Mary Anna Ruth Diana Duren was born in Tennessee and married John Calhoun Bryant in 1871. They lived in Clabber Creek community in Buffalo Township of Marion County where she died in 1928. John C. died in 1929. They are buried in Cowan Barrens Cemetery south of Yellville. Ann and John Bryant were the parents of five children: Margaret Isabelle who married Albert Coleman Watts, the son of William Claude and Nancy Ann Hann Watts. Their children were: Escar D. who married Johnnie Viva Daffron and they had one son Clarence Frederick Watts; Janie Lou Watts married Floyd Slagle and had five children: Veta Belle, Don, Bayne, Gene and Bill. John Walton Watts married Annice Ellis and they had two children: Bryant Ellis and Lena Mae Watts; William Claude Watts married, first, Myrtle Wood -- second, Helen Dersch and, third, Freida Roesch and had four children: William Conrad, Janet Lou, Richard Kenneth and Linda Sue Watts; Nancy Ann Madge Watts married William Lytle Keeling and they had two children: Bryant and Keith; The second child of Ann and John Bryant was William Henry who married Sarah Caroline (Sadie) Thompson. Will Bryant was an attorney and served as County Clerk and Recorder of Marion County. He died in 1956 and his wife died in 1965. They are buried in the Woodlawn Cemetery in Jonesboro, Arkansas. Will and Sadie Bryant had three children: Ruth Ann who died in infancy; Edith Myrtle who married Leslie Neal Brown and they had two children: Mackie Neal and Bobbie Jane Brown Hooker. William Robert Bryant who married Bernice Carter had three children: Sadie Belle Bryant Gipson; Sue Ann Bryant Holland and William Henry Bryant. The third child of Ann and John Bryant was Thomas Shelby who married Ellen Magdaline Bridges. Shelby Bryant was married about 1904 and the children are: Guy Thomas and Vivian who married Willburn Krause. The fourth child of Ann and John Bryant was Olive Tennie Bryant who married John Williams. Their four children are: Lester, Anna, Daffena and Iva. The fifth child of Ann and John was Myrtle Louisa who married Sanford W. Norman and their children were: Iris, Fred, Bonnie, Grace, Carl and Clara Norman.
Reprinted with permission from History of Marion County edited by Earl Berry, copyright 1977.