MIRIAM ELLA LANGDON ALFORD
AAFA #0246
1931 TX –2005 AR
From National Water
Center website
NORTHWEST ARKANSAS TIMES
Fayetteville, Washington Co., AR—Monday, 5 December 2005
Miriam Ella Langdon Alford, 73, of Fayetteville
passed away Saturday, Dec. 3, 2005, in Fayetteville.
She was born Dec. 21, 1931, in Dallas to John R.
and Susan Landon Alford and was raised in Henderson, Texas.
Miriam Ella was generous with her time and resources,
spending much of her life on projects that benefit the environment, education
and the underprivileged. She died peacefully at home, surrounded by her family.
Her life touched and blessed so many.
She is survived by two daughters: Susan
McDonald-James of Fayetteville and Margaret Newton of Little Rock; a son, Allen
McDonald of Fayetteville; two brothers, John Alford [AAFA #0200] of Austin,
Texas, and Landon Alford [AAFA #0002] of Henderson, Texas; and five
grandchildren, Dillon, Kaitlyn, Anna, Daniel, and Claire.
Miriam Ella was a member of Temple Shalom of
Northwest Arkansas.
Funeral services will be held at 10:30 a.m.
Tuesday at the Unitarian Universalist Fellowship with burial to follow in
Fairview Memorial Gardens in Fayetteville.... Arrangements are under the
direction of Nelson-Berna Funeral Home and Crematory in Fayetteville.
In another
source:
National Water
Center
Eureka Springs, Carroll Co., AR
Miriam Ella Alford was a major contributor and
supporter of the National Water Center. Without her sensitivity, insight and
generosity it could never have existed. We miss her so much.
Miriam Ella Alford died at home in Fayetteville
on December 3 at the age of 73 being loved and surrounded by her family. Ella's
passing leaves a great legacy of open-heated alliance with so many good and
abiding things that no one can even calculate or measure them; the list of
things beneficial to the Earth and the life (including us) upon it that would
not be here had Miriam Ella not helped to engender and support them goes on and
on...
I, for one, of a great many carry a great
heartache that she is no longer with us, and I miss her being with us here on
Earth. Not just people has she cared for, and befriended, and who will be
living and breathing their thanks to her for many generations into the future.
Consider for one instance the great Alford Forest and all the life within it
that she gave for us to take care for in her family name. —Tribute by David
Haenke, Director, Alford Forest, Inc., Brixey, MO
The Alford 4400 acre forest in northern Ozark
County, MO, named after the Alford Family and Ella, who donated 3200 acres of
it to the Ozark Regional Land Trust, and put the rest of it in Conservation Easements
for permanent protection with ORLT.
Miriam Ella Alford was the first major
benefactor to AEEA back in 1996 when we were in our infancy. It was a gift that
will always be remembered. This gift gave us the confidence to continue. She
was a great supporter of environmental education and conservation. We
appreciate her generosity and compassion for our natural environment. —Robert
McAfee, Executive Director (Volunteer), AEEA
- Arkansas Environmental Education Association
Miriam was also the major contributor and
supporter of the National Water Center. Without her sensitivity, insight and
generosity, it could never have existed. We miss her so much. —Barbara
Harmony, Coordinator
In another
source:
One Garden
“One Garden, Forest
Garden”
By David Haenke
Running intermittently up to 4 miles along and
in places over three miles to the west of Bryant Creek in Northern Ozark
County, in the Missouri Ozarks, is the 4000 + acreage known as "The Alford
Forest."
Land constituting the Alford Forest was
purchased in 1945 by John Alford, who, according to daughter Miriam Ella
Alford, wanted a place where his children could go as a refuge from city life.
Miriam Ella Alford is an extraordinary and
visionary soul who has supported ecologically and socially responsible causes
for decades, and she has a great love for the original family land that we now
call "The Alford Forest." Miriam Ella gained controlling ownership of
the land in 1975-6, and from that time forward she has done all she can to
protect the forest, including, from the late 70’s on, maintaining a dialog with
local and regional individuals and organizations who concern themselves with
issues of ecological protection and management of forests to see what long term
options might be out there for caring for the land as far into future as
possible.
After around 20 years of good stewardship and
periodic planning and visioning discussions, Miriam Ella, along with advisors
and local residents who cared deeply about the Alford Forest, engaged in a
long-term plan to protect and manage the land through a combination of
arrangements that included:
- donating 3000 of the acres to the Ozark Regional Land
Trust/ORLT
- working towards putting protection on the rest of the land
through conservations easements/CE’s
- setting aside nearly 1000 acres into ecological protection
reserves
- allowing ecological improvement harvesting of logs, and
other timber stand improvement activities, on appropriate areas of the
Forest not set aside in ecological reserves.
Starting in 2000, through lease agreements with
a non-profit forest management organization, Alford Forest, Inc./AFI (AFI is
not organizationally connected with Miriam Ella Alford, and is formally
associated with her only through lease agreements), both Miriam Ella and ORLT
have engaged AFI to carry out ecological management, including improvement
harvesting, on the Forest.
In another
source:
The
Other Economic Summit (TOES)
July 6–8, 1990, Houston, TX: Eco-Feminism
Under “Other Participants”:
Ella Alford, Ozarks Resource Center, General
Delivery, Brixey, MO 65618; (417) 679-4773. Ella Alford was raised in an
affluent East Texas family. A major part of her path has been self-healing as
she puts it, "for addictions to peoples, places and things." She has
lived in Arkansas and Missouri for 30 years, and has 3 children. She is a
founder of the Ozarks Resource Center (formerly New Life Farm), which as been
important in establishing the Bioregional Congress. She is also a founding
member of the Threshold Foundation.
In another
source:
Ozark Regional
Land Trust
“The Ozark Holler” - Summer 2006
Alford Memorial CD
At the Ella L. Alford Memorial in Brixey,
Missouri in April 2006, a recording was made of the stories and songs. It is on
a CD and is available to anyone who wants one. Cost? Nothing! If you want one,
email susan@wiseheart.com
with your postal address.
AAFA
NOTES: SSDI confirm the birth and death dates of Ella L. Alford (SS#
issued in TX), last residence Brixey, Ozark Co., MO.
We included the obituary of her brother John
Rogers Alford Jr., AAFA #0200, in Texas Obituaries.
Texas Birth Index, 1903–1997 (Ancestry.com)
lists the birth of Ella Langdon Alford in Dallas Co. on 21 Dec 1931. Ella
assumed the first name of Miriam later in her life.
Ella married William Wray McDonald on 18 July
1957. They had three children: Susan Lee, Margaret Alford, and William Allen.
Ella attended the AAFA meetings in 1989, 1990,
1993, 1995, and 1996. She and her brother Landon Alford, AAFA #0002, and the
family of D.L. Alford, AAFA #0054, with help from other Texas members, arranged
for the reception on Friday night. That set a pattern for future Friday night
receptions at the annual meetings.
Ella was also the AAFA Missouri State
Representative when we had that position.
We published a short biography of Ella’s
father, John Rogers Alford Sr., in AAFA ACTION, December 1988.
A biography of Ella’s
paternal grandfather, Egbert Benson Alford, was published in A History of
Texas and Texans, Volume III, by Frank W. Johnson (Chicago: American
Historical Society, 1914). We reprinted it in AAFA ACTION, Summer 1999.
Her lineage: Miriam Ella Langdon 1931 TX1,
John Rogers 1885 TX2, Egbert Benson 1858 AL3, John Rogers
1810 GA4, Kinchen 1799 NC5, James 1741 NC/VA6,
Lodwick 1710 VA7, James 1687 VA8.
