Entries - County: Hempstead - Starting with R

Jenny Eakin Delony Rice was the first woman artist from Arkansas to rise to national and international prominence as a painter and the founder of collegiate art education in Arkansas. Though Delony specialized in portraiture, her subject matter included miniatures, landscape, wildlife, still life, and genre (scenes of everyday life). Jenny Delony was born in Washington (Hempstead County) on May 13, 1866, to Alchyny Turner Delony, a capitalist, lawyer, and educator, and Elizabeth Lawson Pearson Delony, a teacher. She had four siblings. The Delony family lived in Washington until 1885, when they moved to Nashville (Howard County). In 1890, the Delonys moved to Little Rock (Pulaski County). After finishing elementary schooling in Washington, Delony attended Wesleyan Female Institute (Stuart Hall) …

Emma C. Riley was an educator, public servant, and philanthropist who left her mark on Arkansas state government—and on what is now Ouachita Baptist University, as one of the institution’s major benefactors of her time. Emma Camille Riley was born on February 26, 1879, in Water Valley, Mississippi. She was the youngest child of William H. Riley, who was a farmer, and Arminda Caroline Sumner Riley. When Riley was about three, her parents relocated to Arkansas, near Emmet (Nevada and Hempstead Counties). Riley graduated from public school in Hempstead County and pursued a college education from both Ouachita Baptist and Central College for Women, working as a teacher around Arkansas in summers and during alternate school years to pay tuition. …

Grandison Delaney Royston was an early Arkansas statesman, politician, and attorney who served at the constitutional convention of both 1836 and 1874, as well as serving one term in the Confederate Congress. Grandison Delaney Royston was born on December 9, 1809, in Carter County, Tennessee. He studied as a child in a local subscription school and, later, at Presbyterian Academy in nearby Washington County, Tennessee. In 1829, he began law studies with a local judge and was admitted to the Tennessee bar in December 1831. He moved to Arkansas on April 1, 1832, first settling in Fayetteville (Washington County), where he would practice law and teach school for a short period. Later that year, he relocated to Washington (Hempstead County), …