Sam Faubus
| Sam Faubus | |
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Young Sam Faubus
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| Born | October 24, 1887 |
| Died | August 24, 1966 (aged 78) |
| Other names | "Little Sam" |
| Occupation | small farmer, seasonal agricultural worker, journeyman hacker, miner |
| Known for | political activism |
John Samuel "Little Sam" Faubus (October 24, 1887 – August 24, 1966), was a small farmer and founder of one of Arkansas' few chapters of the Socialist Party of America. He was the father of the late Governor of Arkansas Orval E. Faubus.
He was born in Madison County on Mill Creek south of Combs in the Ozark Mountains, Arkansas, to William Henry Faubus and Malinda (Lindy) Sparks Faubus, who had seven children. His father died in the winter of 1900 from pneumonia shortly after relocating to Greasy Creek north of Combs, and the widow married John Nelson; she gave birth to another eight children. Altogether, John Samuel Faubus had fifteen siblings and stepsiblings and was referred to as Sam.
He received little education, and when he was seventeen went to work as a journeyman hacker hewing railroad crossties. However, Sam developed a habit of reading books and self-educated; later, he became a regular correspondent to local newspapers. In his youth, Sam was easy-going, in his later years he was characterized as domineering and strong-minded.
After Sam turned twenty-one, he married in 1908 Addie Joslin (1892-1936), daughter of Thomas Joslin and Sarah Thornberry, and they had three sons, Orval, Darrow, Clarence, and three daughters, Bonnie, Connie, and Betty. He gave his oldest son Orval the middle name Eugene to honor the Socialist Party of America founder, Eugene V. Debs; his another son, Darrow Doyle, was named after well-known at the time labor lawyer Clarence Darrow; and one more son, Elvin Carl, received a middle name after Karl Marx.
The Faubuses were subsistence farmers and toiled on their homesteaded thin-soiled upland farm in the Ozark Mountain country to provide their children with food and basic necessities; Sam also did menial work to earn money while Addie looked after children. He constantly searched for better paying jobs, he did itinerant agricultural work in the Midwest and Canada, and worked in a lead mine at Picher, Oklahoma, for two years.
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