arkansas with her family. Is that right?
 
Carlos Collins --
 
Yes, that’s right. Sold the house or traded for a place in Bentonville, Arkansas.
 
I was discharged in Camp Bowie. Golda met me. She had a cousin or someone who lived in Dallas. She went there until I got my final papers and then went to Abilene for a few days with mother & father.
 
Then we went to Bentonville.

 
I needed a job. They thought I could get a job in Bentonville there at the school. They had said something to the county superintendent, asked him if there was an opening for me. He said, “I’ve got a job for you. You’re the type of man I want.”
 
They were having a consolidated school in Benton County. Consolidation was to be at Pea Ridge. He seemed to think I ought to know a lot about schools. I had never taught any school but one Saturday afternoon he had his buggy and his horse and took me over to Pea Ridge. We met with the trustees and apparently they hired me. School was going to open in not too long. I was going to teach Mathematics, I understood, and chemistry in the high school there. There had been a fellow in charge there – had lived there for ages and when school opened the school board came around and told me they wanted me in charge of it. I didn’t know what the other fellow would think about it and I asked what he thought about it. They said he was in favor of it. They brought him in and he was more than in favor of it – said that he didn’t know much about chemistry and that I could teach that and do the other too. So I got that job. I always said they promised me $100 per month. When they were going to put me in charge they reduced it to $90 and called me professor.
 
They were very much interested at that time in consolidated schools. The Farm and Ranch paper got information about that school at Pea Ridge and they sent a man out to interview me. They wrote an article in the magazine , had a picture of a school – it wasn’t our school – I think they had a picture of me.
 
I was doing fine there, going back to Bentonville on weekends. One weekend, Judge Dixon, who was in charge of the school board there in Bentonville, said, “Come over here. I want to talk to you. Let’s go into the bank.” He took me into the conference room. Said, “We’re going to make a change in our principal of the school here and we think you are the man we want.” It was quite a surprise to me and I said, “It’s interesting” or something like that. He wanted to know how much I wanted. I told him a lot more than I was getting at Pea Ridge. That had been the first thing offered me and I took it. I said I want $150 per month -- $1,800 per year anyway, but I wanted them to start paying me now. I guess it was $200 per month. School was out at Pea Ridge, but I wanted to be paid during the summer.
 
That gave me a chance to go to Abilene and finish a course during summer school to get my degree. I just lacked a little when I enlisted in the service. That was all right with him. After I got my degree, I came back.
 
Everybody said I was doing a good job. I didn’t think it was so good. But I found out there were a lot of different factions in the town – some dated way back. One bunch liked me – one bunch told me to do this – one bunch told me to do that. I didn’t make application to be reappointed. I thought if they wanted me they could do so.
 
I went down to the University of Arkansas during the summer, taking some kind of education course – work measurement or something, I don’t know.
 
In the meantime, I found out the Federal Government was going to have some openings for Vocational Teachers or something and they paid from what I was making up higher. I gave one of the school board members as a reference and while I was down at the University I saw in the paper where someone else had been elected. I guess I made them mad. Well, they didn’t say anything to me, but then I didn’t make application. Maybe they were just playing it safe. They knew I was trying for something else. I went back to Bentonville that weekend and some of them said, “We’re so sorry. We can’t get a good man but what they’ll let him go and get someone else.”