Biography of Ethel Glines Watkins, St Francis County, AR

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Submitted by: Paul V Isbell
        Date: 19 Nov 2008
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The story of a successful business began many years ago when in Stuttgart, Mr. &
Mrs. Charles Troy Watkins, Sr.. in 1928. the proud parents of two sons and two
daughters, were living comfortbly there. But on Aug. 15, 1928, Mr. Watkins
passed away, and Mrs. Watkins was faced with running the Merchants Cooperative
Delivery on her own as primary breadwinner. The former, Ethel Glines,
immediately grasped the situation, and grasped the reins with amazing energy and
initiative. In the double-deck, horse drawn delivery business, she progessed
thru the depression, from the coooperative to a creamery, then into pastry, and
finally into the caf‚ business. Highly successful, she thought she might retire,
with rearing her four children-Troy Jr., now a Forrest City businessman; Helen,
now Mrs. Lee Berry of Stuttgart; Eloise, now Mrs. Paul Graves and a successful
Forrest City business woman herself; and Chandler G., a partner in the Watkins
Cafe-and she had pushed to the front in a highly competitive business, It was
now 1940. Three years later an event took place in Forrest City which was to
change her entire life. At that time, T. J. Aycock closed the well-known
Aycock's Caf‚ on East Broadway in Forrest City. When it did not re-open, Mr.
Lloyd Summers, who had known her in Stuttgart, called her in Chicago on Sep. 23,
1943. when she replied "I'm living in the land of milk and honey, I don't think
I'll ever work again. " But on April 15, 1944. she was in Forrest City searching
for scarce labor during the wartime, and learning the wartime point system. Mrs.
Watkins became so successful, that the firm was widely-known as the best eating
place between Litttle Rock and Memphis. Mrs. Watkins has gone into retirement
again, but not until she had given Forrest City the Forrest Hills Supper Club
and the first Blue & White Cafe. She is still a frequent visitor to the cafe,
which still proudly bears her name, and now her son Chan and her son-in-law Paul
H. Graves are now partners.


SOURCE:
HISTORY of ST. FRANCIS COUNTY, ARKANSAS, 1954 - Robert W. Chowning

Copyright, with Permission: Weston McCollum Lewey, Publisher
-Times Herald Publishing-Forrest City, Arkansas