the underview.
The underview is an exploration of the shaping of our place viewed through the medium of bikes, land, and people to discover community wholeness.
The underview is a series of discussions within and about the community of Northwest Arkansas. The underview explores our collective understanding and beliefs about the place we live.
These discussions will include topics that are foundational to the identity of our region, the history of our communities, the truth of conflict with the land and its people, and the current challenges and opportunities for our community.
the underview.
the Van Winkle Family with Barbara Carr (ep 2, 37).
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We close this season with the voice of Barbara Carr, great-granddaughter of Aaron Anderson “Rock” Van Winkle, an enslaved boy brought to Northwest Arkansas in the 1830s who became one of the region’s most skilled builders after Emancipation. His hands helped construct homes, courthouses, churches, and Old Main at the University of Arkansas, yet his name was nearly erased from public memory.
Barbara’s story is one of pain and perseverance, of uncovering the truth about her family’s role in shaping this place, and of reclaiming a legacy long left out of the historical record. Her voice carries the emotional weight of inheritance, the clarity of lived truth, and the call to remember, repair, and restore. As the final voice of the season, she brings the story of Northwest Arkansas full circle, from the erased graves of the enslaved to the living presence of their descendants.
About the underview:
The underview is an exploration of the development of our Communal Theology of Place viewed through the medium of bikes, land, and people to discover community wholeness.
Website: theunderview.com
Follow us on Instagram: @underviewthe
Host: @mikerusch
Send in a voice message: https://podcasters.spotify.com/pod/show/theunderview/message
I'm still learning every day something about Rock Van Winkle and that how he was a part of my family. I wanna know why he wasn't ever discussed, why no one ever said anything, negative or positive. They never said, and all I heard was from the past was about, it wasn't a person, it was people that brought the wood from War Eagle , all the way to Fayetteville to build Old Main And I was like, what? I couldn't believe that.
mike.:Well, you are listening to the underview, an exploration in the shaping of our place. My name is Mike Rusch, and today we arrive at the Final Voice in this season long search for a more full story of Northwest Arkansas. I think it's fitting that we end where in many ways we began. At the start of this journey, we stood on a gravel road in Western Benton County beside a cemetery, the burial grounds for enslaved people on land that was once owned by Hugh Allen Anderson, one of the very first white settlers to northwest Arkansas. Who brought approximately 32 enslaved people with him to land that's located close to what is Northwest Arkansas Regional Airport today. One of those people brought to northwest Arkansas was Aaron Anderson Rock Van Winkle. The cemetery there most likely holds members of Rock Van Winkle's family, they were among the first men and women brought to Northwest Arkansas, and their names are only partially known and for too long their stories have not been told. Today, we close the season with a voice from that lineage. Barbara Carr is the fifth generation descendant of Aaron Anderson Rock Van Winkle. An enslaved boy brought to this land in the 1830s, who after emancipation became known as one of our region's most skilled and respected builders. His hands shaped the homes, the churches, the cities, and even one of the most iconic buildings in the state of Arkansas, Old Main on the campus of the University of Arkansas, and yet his name remains largely unrecognized in public memory. Barbara's voice, brings us full circle from the quiet graves of the forgotten to the living presence of a woman who remembers. Her reflections offer something that no historian or archive can fully provide. The emotional weight of that inheritance, the clarity of a lived truth and the beauty of reclaiming what was erased. She helps us feel the ache of not knowing, the power of remembering and the sacred responsibility to pass on the truth of our place. Her voice matters not just because of who she descends from, but because of what she embodies, the arc of this entire season. In Barbara, we find the intersection of land and labor, erasure and dignity. And her story closes this season because it completes the story, a season that began with the removal and displacement ends with a descendant who is reclaiming her family's place in this land's memory. And this is what it looks like to repair. This is what it means to belong. This is the story of Northwest Arkansas told, not just through policy or ideology, but through the people who endured, who built and who remember, this interview doesn't just conclude our season. It embodies it because embedded in Barbara's voice is the arc of everything we've been learning. That land is not just property labor is not just economy, and belonging is not just proximity, it's memory, acknowledgement, and repair. And that's why we talk about this idea of a communal theology of place because in this world where people in communities are increasingly fragmented, I believe that the road to wholeness begins with reckoning with the land, remembering our shared stories, and repairing what has been broken. That is what Barbara is doing, not just for her family, but she's doing it for all of us. In a season that has explored race and land and labor, power and belonging through the voices of scholars and pastors, politicians, organizers, CEOs, this is where we're gonna end with someone whose ancestors had no voice, who now speaks through strength, through honesty, and with grace. This is a story of northwest Arkansas, and this is how it should be told. All right. A lot to work through today. Let's get started. I have the incredible privilege today of sharing a table with Mrs. Barbara Carr. Mrs. Carr. You are the descendant of Aaron Anderson Rock Van Winkle who was one of the very first people that was brought to Northwest Arkansas with Hugh Allen Anderson. And I sit across the table with you just a bit. It's a little surreal, if I'm honest, that we were able to connect and find a storyteller and a descendant of that. I'm incredibly honored that you'd uh, and be willing to share your story. Mrs. Carr, thank you for being a part of this conversation. And I would just say welcome.
