Farmington Press Stories in this section were previously published in the Farmington Press.
Carrow preserves history one paper at a time
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uring Francis Carrow’s lifetime, he has taken walks through some the most historical cities in the world, eyed some of man’s greatest monuments and gazed upon some of the most beautiful places the Earth has to offer. But to the retired bank president, Farmington is the only place in the world he will ever call home. “The only time I did not live in Farmington was when I was in the Air Force and when I went to college at the University of Missouri,” Carrow said. “I was born and raised in Farmington in about a seven or eight block area.” Carrow is the first to admit he loves living in Farmington. He explains one of the most important reasons he stayed was due to family. “I came back because my parents were here, so was my brother,” Carrow said. “My wife’s mother and father were here and so were her three sisters. I really never thought about living anywhere else.” As the years passed, Carrow raised his own family. He married his wife, Beulah, and they raised two sons - Stephen, who lives in St. Louis, and Jerry, who lives in Houston. Carrow had an illustrious career as bank president with St. Francois County Savings and Loan, which would eventually become New Era Bank, spent time running a poverty program
30 | Best of the Parkland 2017
With stacks of newspapers, pictures, advertisements, and other treasures - some dating back more than 100 years - Francis Carrow could be considereed the “unofficial” archivist of Farmington
during the term of President Lyndon B. Johnson and established an insurance agency after his college graduation. But, for more than 30 years, he has spent time as an archivist, collecting newspaper articles, pictures, and clippings about life in Farmington. “I like doing it. I started saving pictures and clippings around 1985 when I bought a laminate machine,” Carrow said. “But my mother kept newspapers. I’m still going through them. I flip through them and when I find something interesting, I stop and read it.” In Carrow’s home are neatly organized stacks spread across a ping-pong table containing a cornucopia of newspapers, pictures, advertisements, documents and miscellaneous items showing the history of Farmington and the surrounding area. However, one of his oldest items in his collection is his great-great-grandfather’s hand book from the Napoleon
Army. “He was born in 1832 in France,” Carrow said. “I can’t read it because it is in French, but it gives all his information.” According to Carrow, after immigrating to the United States, his greatgreat-grandfather moved to the Stono area near Doe Run and began raising his family. Whether it is a copy of the Farmington Press from 1965, a commencement book from a long-forgotten college, or a newspaper picture of his friend, Carrow’s collection holds a vast amount of information on not just the history of Farmington, but of the people who lived in the city. While looking through the articles and pictures covering the table, Carrow stops from time to time to tell a story about who is in the picture. One of the items catching his attention is a photograph of a Marine
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