FANNIE POLLARD QUARLES POLSON (1831 - ): 

Mrs. Fannie Quarles was the wife of a pioneer merchant, William F. Quarles.  She was the daughter of Dr. Thomas J. Pollard and his wife Mary Willis Pollard.  She was "socially prominent and a woman of resource" according to an article written about her by Sue H. Walker which appeared in the Arkansas Gazette Magazine in April of 1935.  Upon the death of her husband, she opened her home to boarders and made a good living for herself and her children.  Many years later she married Dr. Polson of Prairie Grove, Arkansas.  A good and dear friend of hers, J.H. VanHoose, submitted a tribute about her life to The Sentinel of 14 March 1889:  Editors Sentinel: You have already announced in your columns the death of Mrs. S. F. Polson which occurred at her home on the 9th instant.  I had been personally acquainted with her for nearly forty years and had better opportunities to learn her true character than anyone else of her many friends in Fayetteville who survive her.  In 1849, just 40 years ago, she was the belle of the little village of Fayetteville, having just returned from a female seminary in Kentucky where she graduated with high honors and her many accomplishments and personal charms soon won for her the admiration of everyone who came within the circle of society in which she moved.  In 1850 when it was announced that William R. Quarles, a young gentleman from Tennessee, was soon to be married to the beautiful and accomplished Miss Fannie Pollard, he was congratulated by his friends on having won such a prize.  Mr. Quarles was then the junior partner in the large dry goods firm of James Sutton & Company which at that time had a larger retail trade than any house in the state outside of Little Rock.  On the 8th day of March 1852, I commenced clerking for this firm and was taken by Mr. Quarles to his wife to board and on that day received my first introduction to his young and accomplished wife whose first child, Emma, was a babe of 10 months old.  I was received into her pleasant home where I remained for nearly four years a regular boarder and no sister could be more kind or thoughtful of a brother than was that good woman to me and the other young men who were also boarding at her home.  There were four other young men boarding there during the summer and fall of 1852, viz:  A. J. McIlroy who was clerking for James Sutton and three students of Arkansas College--James Johnson and Buck Rogers, now of Ft. Smith and W. D. Polson whose wife she became 35 years later, and whose home and heart are now so desolate and sad by reason of her death.  Jack McIlroy died in the Confederate Army in Little Rock in 1863.  Capt. Jim Johnson, Buck Rogers and Dr. Polson and myself are all that are left of that once happy group that daily surrounded her table, feasting upon the choice viands with which it was always laden, and presided over by her with so much dignity and womanly modesty together with such thoughtful care and pleasant speech as to make all happy and contented and feel that it indeed was home.  Her husband she adored and his and her children's happiness and pleasure were her chief delight.  Her devotion to her husband and long, patient and tender care of him during his protracted illness which resulted in his death in 1860 were subjects of remark by everyone who came about her home.   Left a widow with four small children to provide and care for she went to work in earnest to do her whole duty and right well did she perform the task.  The war came on soon after her husband's death and thus was quickly swept away all the property that she and her husband had accumulated during the ten years of their prosperous and happy married life and she was compelled to work hard and undergo many privations and hardships during the four years of the war in order to feed and clothe her children and others dependent upon her for sustenance.  It is often remarked that "those were days to try men's souls" and the saying is true; but the ladies of the South had souls to be tried too and they were tried.  And the noble soul of this good woman was tried and triumphed over all obstacles and came out like gold.  All the male relatives and friends whom she had any claim for protection and support had to leave Fayetteville and she was left to take care of her home and her helpless children.  She opened a boarding house and did her own work, cooking and waiting upon her boarders, some of whom were Federal officers whom she regarded as enemies of the land and people she loved most dearly, yet she treated all with uniform kindness and courtesy.  And notwithstanding the fact that she was known to be a Southern woman in full sympathy with those who were battling for Southern rights, those Federal officers were kind and obliging to her, treating her with utmost respect and civility.  They knew her to be a true lady and respected her as such.  She never failed to befriend her Southern friends when the opportunity offered and yet she was respected by the Union officers who appreciated her as a true and noble woman.  When the war was ended and her friends returned from the South, destitute and homeless, she did all that a brave, noble woman could do to assist them.  I speak from personal knowledge of her hard struggle during the war to support her own family and others less able to work and I know of my own personal knowledge of her devotion to duty and to her Southern friends during those terrible days that not only tried men's but also women's souls.  No children ever had a more loving, self-sacrificing mother than the children of Mrs. Quarles.  And a truer friend, braver or purer woman than she is seldom found in any land.  As to her Christian virtues, her devotion to her church and Sabbath school, others have already written who are more familiar with her Christian life, all of which I endorse most fully; in fact, too much praise cannot be given to her, whose life has been spent in Fayetteville and whose death is a great loss to our entire community.  In the discharge of her duties as daughter, sister, wife and mother, friend, neighbor and Christian, she has left a noble example to the young ladies of Fayetteville, well worthy the imitation of the purest and best of wives, mothers, and sisters of any land.  Her friend of thirty-seven years, J.H.V.H.   Fayetteville, March 14, 1889.