barbara carr.:You're very welcome. Appreciate you asking and having me here.
mike.:Absolutely. This is your story and so I would love to ask some questions around what you want to tell about your story and maybe you could introduce yourself a little bit, give a little bit of your background and maybe we can start there.
barbara carr.:Okay. My name is Barbara Carr. I've lived here in Fayetteville all 71 years of my life. All my family is still here. I. I started to get into the ancestry of our family a few years back. My sister was wanting to start a family tree when we were growing up, we never heard or a conversation of Rock Van Winkle. And I was asked did I recognize that name? And I told the person that I did not. And that's when I learned about Rock Van Winkle and the history in behind him, what he did, what his job was, where it was from my mother, I didn't, we didn't, it wasn't a conversation. It, it was never bought up. And I have relatives in Nebraska. And that's an another sister off of my mother's side of the family. There's 10 of them, 10 sisters, no boys, 10 sisters. And out of those 10 sisters, this is the first that I'm hearing about a Rock Van Winkle. So I'm learning as I go along of who and what he did and who he was, the history and behind where he came from. And my cousin also, I keep him informed in what goes on because his mother also didn't talk, discuss or mention Rock Van Winkle. It's all strange to us right now, to this day. I'm just learning like everybody else. This is all new to me. It's new to my cousin. We went to the Shiloh museum in Springdale' cause we wanted to know. And then when we go and we see this, these newspaper articles on Rock, and I said, that's who we're doing. But he's all up on this wall. Different pages, not just one. There's a lot of 'em. All the way around. And then when Mr. Moore took me to War Eagle, where it all started from, I was amazed of that far back of remnants of their past is still up there. I didn't know this. Nobody's ever told me this. I, but Jerry Moore found it out and knew all about it and took me there and introduced me and we walked. And we talked and they have plaques out there to tell you things about what's going on, what happened here, what this creek is called, and the whole nine yard. And that's, I'm I, like I say, I'm still learning. I'm learning every day something about Rock Van Winkle and that how he was a part of my family. I wanna know why he wasn't ever discussed, why no one ever said anything, you know about him, negative or positive. They never said, and all I heard was from the past was about, it wasn't a person, it was people that brought the wood from War, Eagle, Bentonville, all the way to Fayetteville to build Old Main And I was like, what? I couldn't believe that.
mike.:I'm curious what are the stories that you told about how your family 'cause you've lived in Southeast Fayetteville basically your whole life. Is that correct? What are the stories maybe from your family about . Why they chose Southeast Fayetteville or Yeah. How did that become home when it did?
barbara carr.:That's a real good question for me because I asked that same question. Where did we start out from? Because in my memory, as far back as a child as I can remember, I think I can go back as far as four and five years old. I can remember. And I've always been in that same home in that same spot. And everybody in the neighborhood were there. The candy store, miss miss Naomi. She was the ice cream woman. She sold candy. You look through the window and you tell her what she wants and she gives you them little baby brown sacks and you tell her You want two of this right and three of this right here, you know? And the Barkers the Logans Aunt Joe, the Lackeys, the Taylors, the Perry's, everybody lived on that street. Nobody lives on that street anymore. Everything's gone. The Barkers are still there. I don't know how we got there. I don't know where we came from, which, I have four older brothers. I got one brother left out of four of them, and there's only one left. I don't know anything beyond that. I don't know. I've just always been there and know that the people that I grew up with were there also. Nobody moved in. They were already there. So I just, being a child thought that's where everybody just, you know, that's where we were. I don't know how, and where, how they came from Bentonville how they met their husbands. I don't know any of that. I don't know.
