These are the online archives of the Bales family.. Photos, articles, various writings, geneology - there is a lot of material to go through, both written and in photographs, so these pages are likely to grow.

Be sure to take a look at the Early Family Recollections left by my father. There are a lot of photos in the Album and for a condensed look at a family's changes over the years, page through the Family Timeline of Christmas cards.

Family Photo Album

Selections from the Archives spanning the last century.... Photos from both the Bales and Smart sides of the family. We're lucky to have so much material so watch this section to grow as I get past scanning collections of materials (such as the Christmas card Timeline and the Yosemite Scrapbook) and into some of the boxes of random materials . 

Early Family Recollections

By James D. Bales

A collection of memories, stories, newspaper clippings, diary entries and letters put together by James D. Bales around 1991. It covers the years 1915 through roughly 1936 and is presented here in four parts:

Part 1 - The First Decade

Part 2 - The Death of Our Parents and the Scattering of the Family

Part 3 - Cadet Days at Georgia Military Academy

Part 4 - Death of Grandma Davis

Family Timeline

From before I was born until the year of her death, my Mother sent out a Christmas card with a picture of the family.  From 1966 on, the cards included a short recap of the year so when you look at them in sequence you get an overview of the family history.

This section of the site has almost every one of those cards, from the early 1950's until 1997... the story of a generation in a capsule. 

Yosemite Scrapbook

This is a page by page rendition of a photo scrapbook from 1952 and 1953. My mother took the pictures, put the scrapbook together and provided the narrative. The first section is the chronicle of a month long trip to Yosemite in 1952 and the second part is from the Summer of 1953 where the family (minus Dad) spent in a cottage in Ontario and then joined my Dad in New York City to end the summer. There are a lot of great pictures here making it a remarkable trip back to a time 50 (!) years ago.

Articles on the Life and Work of James D. Bales

with additional photos from the family archives

Powerful Voice Against the Reds, first published in the Arkansas Democrat Magazine, September 18, 1960.

A Gentleman and a Scholar, appeared in the Harding University Bison, February 20, 1987.

A Look Back on the Life of James D. Bales, published as a four part series in the Searcy Citizen, February 1996.

Geneology

Direct Descendant listing going back to the turn of the 19th Century.

Access the Genealogy Library Now!

Other Stuff

Notes from the Last Lecture

Some 15 years after Dr. Bales' retirement, one of his former students, James Shelton, sent the family his notes and recollections of the last class lecture given by Dr. Bales.

Papa's Office

An Accumulator, But No Lincoln Yet - A short article written by J.D. Bales in the year before his death describing his organizational approach.  Illustrated with photos to prove it!

Book Titles by James D. Bales

A partial listing of books by J.D. Bales. This is taken from an old price list. Unfortunately most of these titles are out of print but we still get requests and hope that over time we will see some of these titles back in circulation.

Where over 45 million used, rare, out-of-print books are just a click away, online @ abebooks.com

Tribute

Mary Smart Bales  1921 - 1998

This is a tribute written by Mary Ethel Gale and given to her Mother in 1996.  It was read in the Memorial Service for Mary Smart Bales on September 12, 1998.