Find a Penny, Pick It Up

My grandfather, Henry Hudson Wren (everyone always called him Hudson, or Mr. Wren), found this penny on his family farm when he was young.  As devoted to his children and grandchildren as he was, Mom tells me that this was a thing he kept for himself and never offered to give to any of them.  After he died, Mom gave it to me.

I am sure that I will spend a lot of time on my grandfather here, but here are the basics.  Hudson was born in 1906 and grew up in Prescott, Nevada County, Arkansas.  He played football for the Prescott Curly Wolves in high school and lettered for three years at the University of Arkansas in the 1920s.  He studied agriculture and went on to be a very successful farmer and leader in northeast Arkansas.

The family farm was on the site of the Battle of Prairie DeAnn, also called the Battle of Moscow Church.  Since the family moved there in around a little before 1920, there were still plenty of artifacts of the skirmish to be found.  My brother has a cannon shell.  My mother has a cannon ball.  And I have a sword that was plowed up on the farm.

Papaw found this penny there when he was a teenager.  It’s not a valuable coin.  It’s beat-up from being in a battle and then in the ground for sixty years.  It’s worn smooth from years in a pocket.  You can’t even tell what year it was minted.  But, it was a special thing to Hudson and he kept it his whole life.  Now, I have it in the little box that he kept it in, wrapped in a little piece of one of his handkerchiefs that he used for it.  And that’s special.