mike.:When you think about the values that your family asked you to live up to, or the values that they held as close, what do you remember from that? What were some of the family values that stick with you at this point in your life?
barbara carr.:We had cousins that we used to hang out with, and we were told old by mom, daddy wasn't much. He was there but not there. And that was relatives off of his side of the family that we grew up and hung out with. But really nothing. No introduction to anything of where they came from before Fayetteville or growing up together. It wasn't anything. That's what I say. We say what is the secret of this family? Why won't anybody talk to us about our side of the family? We wanna know. And what I'm learning now is the most in my whole life that I've ever learned about any side, but we haven't even tackled my dad's side of the family. This is just off of mom's side of the family. I don't know what about over here, but where they lived. If I know some of the girls didn't live together, the pretty girls were placed with people of, I wanna say better to do than us and the dark ones where the girls were the ones that cleaned the houses and did the washing and kept the people's children and stuff like that. It was a divided thing. And it was all about a color of how light you were, of how dark you was. Now my mother was light. I'm the darkest, there's only two of us in our family that was considered dark and I was darky, blacky, little black thing little black dot. And that's what I heard growing up. And I had always been ashamed of how dark I was compared to my sisters and my brother. My oldest brother he had red hair and freckle. My brother Bobby, he was dark. Me and him were the only two dark people. So I grew up with knowing that my colored mattered. Why? And I still don't understand today and I'm 71. I still don't understand why my color has anything to do with anything. My sister, the youngest one, she's as light as you. And growing up she had, her eyes were hazel to light brown. They would change and she was the favorite because she was a light colored girl, baby child, and she got more attention and affection than the rest me. I was next to her in age, you know, and, but I just had to just let that go.
mike.:Let me ask you, I'm curious, growing up with these stories when you learned about this connection back to Rock Van Winkle, what does that mean to you? What place does that hold within the rest of your family memories and stories now that you've come to know this?
barbara carr.:When I found out about Rock, I was proud because I've dealt with prejudice, not from everybody, not from all people. But the people, and believe it or not, even when I worked at the store, the grocery store at Walmart, I worked at Deli and I hadn't experienced prejudiced like I did at in that store. Now I'm in my fifties now when I'm working at the store and how so many people came in and judged me because of my color, and I was called outta my name. When I wear a name badge every day, it says Barbara, biggest day across it. It's visible, the whole nine yard. But I was called every black this and black that, that you can imagine. And I'm like I don't see color. I see people, and I still, today, I don't, I can't understand people that are like that, that judge you because of my color.
mike.:You mentioned that you were proud of this aspect.
barbara carr.:Proud. Proud.
mike.:Yeah. Growing up in this environment that you're describing, how does that change how you look back maybe at your family's story? What brings that pride, or how would you describe that pride?
barbara carr.:Because that white man didn't see a difference between him and a black man. He saw that black man as being a businessman that made money, that is a worker that can profit from him, that taught him and showed him that if you give me this land over here and tell me to work it as I want, it worked. Period. And I did what he asked and he saw what I did and saw improvement development. Our customers the whole nine yard, and they all had to be referred to Rock. Rock. You need to see Rock, you need to talk to Rock. They didn't judge him. They, I just thought it was after I found that out that there's still land over here in what is this little town over here? Johnson. I gave him 40 acres and a mule. And I said, so some of our property is still over there. Has anybody checked on that to see where it was and what's being done. But Johnson is so much more now. But I wondered that and you know, it's not anything that I could do about it, but I'd like, it'd be nice to know, you know, where's the 40 acres? What was done? What's built on the 40 acres? Was it something that Rock did or you know, but I was just proud that it was a black man. And you still don't get that today. And see these people came with a plan, Rock had a plan that this is what I'm going to do and I'm gonna see how far it goes. And if it goes as far as I think that it will, then this is what we going to do. And that's what he did. And I was proud of him. I'd like to known him'cause he stood up.
