♪ A song: Can’t Stop Won’t Stop — by Owen Temple, further down this page
Life as they lived it
Not the dates — the person. What the records happen to show of work, habits, possessions and the odd episode. Each line says where it comes from.
1910 In December 1910, engaged to Capt. Richard E. Gruner of the First Regiment, Missouri National Guard, she eloped with T. L. L. Temple Jr. of Texarkana on the Saturday before Christmas. The jilted captain's fellow officers drew up formal resolutions of sympathy, and the story ran under the headline "Cracked Troth in Resolution."
episode · Newspaper clipping, St. Louis dispatch of 24 December 1910
1911 Arriving at Pineland as a bride in January 1911, she was twenty when a mill hand came to the house asking the cook whether the boss was home, but not to tell the old woman there was to be a party.
episode · Her 1959 letter to her son, published in the Pine Bough, September 2002
Her parents sent her horse and buggy to Pineland. When the horse fell sick a veterinarian from Beaumont packed it in ice and it died; the story went round town that they had killed it with too much iced lemonade.
episode · Her 1959 letter to her son, published in the Pine Bough, September 2002
Not knowing that milk had to turn before it would churn, she churned fresh milk for three days in her spare time. When the butter finally came the baby pulled the churn over, and she sat down and cried.
episode · Her 1959 letter to her son, published in the Pine Bough, September 2002
In the long winter after her first baby was born she would look around Pineland for the chimney with the most smoke and take the baby to that house to visit, since whoever lived there would be at home.
habit · Her 1959 letter to her son, published in the Pine Bough, September 2002
Records behind this page
1900 United States Federal Census
Year: 1900; Census Place: Texarkana, Miller, Arkansas; Roll: 68; Page: 27B; Enumeration District: 0122; FHL microfilm: 1240068
1940 United States Federal Census
Year: 1940; Census Place: Los Angeles, Los Angeles, California; Roll: T627_402; Page: 62B; Enumeration District: 60-321
Ancestry.com, 1910 United States Federal Census
Year: 1910; Census Place: Texarkana Ward 3, Miller, Arkansas; Roll: T624_57; Page: 21A; Enumeration District: 0070; FHL microfilm: 1374070
Ancestry.com, 1920 United States Federal Census
Year: 1920; Census Place: Texarkana, Miller, Arkansas; Roll: T625_72; Page: 15A; Enumeration District: 71; Image: .Ancestry · subscription
Birth dateabt 1892
Birth placeArkansas
Residence date1920
Residence placeTexarkana, Miller, Arkansas
Ancestry.com, Arkansas, Birth Certificates, 1914-1917 (Lehi, UT, USA: Ancestry.com Operations, Inc., 2019)
Arkansas Department of Vital Records; Little Rock, Arkansas; Birth Certificates
Ancestry.com, Arkansas, Divorces, 1923-1969 (Lehi, UT, USA: Ancestry.com Operations, Inc., 2019)
Arkansas Department of Vital Records; Little Rock, Arkansas; Divorces; Year: 1925; Film Number: 2
Ancestry.com, Arkansas, U.S., Divorce Index, 1923-1939 (Provo, UT, USA: Ancestry.com Operations Inc, 2005)
Ancestry.com, Social Security Death Index
Number: [SSN redacted]; Issue State: California; Issue Date: Before 1951
Ancestry.com, Texas, Death Certificates, 1903-1982 (Provo, UT, USA: Ancestry.com Operations, Inc., 2013)
Texas Department of State Health Services; Austin Texas, USA
Ancestry.com, U.S., Find a Grave Index, 1600s-Current (Lehi, UT, USA: Ancestry.com Operations, Inc., 2012)
Ancestry.com, U.S., Social Security Applications and Claims Index, 1936-2007 (Provo, UT, USA: Ancestry.com Operations, Inc., 2015)
Ancestry.com, U.S., World War II Draft Cards Young Men, 1940-1947 (Lehi, UT, USA: Ancestry.com Operations, Inc., 2011)
National Archives at St. Louis; St. Louis, Missouri; WWII Draft Registration Cards for California, 10/16/1940-03/31/1947; Record Group: Records of the Selective Service System, 147; Box: 474
Arkansas Marriage Index, 1933-1939
Arkansas, County Marriages Index, 1837-1957
FamilySearch; Salt Lake City, Utah; Arkansas County Marriages, 1838–1957
Newspapers.com - The Los Angeles Times - 1910-12-27 - Page 2 (Los Angeles, California: The Los Angeles Times, 1910-12-27)
1910-12-27Newspapers.com · subscription
Texas Death Index, 1903-2000
Texas Department of Health; Austin, Texas, USA; Texas Death Indexes, 1903-2000
U.S. City Directories, 1821-1989 (Beta)
Web: Kentucky, Find A Grave Index, 1776-2011
Research notes
Working notes from the research, kept verbatim — what was read, what it proved, what stays open. Many open with a line grading the parentage; what the grades mean.
