The Dumas community said goodbye to the Late Frances Rand Newton, who turned 102 this February.
She described her accomplishments as something very few are able to attain as “I can’t complain. I’ve had a good life,” she said in a 2020 interview. She lived a full life with two successful marriages, two children and a tribe of grandchildren and great grandchildren.
Ms. Frances was born February 19, 1921, in Grady. The younger sister of Martha and daughter of Robert and Floye Fuqua. Her mother was a substitute teacher. Her father owned a general store in Grady until they lost their store during the great depression. At 12 years old, Frances and her family moved to Dumas. Mrs. Fuqua began working at Wolff Bros. Department Store and her father found work with the highway department.
In 1939, Ms. Frances graduated from Dumas High School with an academic scholarship to the University of Arkansas at Fayetteville.
Unfortunately, by this time her father had become ill and was unable to work. She decided to stay in Dumas and soon began working at the hospital, for Dr. Rands, handling the business records and books. This would turn out to be a better decision than she imagined. When asked what she would have studied had she gone on to college, she said it would have been something in the medical field.
Dr. Howard Allan Rands came to Dumas by the Missouri Pacific Railroad. Dr. Isom, one of Dumas’s earliest doctors, took care of all the employees of the railraod. He became ill in 1932, at which time the railroad sent Dr. Rands down from Little Rock to take over for him.
Dr. Rands was the only doctor left in Dumas when she began working at the hospital. World War II took most of the hospital staff off to war. He did physicals for all of the soldiers heading to the action.
Understaffed and overworked, Dr. Rands began to train Newton to be a nurse where she was learning to do just about everything. “I would work in the emergency room all the time. I even gave anesthetics. I had never done that! But at that time we just did what needed to be done because there was no one else to do it. There were no anesthesiologists. If I had to do something that I had never done before, I would just ask the doctor. He would tell me what to do and I did it,” she said very matter of factly. They would often have to work well into the next morning, staying there until 1 or 2 am and they would treat over 70 people a day at times. “Dr. Rands said I was the best nurse he ever had,” Ms. Frances said proudly.
She married Dr. Rands in 1945. They began working on starting their family and in 1946 their daughter, Sarah, was born. Howard Allan, Jr. soon followed in 1949. “We both decided we did not want to waste any time getting our family started,” she said. Ms. Frances continued to work for the hospital and Dr. Rands, when she was needed, and handled all the books from home. Dr. Rands continued practicing and he never turned away a patient. He made house calls and would go as far as needed to see them. “I would wrap blankets around the kids and put them in the back seat of the car. Then, I would drive him wherever he needed to go,” she said.
As a wedding gift, Dr. Rands bought her a farm. “He asked me what I wanted and I told him I wanted a farm,” she said. It actually wasn’t a farm when they purchased it. “It was just wilderness,” explained Ms. Frances. “It was covered with trees and grassland. Nothing had been developed out there yet. And I knew nothing about farming.” But,she figured it out and still handles the books to this day. She had the timber cleared little by little and went forward in turning that land into a full fledged farming operation, all under her direction. “Golfing was his thing. Farming was mine,”she said. She kept him abreast of everything that was being done, of course.
Dr. Rands passed away in 1969. He was diagnosed with Parkinson’s disease and a myriad of other ailments. Ms. Frances had his bed, equipment and everything else he needed right at home where she took care of him just the way he had trained her some years before. “He was a great doctor. He was a great man. We had a great marriage,” she said. They were married for 25 years.
By now, Sarah had graduated college and Allan was working on the farm. After some time, Ms. Frances began working with a friend in a ladies ‘ready to wear’ store. This was the beginning of the next chapter in her life.
An acquaintance began efforts to get Ms. Frances to agree to a date with one of his friends, Mr. Howard Newton. Mr. Newton was a widower as well. He was a farmer and a decorated war veteran. The people in the community and elsewhere thought very highly of him. He had been in the store before so she knew who he was, but not much else. “I wasn’t going for it. I wasn’t looking for that at that time.I wasn’t interested at all,” she said. It took almost seven years for her to finally give in and agree to that date. It was a group date out to the country club where they had dinner and enjoyed a little dancing. From that point they began going on regular dates. “We would go out dancing most weekends. We both enjoyed it. The country club had a nickelodeon at that time and we would eat and dance and have a good time,” Ms. Francessaid.After only three months of dating, they were married and she became Mrs. Frances Rands Newton.
They continued going to the country club for years. That was one of their routines. Another would be their Sunday afternoon drives. They would start the drive by going out to his farm and checking things out. When they had done a thorough inspection they would ride in the other direction to hers and give it a good once over. “It was a tradition. We did it every Sunday,” she said.
Mr. Newton had been honored as a hero during the war for his leadership in the rescue of trapped Allied forces in Bastogne, Belgium, and had earned the Silver Star, the Bronze Star and the Purple Heart. After coming back from war he was eager to get back to what he loved,farming. He was the first farmer in this area to irrigate cotton. He eventually retired from farming and sold his land. They settled in town after remodeling and adding on to their home. They enjoyed their years together until he passed away in 2007.
“He really was a good man. We had a good life together,” said Ms. Frances. She still enjoys the occasional dinner at the country club and loves her visits with friends and family. Sarah now lives in Alaska. Ms. Frances has made the trip twice. She said, “The flights were 12 hours long. I remember I was pacing up and down the aisles of the plane trying to pass the time.” Allan still lives in Dumas not far from her.
Ms. Frances has lived in Dumas since 1933. When asked how the town has changed over the years. “It’s a great town but it has changed a lot. I remember when the town would stay awake past 9 o’clock. We were out ‘til midnight every Saturday and the stores and businesses were open, too,”She said, “Everyone would park uptown and walk around and congregate. There were a lot more people so businesses were thriving. There just aren’t that many people here so it’s hard to have the businesses.” And she is right about that. There aren’t many people left in this little town.”
