A lonely stone monument in the Oark Cemetery in Johnson County has stood diligent over the grave of a young woman who was murdered by her husband in Johnson County on November 19, 1915 in what was described in newspaper accounts at the time as "a fit of insane jealousy".
Sarah Helen Patterson Dickerson, the only daughter of Dr Charles Harden Patterson and his second wife Polly Anna, was gunned down on a dirt road just outside of Oark on the day in question by her estranged husband, Claude Dickerson.
Immediately after shooting Sarah in the head, Claude turned the gun on himself and took his own life. According to a note to his father, provided to law enforcement after the tragedy, Claude intended to kill their then 18-month-old daughter as well.
A story published three days after the murder/suicide in the Arkansas Gazette told the story of the tragic event.
Based upon their ages when they died, the couple was married in 1912 when Sarah was just 15 years old. Claude had just turned 18 when the couple was married at Coal Hill.
In May of 1914, a little girl was born to the couple that was named Avis Claudine, but the marriage was already on shaky grounds and not long after the birth of the little girl, the couple decided to separate.
Actually, the separation was fueled by Sarah, who objected to the inability of her young husband to find and maintain steady work. Her father, who was a prominent allopath position, was supportive of his daughter's decision and she moved back into the home of her parents.
Both Sarah and Claude had come from fairly prominent families. The Patterson family can be traced all the way back to North Carolina and Dr Patterson had been married to a woman named Sarah Cowan in 1877 in Newton County. Arkansas. It appears the Patterson family had immigrated to Arkansas sometime between 1852, and 1854.
Dr Patterson and his first wife had eight children in their 13 years of marriage. The last child of the couple, a son named William was born June 11, 1890 and Sarah died five days later from complications from the bith, leaving the good doctor a widow with eight children.
Tragically, William would live just a few months and one of his sisters, ida Bell was not quite two years old when she died on August 23 of the same year.
The following year, Dr Patterson married Pollyanna Wharton, who became the stepmother of all of his children. A little less than six years later, their only child, Sarah, was born. By that time, Dr Patterson had relocated his family to Johnson County.
Claude's father, James Wiley Dickerson, and his first wife, Martha Isabella Acord, were born and bred in Arkansas. The Dickerson family had immigrated to the state two generations before and set up housekeeping in and around Oark.
The Dickerson's were prominent farmers and between his two marriages, James fathered eleven children. Claude Dickerson was born to James and his first wife along with four other children. After his first wife died in 1899, James married Lydia Fleming and that union produced six children at all.
Claude Dickerson and Sarah Patterson were married in 1913 and three weeks before the murder/suicide in 1915, Sarah had moved back home with her parents.
Claude had gone to Oklahoma to look for work, which had been a point of contention in the marriage, but failing to do so returned to Clarksville on July 12, 1915.
Claude secured a job in a livery stable in Clarksville but after a few days' work he went back to Oark. After his departure to Oklahoma , Sarah started teaching at a county school near her home (rumors at the time also said the couple argued about her "taking a job") and she was in the habit of walking to and from school mornings and afternoons.
Late in the afternoon of the murder, a neighbor riding by saw Dickerson sitting by the road writing a letter and recognized the young farmer. He hailed Dickertson, calling him by name, and asked him what he was doing. Dickerson's only reply was "the flourish of a pistol and a command to the man to move on'.
Just a few moments later, Claude encountered Sarah on the road. Claude fired several shots with three striking her in the head, killing her instantly. He then turned the weapon, a .32 caliber pistol, on himself inflicting head wounds that resulted in his death hours later.
The note Claude was writing on the side of the road, presumably to his father, said "if wife and baby go with me, bury us together if not, bear me as you would find me with my boots on".
Authorities later said the note was proof that Claude intended to kill his daughter. Sarah, who had been in the habit of taking the child to school with her, had left the baby at home with the grandmother on the day of her horrific death.
The child, the aforementioned Avis, lived with her grandparents, who eventually moved to Chouteau in the Indian Territory in 1919.
Avis married a man named Ray Bendue in 1921. The couple never had children and lived out their lives in in Mayes County where Avis died in 2008 at the age of 94.
