Julian Darr Byrd

Julian Darr Byrd: Gin drinkin; Democrat; Union man, died June 27, 2024. A rich full life, authentically lived won’t permit the suggestion that all who met him loved him. He did not pretend to love everyone he met, nor would he apologize for living. A life-long sheet metal worker and persistent builder of his own dream, he left the trade in 1999, clearing his head on the Ozark Highland Trail, 7 days from Haw Creek Falls to Tyler Bend.

He soon built, with the help of friends, a substantial tree house and suspension bridge alongside and above Carrollton Creek where he might satisfy a yen for writing that began in childhood. Here a journal in the neighborhood of 1.6 million words continued to grow. Poems, stories, odd verse and other writings were strung about there and in old trucks and under lawnmower seats, some making no sense whatsoever, some illegible. Adhering to an admonition credited to writer Natalie Goldberg, he wrote “like his mother was dead”, a reality since January 2000. He burned a lot of stuff in the tree house stove. 

Occasionally thirsty, his muse was specifically female, Mother Nature included. Decidedly animistic, he found the vastness of man’s intemperate touch troublesome. He had caused heartache and hoed the rows of his own, chopping at the lines between love, hate and indifference. Were he asked to name a favorite piece of music, he might recall the plaintive voice of Melanie Safka and the Edwin Hawkins Singers doing “Candles in the Rain” (Lay Down) a la Woodstock. Wanting to believe in a greater good, Julian, as he aged, resisted the smack of magic; although the serendipity of wondrous times could seem magical. 

The last of seven, he was born January 12, 1943, in Dawn, Missouri, the rudimentary bed of his 39 year old mother mere inches above a dirt and sawdust floor, the homemade, barrel-roofed house built by his father; Roy Oliver Byrd. According to his brother, Mark, who was trying to sleep in a makeshift upstairs at the far end of a short house, it was, indeed, a cold and noisy night. Julian came in … or out, a couple of hot dogs over 10 pounds. The attending doctor spent the night, no word of where he slept. 

Fatherless by death at five, he had his mother, Okie Ethel Smith Byrd McCollum, along with 4 sisters and 2 brothers to keep him corralled, teaching him to work, hug dogs, kiss cats, and fish for sycamore leaves in a tub of rainwater. He was rarely without a horse before turning 70. 

Julian fathered 3 sons; Bradford Allen; Darin Eugene; and Wesley Dean. Marjorie Ellen (Stark) Byrd (deceased), who grew up down the street, their mother. This resulted in 4 sweet Daughters-in-law; 8 grandchildren; 8 great-grandchildren and a growing list of Byrd descendants he would never know. 

By his death the scant membership of the Harmony Poets is one less. 

Doris Ann Raley Byrd remains to carry on. They met at a Baptist revival in Union, Missouri one summer night in 1973. Julian one of 800 men putting together what would become a new coal fired powerhouse up the road at Labadie. Ignoring a disparaging remark she made about his car ( a white, first year Pontiac Grand Am) he took Miss Hoity-Toity for coffee at the now defunct Tri County truck stop on 1-44. They married a year later in nearby Saint Clair , Missouri where Doris Ann taught elementary school. She pulled stake and went with him to northwest Missouri, Julian eventually becoming straw boss/ Field Superintendent for Seaman & Schuske metal works in St. Joseph. In 1984, he and Doris Ann came to her home state of Arkansas to rebuild an ancestral Two-story “dogtrot" in Carrollton Hollow, the historical site of Sycamore, AR Post Office, where they live today. He liked to say, “ Doris Ann owns Sycamore, Arkansas!” 

Dearest to his heart, he loved her, not ever really knowing why. 

Prayer Mountain in the Ozarks 500 Walton Road, Kirbyville, MO will be hosting a luncheon and Celebration of Life Service for Julian Byrd on Monday, July 8, 2024. Family will receive friends beginning at 12:30 with a service following in the Chapel at approximately 2:00. He will be buried in Carrollton Hollow Cemetery in Lead Hill, AR. 

Arrangements are by Kirby and Family Funeral and Cremation Services - Mountain Home, Arkansas. Visit an online obituary and guestbook at www.kirbyandfamily.com.