mike.:You say with this pride around your family story, what place do you feel like this story holds or should hold within the story of how Northwest Arkansas has come to be?
barbara carr.:The importance of this is for me is to inform anybody that is interested in the history of the past high, how it was, where it was, who it was. And that's what I try to do when I show up, is to represent, to teach, to inform. That's what I do. That's what that, that's my purpose is to do that. I don't know why they never talked about that. Why were, why am I just now hearing about rock? You could have told me about rock when I was driving at 15, 16 to Bentonville to drop you off at these people places up here. And what is with these people up here? Where do they fit in? My fit in mine? Information here about relatives, but all I know is that, that there are cousins off of my mother's side and I don't know where they came from. I don't know what the mixture is, but their elders were very light skinned people also, and I remember them from five and six years old when we were kids.
mike.:Have you had the opportunity to visit Rock Van Winkles grave in Bentonville?
barbara carr.:Have not just his home, his homestead, where it was. Now if he's in the same cemetery where everybody else is, like my grandmother, those cousins in Bentonville that I'm telling you about he, if he's in there, I didn't know who he was at the time, but now I know who he is. I'm pretty sure we can go and find where his grave site is, in which it is there because Jerry Moore called me and wanted to know if I had anybody in the family that needed or wanted plots. They got two plots up there, and we just have to prove to our family that we're relative to get those two plots to be buried in.
mike.:There's one known picture of Rock van Winkle. Have you seen that? Just in these pictures, and I can't even really see him because he's so black. This is, that's the photo. If you can see it, we will post this.
barbara carr.:Wow. That's the clearest I've seen that.
mike.:He's back in the shadows, Uhhuh. How do you, what is it like to look at that photo?
barbara carr.:That they included him, that he was included? Anybody else? He's out in the open. He can be seen. Not the best, you know, but back in that time this was a good picture. And what, just the, what I'm seeing now, he the reflection that I'm seeing, I got a cousin off Aunt Louise, it's St. Louis and Larry that resembles that man's head and face. He reminds me of Larry in that picture. Yeah.
mike.:In the report that Jerry Moore produced, it says that that Rock Van Winkle is credited with building hundreds of homes and businesses, countless structures, including Arkansas's Old Maine that he was in all of the towns of northwest Arkansas, Fayetteville, Bentonville, Springdale, Rogers, Huntsville, and smaller villages like Elm Springs that grew at the time. And then by the 1880s, they were producing timber to support new railroad to towns like Eureka Springs. This is not an insignificant role in the building of a region, in the building of wealth in a region. When I read that to you, I'm curious, how do you feel about that role of your family and building a part and a foundation of what is Northwest Arkansas today?
barbara carr.:Point to, I would say, I would brag about because of him being who he was when it was, and how he got to where he was, you know? And it's if a black man can come out of that. You know, at that time in era, in life, just imagine of what it could be like today if, , he was still here or shared his profession down the line, like carpentry or stuff like that., You had to have wagons to haul that stuff. Back then they didn't have big flatbed trucks like today. And I just, I would think that it would be something to brag about.
mike.:Given this story, what place should your family's history hold within this place?
barbara carr.:I would say in any public place, like in which they already have it at the museum up there, but in, I don't know. I wanna say , it just should be out there available information for anybody who is interested in the past and the history of our surrounding community. Why did I why I know that something, at least, you know, something in school. I don't know anything about any kind of black history until. It was knocked in your head when Martin Luther King, but it was happening long before all of that came about and I wasn't taught any of that in school. Never mentioned it and I had history classes. That's not, that wasn't in history. I told you, I just learned in my fifties about this. And I probably wouldn't have known then if I hadn't have met Jerry Moore because like I say, our family, they didn't talk about it and that's the reason why we call it a secret. What is the secret that they're trying to hide or don't want us to know? What happened, what this is about, who you are. I didn't know this and I'm learning every day something different about Rock Van Winkle that was relative to me that had something to do with our history. And nobody is recognizing him as being part of our history. And that kind of upsets me because like I said, I should've long known before I was 50 something about at least his name. I hadn't heard his name to Jerry Morris said, do you, have you ever heard of Rock Van Winkle? And I'm like. No,
mike.:before he became Rock Van Winkle, when he came here, his original name was Aaron Anderson. And I had a chance to sit down with the Anderson family and some of the descendants of the Anderson family that live here in northwest Arkansas still today. And they spoke about Rock , they call. You have not had a chance to listen to that, have you? Would you be okay if I played you a couple clips of what they had to say?
