Wedding Bells
Wedding picture of
Arch and Eva Connors
E .
va met Arch Connors at church as a child. He was five years older and as serious and hardworking as she was. They didn't become sweethearts until she was about nineteen, when he approached her father, Rufus Haddock, for her hand in marrage. Rufus referred him to Eva, but she said she wasn't ready to marry. She was a pretty blond with sparkling blue eyes, and lots of young men came to call on her. However, she didn't seem to care for any of them.

Three years later, after he had become an expert carpenter and developed good job prospects, Arch came back to Kings Ferry and asked her again. This time she felt her younger brothers were old enough to take care of themselves, and she said yes. They were married on May 5, 1912, and boarded the "Hildegarde" to travel downstream to Fernandina for their honeymoon.

One of Arch's favorite sayings in later years was that he had married Eva "not because she was the prettiest girl in town or the smartest, but because she was the sweetest."
Guess who is
sitting on top of a stuffed
alligator, holding the reins in her hand .
EVA ON HER ALLIGATOR

Eva and Arch had seven children. Eventually there would be many grandchildren and great-grandchildren for a total of 78 descendants. Eva says: "I dedicated each child to God." Eva and Arch by then had moved to Jacksonville and were familiar churchgoers at the Woodstock Baptist Church. She became legendary for receiving answers to prayer.

Their early-day home was at the edge of town, with no nearby neighbors or telephone. Their first baby, Woodrow, became ill and his condition rapidly developed into pneumonia. Before Eva could go for help, he appeared to stop breathing. Desperately, she begged God to save her baby. While she was praying, she heard a knock on the front door. When she opened the door, a man stood there with a scrap of paper in one hand and a medical bag in the other. "Madam," he said, "Could you tell me where this address might be? I seem to be lost."

It was a doctor. Eva said, "No, Sir, you are not lost. God sent you to me!"

Left to right: Gerald, Woodrow and Julia

When asked what her favorite time of day was, she said it was at bedtime, when she would go around the house and do "bedcheck," to make sure all the children were in their beds, say their prayers with them and kiss them goodnight. She loved to tell the story of Mary Elizabeth, who, at age five, was so in love with her new Easter hat that she had to take it to bed with her.  Eva found her fast asleep, with her knee propped up and the hat sitting on it!