My name is Paul Bollen who is a great nephew of Grady E. and Lois Bollen. I was born and raised in Friendship, Ar and remember when they came back home to Arkansas.

I'm the third son of Lawrence Bollen sr and the grandson of Sam H. Bollen; and the great-grandson of Henry A. Bollen; and the great,great, grandson of Robert Bollen. The following information from Bollen Family Tree.

Grady E. Bollen's obituary

Grady Eugene Bollen, 9th son of Henry Allen and Lara Woolard Bollen. He was named after his cousin (Eugene Nichols), according to a letter we received from his brother JD (Jess Daniel) Bollen, Sep. 14, 1992.

Vocation: Grady was a Vocational Agricultural Teacher. He taught school in Malvern for several years.

Uncle Grady and Clardy Bollen
Uncle Grady went around helping everybody, making sure they had enough food and clothes. He helped out Clardy and Lura Bollen's family many times. He loved Clardy and looked out for him. When Clardy needed to talk things out, he always went to Uncle Grady Bollen. Dad didn't have a car, and Uncle Grady would let him borrow his if he needed one.
Pauline Bollen Blair

Farming
Grandpa Henry Allen Bollen left each of his sons 20 acres of land. Mostly it was used for farming. Uncle Grady liked to improve the land, the soil and always making improvements on things. He tried to encourage Starky to grow rice instead of cotton in the River bottoms land on the other side of the bridge. We use to go down there and pick cotton by the tons. We also picked Black Walnuts, and different kinds of berries Grady knew how to make improvements in soil and land, and how to grow different things. Pauline Bollen Blair.

Sandyland, ElDorado, Arkansas (Where Travis Bollen was born).
Uncle Grady had a real nice home in Sandyland, on a farm, he raised cows and horses. I remember him upgrading the farm house with indoor plumbing, something we never had in our house. He made an outside shower that was pretty nice.


When I was about a senior in High school, I believe that is when Uncle Grady and Aunt Lois moved back to Arkansas. They bought a house in Friendship, past where he last lived in the trailer on Daddy's land and to the end of the Bosley road. They purchased a home that was along I-30, hearing all that traffic noise, it got on their nerves and also the local hunters drove their road all hours during the night hunting. They got discouraged and wanted to sell and move to down-town Friendship.

While they still lived there, Kathi and I went over there and visited one of Uncle Grady's brothers, I think it was Clarence Bollen. We have a picture of both Uncle Grady and Uncle Clarence sitting on his couch in his living room.

Uncle Grady bought 3 acres from Uncle Hallie Bollen, who actually lived on the Lee Bollen home place in Friendship, His mailing address would been an Arkadelphia Route if he got mail on a mail carrier route.

Uncle Grady worked really hard on his place, he and Aunt Lois built a new home there always raised a huge garden or maybe a truck patch, and he ordered about 100 small fruit trees of all sorts, from California and planted them on his place. They were almost to a fruit bearing stage, then Aunt Lois got sick and passed away. After she passed away, Uncle Grady became depressed and cut every single tree and vine down and sold his place and that's when he moved over in a mobil home on Dad's timber land.

He had Dad to be his executor of his estate and he gave Daddy power of attorney, so that when the time for him to go into a nursing home, Dad could do it and wouldn't having to wait for one of his children to do it.

Ray was Uncle Grady's doctor and the time came and he was admitted in the same nursing home that Mother was admitted in. Daddy said that Uncle Grady always seemed to be content until the very end, and then he wanted to go home.

At one time Daddy mentioned that Uncle Grady was keeping in touch with Uncle J.D. and he wanted him to have Ray to ask Uncle J.D.'s daughter to have Uncle J.D. admitted to the same nursing home, but it never materialized.

You mentioned about Uncle Lyndell's house, the 7 acres of land that Daddy lived on is part of 80 acres owned by Henry Allen Bollen. At one ,time they lived in the Shorty Lewallen house, a 'Shotgun House, where you open the front door and the back door and shot a shotgun through the house and not hit a thing.

And if my memory serves me right, Uncle Lyndell's house is part of that 80 acres. Mother told us a story when Grandpa (Sam) Bollen had that house built in 1948 or 49, when Allen and Ronnie Bollen were small children and Ronnie, Uncle Hallie's, son got a huge splinter in his hand and later after they went back to Oregon, the splinter festered up and came out.

When Uncle Lyndell got in bad health, he made his youngest son, Bryan, a promise if he was to build them a new house on their place, he would deed him the land to do so. Uncle Lyndell never got to see this in his lifetime, but before Daddy died, Bryan built the house for he and his mother to live in and he tore down the old barn and cut down the last pear tree and built it there. Daddy bet one of his friends a steak dinner that Bryan would never build it and Daddy lost the bet.

Paul Bollen, March 16, 2008


Robert Bollen
Added by WillBollen on 17 Mar 2008

Robert Bollen was born in 1839 in England. He came to American and settled in St. Claire county in Alabama (which incidentally was a county before Alabama was a state). He married a girl living there by the name of Charlotte Tempie Nichols. Together they had 5 boys: an unkown, William, John, Henry, and Bradley. In 1877, Robert and his family along with his in-laws, the Nichols, moved to Arkansas by way of covered wagons. Henry, the middle son, was 16 years old and walked the whole trip tending to the milk cow. After moving to Arkansas, Robert served as a deacon at Friendship Baptist Church. By the time he was in his fifties, Robert and Charlotte both became ill. The two were split by William and Henry; William taking their mother and Henry taking their father. He passed his family bible on to Henry (who passed it on to Wallace Lyndell). He died at age 54 of Palsy and is buried in the DeRoache Cemetery, between Frienship and Bismark.



(This information was compiled from information provided by Travis Bollen that he recieved from Lyndell, Grady, and Jessie Daniel Bollen.)