barbara carr.:Mm-hmm.
mike.:And I do want to tell you these aren't, I think they intend good things. I'm not sure if I'm 71. I done heard everything. Yes, ma'am. I will. I will keep my mouth shut, man. I done heard everything that can be said. I wanna play this. And then I've got three clips and I'll play each one. If I did my math correctly, you're the fifth generation descendant from Rock Van Winkle. These would also be fifth generation descendants as well too, from Hugh Allen Anderson, who brought Rock here as one of the very first settler white settlers that came to northwest Arkansas in the 1830s. And they lived in a piece of land out by the airport today. There is a cemetery out by the airport today, which likely holds ancestors of yours. That if you've not been there your story goes a little bit farther beyond the Van Winkles and Mr. Moore talks about some of that, but not a lot of research has been done on the Anderson family themselves. And so I was able to track them down and but the Anderson family at that time, their family relationships with the powerful white families of Northwest Arkansas, David Walker, Congressman Samuel West Peele, some of these men they were a part of that early power structure that controlled what life looked like here. And so you're gonna hear probably two voices on here. One's name is Steve Anderson. He's the eldest. Okay. And then his brother, Rusty Anderson, is younger than him, but they're both fifth generation descendants. You're gonna hear me ask the question and if the context doesn't make sense, please let me know. I'm happy to do that. I am curious, the connection back, you said that it's part of the record that there were enslaved people that came with Hugh Allen Anderson when he first came, and, and while that's a tragic part of our history, I'm, I'm kind of curious, how do you process that? How does that part of the family story?
steve anderson.:To me personally, it's abhor to the, we are that anybody's ever been enslaved. It's just, it's just, but it was the way business was conducted back then. There's nothing I can do about.
rusty anderson.:History. There's been slaves all over the world, all through history.
steve anderson.:There are today.
rusty anderson.:There are today. Yeah. It's just an unfortunate way they did business.
steve anderson.:Even today with these, all these immigrant kids that are missing 300,000 of them, they're, they're so certain portion of 'em are sex slaves.
mike.:What do you hear in response to that? At,
barbara carr.:to me it sounds like ashamed. That ashamed of the past and the way the people was treated. And he has no reason he should be able now, and he sounds a lot older than me, to be able to speak his mind the truth. And that's what holds a lot of everything back, is people holding back the truth. Just say it, tell it like it is, whether it hurts or not. It is not gonna hurt me if I'm just saying they said the N word. I've heard it all before. I've heard it from different people, different races. I never taught that word in my house. It was considered growing up for my son. It's cuss word. It's a cuss word, and we don't use cuss words in the house, period. And all I can say is speak your mind. Speak the truth. It needs to be heard. How you feel about it, what you thought about it when you heard it. I'm just not, never have been that kind of person because of the experiences that I've had in my life from other people. Some are good, some are bad, but I can't help how somebody else feels about whatever and whether Rock was black or white and he became of a he is and who he was. That's Rock. Because he did the best that could be done at those times back in the day. But I was on the picture, he was included. It wasn't a shameful, I didn't see shameful from the people that surrounded him or he surrounded. I didn't see that in that picture. And that was back in the day.
mike.:Lemme pay the, lemme play the next clip for you.
barbara carr.:Okay. Okay.
mike.:And I think some of the conversations that I'm always interested in is how do we reconcile or reckon with that history, right? And as a people, not just, not as a single family necessarily, or a single individual, but like how do we reconcile as a community sometimes with those stories?
steve anderson.:My, my personal opinion is that my responsibility is to teach my kids that it's a horrible Yeah. It's a horrible thing and teach my kids that that should not be tolerated. My kids grew up on an army basis. There was, there was every, you look out on the jungle gym on any day and it was a multicultural situation and my kids grew up with without any inkling of prejudice that I could have ever been able to tell.
rusty anderson.:Yeah. My thought on the history is the fact that, okay, if Jesse James or Clyde Burrow or someone like that was in your family, what's it have to do with you? Yeah. Other than history. Yeah. Do you need to go
mike.:give the bank the money back? No. Yeah. And that's not, sorry, that's unique to, to, to the Anderson family in any way, shape or form. So I'm just, I'm always curious. I appreciate that. I'm not trying to, yeah. I'm just. I'm always, 'cause I, I feel like sometimes, and I, growing up in the south, I guess not compared to your family, but feels, I think sometimes there's a, I don't know that communities today even know how to reconcile through that. And so I think in some ways you probably have lessons to teach people about the importance of history and how do we move past that as if we can. barbara carr.: True and glad with the different cultures, you know, all in one, one spot and you not teaching your children negativity. I never, ever taught my kids either one of them to judge view anybody any different than you are. And that's the way it is. I don't have a problem with Alex with his girlfriend. She is white. I've only known white and she, people just like you would be, people come to my house and really it just runs in the family like that. Them boys, they really like those white girls. I don't, no. So you might agree with Mr. Anderson. I mean that we don't. See that we don't see color, we don't see negativity, we don't judge, and you gonna be who you are, you know, and I try, I really do. I can be a difficult person at time, but now I'm too slow and too old for anything like that. So I only speak the truth now. That's what I do. I see people, I don't see color. I never have growing up in say like junior high school, I didn't have any friends in, in, in high school. I'm past that. I'm college bound and beyond, you know, and I have experience and I have knowledge. People ask me when I speak I hate to talk. I really do. I really do because I get Where are you from? Were you born here? Okay. I went to the eye doctor and the little nurse, he asked me, where are you from? And I said, I am born and raised in a little town called Fayetteville, Arkansas. Have you ever heard of that before? And I was like, yeah they whispered. Me all that quick that I didn't get a response, but I knew he was gonna say something about the way that I spoke because I get that everywhere I go. All right. All this is one more quote. Okay. We'll get your response to this. Okay. Uhoh,, steve anderson.: When I Winkle, how successful he was, I'm hoping our family had, would contributed to that? Sure. Because he came as a slave from Alabama as a very, as a little boy with the Anderson family? Yeah.
rusty anderson.:Or you mean Aaron? Okay. Yeah.
mike.:You don't, I assume there's no connection back to any, does anybody know what happened to any of those descendants? I assume not Probably. I met with the state archeologist a while back ago, and I know there was probably what, 25 years ago There was survey done of a cemetery out there in that plow and here, but you participated. That sounds like you were very help helpful in trying to get those stories told straight. That's a really good history of of our family. He worked together. Thank you for sharing that with me. I just, I'm curious 'cause I think I'm always trying to understand where there are examples of people who can help. Uh, guide us through and teach us as a culture of what that looks like to continue to move forward.
barbara carr.:So is there anybody else beside me, our side, and the few that are left in Bentonville?
mike.:That's why I'm here to ask you those. Not that I'm aware of.
barbara carr.:Oh, I don't know children.
mike.:Yeah. I think that's been part of the problem is, you know, I'm curious how, like, uh, that's Steve Anderson speaking. He says that he hopes that his family had something to do with the success that Aaron saw. How do you. How does that, how do you hear that when he says that
barbara carr.:somebody's got to carry it on or it's just gonna be dead silent like it has been for the past 50 years and everything that I am learning, I am trying to teach somebody else that just'cause our last name is Carr and they ain't about nothing. We gotta be about something because our ancestors made something of their self. So I'm pretty sure you know that there's room for somebody else, but it just has to be told with all the secret junk. I'm tired of secrets. I want to hear, what about his wife? Where's his children? What did they do? How did they turn out? Is anybody still living off of their side? Now we got over here on our side of the family of Rock. Like I say, he's in his nineties now, if not to be 90. I don't know how old he is. I know he's close to it. So where is everybody? Nobody left over.
mike.:Would you ever want to have a conversation with the Anderson family?
barbara carr.:That'd be nice. Let him just meet. He met Rock. Way back when Meet me, I don't bite. I might use a cane . But no, that sounds like a really good idea. And like I say, I've been invited to the home and I'm not a get around person now. I don't the strength and the energy and just getting older is what it is. So I'm really more confined to the house and these invitations here. That's an outing for me, you know. And
mike.:when you listen to the Andersons what would your response to them be? Do you hold them accountable for
barbara carr.:It's the past. What happened in the past is the past and we're trying to get future wise, and like I say, we're learning together here. He's learning about me. I wanna learn about them. I really would like to see the house that was once Rock I know it's not the same as it was, but I can en envision from way back when, you know, how it used to be and how the house used to be. And like I say, they went through renovation and everything, but they kept the house. It's still there. That's over a hundred years old. Yeah, that's, that sounds like a real good idea.
mike.:The way you answered your question around I would be interested in meeting them. And that was the history. Like that's not what I would expect. I don't think a lot of people would expect people to say that. And I think your posture in that is one of hope. And it's one of kind of being willing to step back into spaces to repair relationships, to repair community. And it's a, it's a really beautiful model. It's a really beautiful, this is your, the wisdom of being an elder in these spaces is that you're calling our community to a different way. To a different pathway. That's what I hear from you. And so I don't, I'm just, I say that because I don't know, I don't know how to judge if that's a good question or not, or if we should leave that off the table.
barbara carr.:I think any question about the past that's pertaining to this, it, I always just put it on the table. Just let's just do this.
mike.:Okay. Would you ask for reparations from the Van Winkle or, you know, the Anderson family for what has happened?
barbara carr.:All I can say, like I say, is that's the past. This is the future. Let's do what's gonna be the best for the future. The teaching, the knowledge, information. How about somebody else should know something else. I'm pretty sure there are some older people than me and my sister that, that go back. Further than what I know to voice knowledge about, if any on, on, on our Rock and it's needs to be heard. I think they should know. The biggest gathering, I would say would be of a community meeting, depending on how many people you know represent. I. And just do knowledge training. We wasn't allowed at the parks or the swimming pools and all of that's skate rink. I always wanted to learn how to skate. Still don't know how to skate. I always wanted to learn how to swim, love, water, can't swim. Those accesses wasn't available for us growing up. And I was determined that both my kids to, teach them, they're gonna learn how to skate and they're going to learn how to swim. And they do, they, they know how to swim and skate.
mike.:I ask two questions to every guest that I talk with. And I'm happy to give some context. The first question I ask is what your fears are. And so when I say that, I'm curious what are your fears for this place today?
barbara carr.:I don't have any fears.
mike.:Why not?
barbara carr.:I. I've lived through fear, and like I say, at my age, I feel like I've experienced any and everything that can be experienced through fear. I never have, I don't have fear. That's the reason why I just do what I do like working in Rogers for the first time, my mother feared for me working a job that far away. In a town like Rogers, I didn't have fear. All I saw was a better paying job, more money. I just never, I've never had fear or being afraid of future or what happened in the past. I don't live like that one because fear is stress to me, and I can't live with stress. I can't sleep with stress on me. I can't eat with stress. I just don't. I never have. And it's okay, to get rid of that fear, then get up and do something about it. So that's the mindset that I have to get. And I could, I call it anxiety, is what I call it, not fear. It's anxiety to me. And to get rid of that anxiety, either I'm going to confront it or you can't run no matter where you go. That's what I tell people. I used to tell 'em at the store, something be going on and they're afraid. That's what they say, I'm afraid. And it's if you are afraid in your life, you're gonna be afraid all of your life. You can't just keep running because it's gonna follow you wherever you go. And I've lived like that all my life. I do. I don't depend or count on anybody. I am a independent woman, miss. Independent. But that's who I am. I had to be, I don't have nobody got my back. You know? I gotta take care of me. Yeah.
