Author
Historical Fiction
1895 Hot Springs
Smallpox Epidemic
“In the spring of 1895, a smallpox epidemic broke out in the national health spa of Hot Springs, Arkansas; a nation-wide panic ensued. Visitors avoided or fled the spa city, and with them the life blood of Hot Springs’ economy. Several factors including immigrant issues, economic conditions, the anti-vaccinationist movement, labor unrest, politics, and a host of weather and fire related misfortunes influenced the local public health response to this epidemic.”
1895 Hot Springs Smallpox Epidemic
Three Strangers Come to Call
131 Pages | $16.00
“….charming recreation of our community is based on accurate period detail and impeccable research. This book brings 1895 Hot Sprigs to vivid life!”
Liz Robbins, Director, Garland County Historical Society
- Showcased in 2010 Arkansas Literacy Festivals
- Lesson plans available through Butler Center for Arkansas Studies
Cedar Glades Express
149 Pages | $18.00
“A fun story about some serious topics in one of Arkansas’ most historic cities and its surrounding neighborhoods. Entertaining and factual, this narrative is an excellent venue for learning the culture of the 1890s as Hot springs and Cedar Glades come to grips with that important decade.”
Dr. C. Fred Williams, