It was nearly 2:00pm on Tuesday August 2, 2016 when we arrived in Hope, Arkansas and the boyhood home of 42nd President Bill Clinton. I knew my photographer was excited to visit Clinton’s first home as Tom and Bill share the same birthdate – August 19th. The only difference between the two was the years – Clinton was born in 1946 and my cameraman was born exactly a decade later.
Days after William Jefferson Blythe III (Bill Clinton) was born at the Julia Chester Hospital in Hope, he was taken to the two-story home owned by his mother’s parents Edith and Eldridge Cassidy. The future President lived with his grandparents for four years while his mother, Virginia, went to school in New Orleans. Bill’s father, William Blythe II, was killed three months before Clinton was born.
After a brief visit at the NPS Visitor’s Center, I was carried to the house that was billed as the birthplace home of Bill Clinton, even though he was not born in that house. After I posed for a handful of photos in front of the home, I was taken inside for a look at the place where young William Blythe III learned to walk, talk, pray, and read.
After we had entered the house, we were told by the tour guide that the furnishings inside were mostly of the period or reproductions. Once again, my first reaction was disappointment as I love seeing authentic Presidential artifacts. But when all things were considered, we were lucky to be inside the house at all. On Christmas Day 2015, arsonists set fire to the Clinton boyhood home – parts of the exterior, the pantry, and a second-floor bathroom were damaged by the fire. And for us on that day, timing was everything as the house had reopened just four days before we arrived.
I was carried through the rooms of the lower level, which consisted of the living room, kitchen and dining room. In each of those rooms, I thought of Clinton as he interacted with his grandparents. I also wondered if it was a difficult time for the youngster as he had no father, and his mother was away in New Orleans.
I enjoyed our walk through the home’s downstairs, even though it was like walking through an antique store. But for me, I couldn’t wait to be carried up the stairs where the bedrooms of the home were located. The first room that I was taken to was huge; it was the largest bedroom in the house. At first, I thought it may have been Eldridge and Edith’s room, but they had insisted their daughter Virginia, and her newborn son needed to stay there.
Across the narrow hallway from Virginia’s room was the bedroom of Bill Clinton. My photographer carried me into the room where I immediately noticed a twin bed that was covered with a Hopalong Cassidy bedspread; a small black cowboy hat sat on the pillow. I had hoped that Tom would set me on the bed, but he didn’t. Instead, I was placed between two photos of the future President that were on the small desk in the room. From that vantagepoint, I could see three books that were young Billy’s favorites: Happy Hour Stories, Strongheart – the Story of Wonder Dog, and Fun with Dick and Jane. It was the ‘Dick and Jane’ book from which Clinton first learned to read.
Our visit to the boyhood home of Bill Clinton lasted nearly an hour. Although that house had been falsely designated his birthplace house, it was time for us to head for his actual birthplace site that was less than a mile away. On August 19, 1946, William Jefferson Blythe III was born at Julia Chester Hospital in Hope, Arkansas. The hospital closed six years after the historic birth and the building had a later date with the wrecking ball. When we arrived at the site we found the Brazzel Oakcrest Funeral Home in its place. Next to the funeral parlor’s flagpole was a granite marker that signified the site as Clinton’s birthplace. Vicki had parked the Avenger in the parking lot and my photographer carried me in front of the funeral home for a few pictures. As it turned out, the funeral home resembled the demolished hospital in appearance, which I thought was cool. After photos of the building were captured, we walked to the historical marker that was situated next to a flagpole and I posed there as well.
We were not finished with Bill Clinton boyhood homes in Hope. Although we could’ve walked the quarter mile to the next site, we took the car due to the afternoon heat that had the mercury hitting the 96-degree mark. When we arrived at the home, the first thing we saw was a large white sign that was attached to the surrounding fence. Since the sign read ‘Boyhood home of Bill Clinton’, it was obvious that we were at the right place. As I was carried to the front of the house, I was placed onto a brick pedestal that featured a bronze plaque that described Clinton’s time there. It turned out that the pedestal was made from the bricks salvaged from the Julia Chester Hospital where Clinton was born; which gave me the feeling that I actually stood on Clinton’s birthplace.
Looking at the small, single-story house, it seemed it was in desperate need of a fresh coat of paint and some tender-loving care. It also seemed that no one was home, which meant my photographer carried me up onto the porch where I could peer into one of the windows. Could someone call me a “Peeping Tom”? You betcha!
I would’ve loved to have had the chance to enter the house to see the room where Billy played with his electric train, but there wasn’t a chance on that day. Someday I will return to Hope and hopefully I’ll be invited inside that historic house.
It was nearly a mile to where young Billy Blythe attended elementary school in Hope. When we arrived at the school, it was no longer called Brookwood Elementary as it was when Clinton was a first grader in 1953. As I stood in front of the school, I envisioned young Blythe as he walked into the building dressed as a cowboy, which he did on some occasions. My photographer and I didn’t see a historical marker outside of the building nor any plaques affixed to the brick walls. We did, however, notice a dilapidated wooden sign on the corner of the property that read: “Elementary School of Bill Clinton”. It seemed as though the leaders of Hope weren’t overly proud of the fact that a future President attended school in that building.
It was around 4:30pm in the afternoon and we were finished with our Presidential sites in Hope. Although our target for the evening was Hot Springs, we decided that the Hampton Inn in Arkadelphia, Arkansas was a great place to spend the night. But before I was retired to the entertainment center in our room for the night, the three of us went to a recommended diner called Slim & Shorty’s where Tom and Vicki had dinner. I stayed in my camera case, but there was one time when I was able to catch a glimpse of the cool décor inside the restaurant.
After dinner, we returned to the Hampton where I was placed next to the television set. While my thoughts immediately turned to spending the next day visiting Bill Clinton sites, I heard my photographer’s wife talk about her father Jerry Winter. She had mentioned that it was his birthday and Vicki talked about how much she has missed him since his death four years earlier on May 24, 2012. Although I came into the family a year before he passed, I’m sure Jerry would have thought I was pretty cool. Or he may have thought I was silly as he snuffed his Pall Mall out on my head.
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It was a beautiful morning on Wednesday August 3, 2016 and I was itching to get to Hot Springs, which was less than an hour’s drive away from our Arkadelphia motel. When Bill Clinton was six years old, his stepfather Roger Clinton packed up the family and moved to Hot Springs where he had a job in the automobile business.
We arrived in Hot Springs at about 8:45am and the first Clinton signage we saw was at the city limits where there was a huge “Welcome to Hot Springs – Hometown of Bill Clinton” sign. That sign got my Presidential juices flowing that morning and I couldn’t wait to get to my first site, which was the Park Place Baptist Church.
As I stood across the street from the huge Park Place Baptist Church, I envisioned young Bill Blythe as he, with Bible in hand, made the one mile walk alone from his home to church every Sunday. His family wasn’t at church either when nine-year old Billy asked the minister to baptize him in 1955.
Since our next Clinton site was his Park Avenue home, we virtually retraced Clinton’s route that he took home from church. Bill Blythe lived in the two-story house that was situated on a hillside several hundred feet from Park Avenue. The historic house, which was also known as the Birnbaum-Shubetz House, was where Billy Blythe lived from 1954 until his family moved to another Hot Springs house in 1961 when he was a sophomore in high school. When my photographer carried me to the stone fence that surrounded the property, it wasn’t long before we saw the sign that said, ‘No Tours’. Not only would we not be able to go inside that significant home in Clinton’s life, but the sheer distance the house was located from the barrier made it difficult for my photographer to capture good images of me with the home. At one point, Tom set me on the stone fence for one of my photos; and he held me for the other pictures.
During the entire 15 minutes that my photographer snapped images of me in front of Clinton’s boyhood home, we didn’t see a soul anywhere near the house. I had thought if the owner saw me, perhaps he or she would be a Thomas Jefferson admirer and invite me inside for a tour of the house. But after seeing all of the signage in the front yard and alongside the driveway that stated tours were forbidden, I had a better chance of seeing the Oval Office than I did the inside of that house.
After I was carried back to the Avenger and safely put away in the back seat, we headed south for a little over two miles where we found a large, three-story brick structure with the words ‘High School’ sculpted high above the entrance. Bill Clinton (at the age of 15 he had legally changed his name as a gesture to his stepfather) was an active leader at Hot Springs High School; he also sang in the choir and played tenor saxophone. After four years of education in that building, Bill Clinton graduated in the Class of 1964.
It was an event before the start of Clinton’s senior year of high school, however, that may have set his eventual career path in motion. After Clinton was selected as one of Arkansas’ two delegates to that year’s Boys Nation (organized by the American Legion), he travelled by bus to Washington D.C. On July 24, 1963, Clinton found himself in the White House Rose Garden as the Boys Nation group listened to a short speech delivered by John F. Kennedy; after which the President moved into the crowd to meet the delegates. Once “I muscled my way to the front”, Clinton extended his hand, looked the President in the eye with admiration, and firmly shook the hand of John F. Kennedy. Later in the evening, on the bus ride back to Arkansas, Bill couldn’t stop talking about meeting Kennedy – the enthralled Clinton was overheard saying to a friend: “Someday, I’m going to have that job.” Less than four months later John F. Kennedy was shot to death in Dallas.
Before we left our position in front of Hot Springs High School for the short walk back to the car, I took a final look at the large brick building and thought about Bill Clinton. It was likely during those four years when he attended school there from 1960 to 1964 that Clinton transformed into the leader he became later in life. There was no doubt that his handshake with President Kennedy at the White House was the event that sent him on his ultimate journey to the Presidency.
We had one Presidential site left to visit in Hot Springs before we headed towards Little Rock; one that might go unnoticed by many Presidential enthusiasts. After Vicki drove my photographer and me about two miles southwest of the high school, I found myself posing outside of a small eatery called ‘McClard’s Bar-B-Q’. It turned out that Bill Clinton loved eating there as a teenager, as McClard’s was owned by the father of fellow classmate Brenda Thompson. Clinton also continued his patronage whenever he returned to Hot Springs as an elected official, including President of the United States. Since it was still early in the morning, the three of us didn’t venture into McClard’s for lunch. After my photographer smelled the aroma that emitted from the building, however, Tom said aloud: “The next time we are back in Hot Springs, we are coming here for some barbeque.”
At 10:45am, we hit the road – likely the same road that Bill Clinton had taken as a high school student in Hot Springs to the Governor of Arkansas in Little Rock. The hour-long ride to the capital city of Arkansas gave me plenty of time to digest the teenage years of Bill Clinton that I had visited in Hot Springs. In Little Rock, however, I had planned on getting submerged into the political life of our 42nd President.
