By Anita Garner
The Arkansas Ponder Quads
Settling in a small town after years of traveling with our family’s gospel show was something to celebrate. Daddy was the new pastor in Murfreesboro, Arkansas, population 1075. When we arrived in 1951, he cautioned my brother and me, saying the behavior of a preacher’s kids would be noticed. People were already talking about the way Mother sang (and looked) and the way Daddy preached, and how unusual our church services were.
Leslie Ray and I tried to disappear, which was impossible, especially since we were the only redheaded kids around and ours were unusual parents. We hung around Courthouse Square where people stopped to get acquainted and after “How y’all doin’?” “How’s your Mama?” and “How’s your Daddy?” next came, “Where’d you two get that red hair?”
We were still standing out when what we wanted was to blend in. We hadn’t counted on being remarked about this soon and we didn’t like it, but Murfreesboro was on the brink of change and other diversions would soon be available.
Out town was about to get its own diamond mine. On a nearby farm, people discovered diamonds in the dirt and now the owners were selling tickets, turning it into an attraction. Anybody could go out there and search. You paid your fee and stayed all day. Of course we wanted to go, but Daddy said it wasn’t becoming for a preacher’s kids to be out there digging up dirt, looking for money. We said we would be looking for diamonds, not money, but he said it’s the same thing.
About a mile from our parsonage was the home of the Ponder family. On a day made famous in the newspapers and on television, the Ponders expanded by four when their quadruplets were born. Doctor Duncan delivered the babies where the Ponders lived with their eight children. Now their modest home would hold twelve children.
The Ponder Quads’ first home.
The Quads were written up everywhere and a reporter from New York came to interview the family. When his story appeared, it said the Ponders didn’t have enough chairs to sit on, that they hadn’t had enough for their other children even before the quadruplets came.
Daddy read about it to my brother and me at the kitchen table. He laid down the newspaper and huffed,
“Well I never! Somebody sayin’ a thing like that! We have got to go get that family everything they need.”
He said he’d speak to the county Ministerial Alliance and ask every congregation to contribute, but before he could get his efforts started, a new story came out saying now that the Ponders were instantly famous, businesses would provide everything they needed.
All the babies we knew drank canned milk mixed with water in their bottles until they graduated to soft foods. Dickey and Dewey and Danny and Donna Ponder were soon photographed with the famous Pet milk can with the cow on the label while the company built a new home for the family with a room in front featuring a wall to wall window for public viewing of the babies. Other companies gave the family everything from diapers to furniture.
The new Ponder home was near the road so cars could drive by, and a large parking space was alongside so we could get out and walk up to the window. If we were lucky, all four babies might be in their custom bassinets there.
The Ponder Quads did my brother and me a great big favor. While they were lying around being famous, we hoped to fade into the background. Instead of everybody talking about the new preacher’s redheaded kids, they could now drive down the road and look through a window at a bigger curiosity, four identical babies.
With the birth of the Quads, the whole nation was allowed to point and stare, without being considered unkind. Mister and Miz Ponder and Doctor Duncan went to New York to be on television. Those babies were all anybody talked about.
We’d finally achieved our dream of moving to a small town, one step closer to figuring out what normal might feel like. Now with the birth of four identical babies, Leslie Ray and Nita Faye Jones could slip and slide around and break some rules without always being the center of attention in Murfreesboro – new population 1079.
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A version of this story appeared in Reminisce Magazine
I don’t know how your memory is so acute. I can hardly remember general stuff, much less specifics. Love the story.
Glad you liked the story. My memory is completely selective. Some details I can’t conjure up no matter how hard I try and others won’t leave me alone.
I love this! After reading it I Googled Ponder quads and found the story of their birth but nothing more recent. Any idea what became of them?
When I wrote the story for Reminisce Magazine, I checked to see if I could find any better pictures. The only additional photos of them existed in, I believe, the Arkansas State Library and it was an update on the four of them as they entered school. The photos I’ve posted here are from Mother’s scrapbook. I’ve called people in Murfreesboro to get an update, but nobody has one so far.
Hi I’m Dickey Glenn Ponder. My dad is Danny Kay Ponder, one of the four. Love this story. My dad told me many stories about this time. My grandfather, George Leonard Ponder, really took off with with his traveling.
Hi Dickey – a pleasure to meet you here and I’m glad you found the story. The Ponders were the most famous family in Arkansas when my brother and I were coming up.
Hi my name is Tracy Griffey and my mother is Donna Griffey and she is the last living Ponder Quad,She lives in Elwood Indiana.
Hi Tracy – it’s exciting to meet you here! Your family’s story has been told and re-told by my family. We were so excited to live in the same town and to get to meet the babies. Please tell your mother hello from me. My brother and I always suspected our baby sister, born two months after the Quads, was named Donna in honor of your mother.