mike.:You know, miss Carr I actually believe you sitting across the table from you. The other half of that, and you've talked about this a little bit, is I've tried to ask this question of what is community wholeness? What does wholeness look like in this space? And it's a question that I've asked all of our guests'cause I, I would hope that as a people, as a community, we are moving towards what it looks like to find out what does it look like to be whole in this world, where things are, as they should have been in the very beginning. And so I'm curious, when I say that to you, what does wholeness look like? I'm curious how you would respond to that.
barbara carr.:I may not be able to answer that. I really don't have an answer for that because everybody's different. Everybody's got their own opinion, their mindset, people, some choose to live in the past. I don't choose to live in a past, but I don't like change either. But if that's the flow that I have to go with, then that's what I'm gonna go with. That's, I don't have an answer for that. I really don't, because like I say, I don't judge others in the way they live, the things they do, places they go. I just, I'm one, I tend to mind my own business. I don't, once you tell me something you've confided in me and I'm one that see it all the way to 100%. I'm just that person. If I say I'm gonna do something, whether I want it and I don't feel it, I'm going to do it anyway because I already said that's what I'm going to do and I'm gonna do what I'm gonna do. If everybody else could be like that. Do what you say. Say it, do it. Handle your business. Handle the situation. Handle the problem. But I can't speak for everybody else. I only can speak for me.
mike.:What does wholeness look like to you?
barbara carr.:There is no such thing as wholeness. I experienced a lot in life and there's always a slice missing, like a pie, like a piece of cake. You take that one piece out of there and everything else around it at a fall apart. Every time, every single time I've experienced that, I did at one time, maybe more, try to fix it. It wasn't fixable, didn't wanna be fixable, and I just, you just, sometimes you just have to just walk away and let it be and pray that everything just works out. I don't know. I don't have good answers to those serious questions like that.'cause that's speaking for everybody else. And I just speak for me, what might be right for me might not be the same and Right for you. Yeah, I don't know. And my advice I choose just to keep it to myself, you know? I don't know. I'll be honest. I don't, I really don't have an answer for that one.
mike.:Mrs. Carr I'm incredibly grateful for the opportunity to sit at this table with you and to hear your story. Thank you for your courage to share it. Thank you for your grace and the humility that you extend into our world. And I'm just really honored to be able to hear your story. So thank you for sharing.
barbara carr.:I thank you for asking me. I appreciate that. I really do. Maybe by my birthday in next month that I'll have knowledge that I did have something to live for or make something better in somebody else's life. And that's all that concerns me. I'm positive. I try to be positive. Whether I'm feeling good or bad, I'm
mike.:i'm thankful that you're willing to share those, so
barbara carr.:I appreciate y'all. I really do.
mike.:Thank you. I would say there's a kind of stillness after a story like this. Not the quiet of avoidance, but the silence that follows truth, the kind that asks us to sit with what we've heard. Barbara didn't just share family history today. She offered us a map back to what was lost. Through her voice, we remember a man, Aaron Anderson, rock Van Winkle, a formerly enslaved builder who helped shape the physical and cultural landscape of northwest Arkansas. A man whose name like so many others was nearly erased, and yet here in this final episode, his name is spoken. It is honored, not as a footnote, but as a part of the foundation of our very community. In a season that has taken us across time and terrain through the histories of indigenous nations, settler expansion, war, labor, faith, and migration, we end with a story that has been most excluded, the voice that was least likely to be heard, and in hearing it, we reclaim something together as a community, because if the goal of this season was to speak an honest history, then Barbara's story isn't an addition. It's the lens, the final thread in a long tapestry that was never complete without it. In the time I've spent with Barbara and in the deep reflection of her story, I can say that this episode has been part of my wholeness in this place. Whether that's totally possible or not, we can debate, but for now, this, this story, this arc, this season, this has been part of mine. And maybe that's the task in front of us now, to ask the stories that must be told for our community to be whole, whose names must be remembered, whose lives must be honored, and how we move forward, not just with pride in our past, but with clarity about what still needs to be repaired. I wanna say thank you to Barbara for your courage and for sharing your story with us and for being this season's last guest, the last voice to speak into the story of Northwest Arkansas. Next week we'll finish our season with a summary of all that we've walked through, what we've learned, and what going forward can look like. Until then, I wanna say thank you for listening and thank you for being the most important part of what our community is becoming. This is the underview, an exploration in the shaping of our place.