Research note · 6 Aug 2026
PROOF CLASS: BOTH PARENTS = DIRECT (6 Sep 2026) - her 1980 Texas death certificate, read on the image, states father 'William C. Crouch' (this tree has William Benedict; the initial is recorded) and mother 'Hallie Edwards'. Signed by her husband.
AUDITED 6 Aug 2026 — ◎ A SECOND MARRIAGE IS MISSING FROM THIS RECORD, AND THE GAP IS BOUNDED.
This record holds TWO spouse families: F24 with [68] Thomas Lewis Latane Temple (married 24 Dec 1910, Miller Co., Ark.; DIVORCED 4 Apr 1925, Miller Co., Ark.) and F25 with [354] Edgar Howard Donaldson (married 21 Feb 1939, Pulaski Co., Ark.). Both dates are read from this database.
★ The 1961 Feild compilation of Texarkana pioneer family histories (extracted text held in ancestry/sources/; recorded in ancestry/db-write-queue.md, where it was matched field-by-field against this database with four independent agreements) numbers DONALDSON her THIRD husband and TEMPLE her FIRST. ☞ Two spouse families are therefore an INCOMPLETE record, not a complete one, and this note exists so that the omission does not read as completeness.
☞ THE UNIDENTIFIED SECOND HUSBAND MARRIED HER BETWEEN 4 APR 1925 AND 21 FEB 1939. Her residence facts inside that window are Texarkana, Ark. (1927) and Nacogdoches, Texas (1935); she is at Los Angeles, Calif. by 1 Apr 1940.
⛔ HE IS NOT IDENTIFIED. No name, no date and no place is asserted here — the Feild compilation does not name him, and no record naming him has been read.
★ NAMED NEXT DOCUMENT: THE 1930 CENSUS. This record carries census citations for 1900, 1910, 1920 and 1940 and NONE for 1930 (measured in this database, 6 Aug 2026) — consistent with her being enumerated in 1930 under the unknown surname. Her children [106] Helen Hal Christine Temple (b. 7 Dec 1911) and [69] Thomas Lewis Latane Temple (b. 12 Dec 1914) would be in that household and would still be surnamed Temple, which is the way in.
⛔ INSTRUMENT NOTE, 6 Aug 2026: two FamilySearch record searches were run for this and BOTH FAILED TO BIND THEIR FILTERS — a given-name search returned 12,507 rows, and a 1925-1939 Arkansas marriage search returned 5,686 rows that were all GenealogyBank obituaries of 1980-2015. Those are INSTRUMENT FAILURES, not evidence of absence, and nothing in this note rests on them.
⛔ ALSO OBSERVED, NOT ACTIONED: family F25 carries TWO Marriage events (E8086 dated 21 Feb 1939 and E8087 undated), same place, which is a duplicate-fact defect awaiting a decision.
*(was, 4 Sep 2026: BOTH PARENTS = UNDERDETERMINED - the flags read 1 but this note never addresses her parentage; upgrades on the 1900 census, cited here and unread.)* REGRADED 6 Sep 2026. TEXAS DEATH CERTIFICATE, Galveston Co., cert. 108342, filed 22 Dec 1980 (Ancestry coll. 2272 rec. 969350; image 33154_b063092-00567), READ ON THE IMAGE: Hal Christine Donaldson, F, d. 18 Dec 1980 at St. Mary's Hospital, Galveston; b. 10/5/1891, birthplace Arkansas; married, surviving spouse Edgar Donaldson; res. 3226 Antilles, Galveston; item 17 FATHER'S NAME 'William C. Crouch'; item 18 MOTHER'S MAIDEN NAME 'Hallie Edwards'; item 19 INFORMANT 'Edgar Donaldson'; cremation 19 Dec 1980, Memorial Oaks Crematory. * 'Hallie Edwards' is [109] Harriet 'Hallie' Edwards under the exact nickname the 1900 enumerator also wrote, with her maiden surname. * CONFLICT RECORDED, NOT RESOLVED: the father's middle initial reads C, not B. The identification does not rest on it - the 1900 census (family 562, 809 Buch St) states her a DAUGHTER of a head named William Crouch married to HALLIE - and the informant is her husband writing his wife's father's name 44 years after that man died. * The certificate carries her SSN; the saved crops exclude that row. Captures: sources/clusters-ab-2026-09-06/txdc-1980-donaldson-hal-christine-cert108342-{HEADER-SSN-excluded,PARENTS-items17-19}.png. Register K478.
INFORMANT: item 19 'Edgar Donaldson' - her surviving husband, writing his wife's father's name forty-four years after that man died. Second-hand, and the distance is the reason the father's middle initial conflict is recorded rather than resolved.