A Price Beyond Rubies

Published in 1996, A Price Beyond Rubies is a work of historical fiction by Louise McCants Barry. The book is set in northwestern Arkansas during the era of the Civil War and is based on a memoir written by the author’s grandfather, who was an early settler. Barry tells the story from her grandmother’s point of view, choosing the title based on a Bible verse from Proverbs 31:10: “Who can find a virtuous woman? For her price is far above rubies.”

Author Louise Spears McCants Barry was born in 1924, one of three children born to farmer Joseph Blaine Spears and homemaker Piety Griffin Spears in Appleton, an unincorporated community that is a census-designated place in Griffin Township in Pope County. Louise marked the fifth generation of her family to have been born in the Arkansas Ozarks. She earned a BS and MS in mathematics from Oklahoma State University and received a PhD in education from The Ohio State University. Along with A Price Beyond Rubies, Barry was the author of Cinderella Doesn’t Work Here Anymore (1986), Retire to Fun and Freedom (1988), and Techniques School Should Have Taught You about Working with Men and Other Women (1992).

A Price Beyond Rubies, Barry’s only work of fiction, is set in the Ozark Mountains of northwestern Arkansas during the Civil War and its aftermath. The story is based on the written recollections of her grandfather, Pleasant Houston Spears (1836–1912), an Arkansas pioneer. During the Civil War, her grandfather fought on the Union side—against his own brothers—as captain of Company D, Second Arkansas Cavalry. After the war, Spears was a state representative in the Arkansas General Assembly for the 1873 term, followed by serving as sheriff of Conway County from 1884 to 1886. His wife, Sarah Elizabeth Ketchen Spears (1843–1931), married Spears when she was fifteen. They were the parents of twelve children, eight of whom grew to adulthood. In Barry’s book, their fictional counterparts are characters named Larkin Houston Flint and Sarah Griffin Flint.

In A Price Beyond Rubies, Barry portrays the Civil War era as seen through the eyes of the strong women struggling to survive in northwestern Arkansas, which lay on the western frontier during that time. The author also addresses issues of power and control between men and women. The female characters in the book are well drawn, not just window dressing for the events surrounding them. In creating the book, Barry included as much accurate historical detail as possible along with personal details from her grandfather. For example, he was considered by the Ku Klux Klan to be a dangerous radical for his belief in the education of Black people.

Some of the historical details take readers into an age they can barely comprehend amid the conveniences of today’s modern world, back to the time when woman’s regular chores, like doing the laundry, were a massive undertaking. Sarah, the character based on Barry’s grandmother, has to start by building a fire under a cast-iron wash pot, carry water from the creek in heavy buckets to fill it, set up two thick wooden tubs on a bench, and scrub clothes on a coarse wooden board until her knuckles are raw from the lye soap. Then, she must try to find a way to do the two-person job of wringing out bulky linen sheets while also shouldering a heavy rifle against predators, both the two- and four-legged variety. She must also be sure to time the process in order to be back at the cabin to cook a hot lunch for the man of the house, who arrives home at mid-day hungry and exhausted from work in the fields. While the woman performs these tasks, there are also numerous children underfoot who need various levels of care; generally, there is also another child on the way.

The book presents the horrors of Civil War battle at a time when neutrality was not an option. In northwestern Arkansas, Union and Confederate armies clashed during such engagements as the Battle of Pea Ridge in March 1862, the Engagement at Cane Hill in November 1862, the Battle of Prairie Grove in December 1862, and the Action at Fayetteville in April 1863. Barry describes women and children who try to survive both armies, including being forced to watch such ordeals as soldiers burning the cabin that was painstakingly built by hand; tying up the menfolk to use them as target practice; and leaving a bloody mass of men and horses screaming in agony on what is left of the battlefield where crops once grew. Still, the book also manages to capture the pleasures of everyday life in the hills of early Arkansas: the hopes, dreams, and joys that went alongside tragedy and never-ending hard work on the frontier. The book, which was published by Sunflower University Press in Manhattan, Kansas, received positive reviews, including one stating succinctly that A Price Beyond Rubies was a jewel.

For additional information:
Barry, Louise McCants. A Price Beyond Rubies: A Novel of the Civil War. Manhattan, KS: Sunflower University Press, 1996.

“Dr. Louise McCants Barry, April 22, 1924—October 25, 2016 (Age 92).” Harris Funeral Home. https://www.harrisfunerals.com/obituary/DrLouise-Barry/services (accessed June 18, 2025).

Nancy Hendricks
Garland County Historical Society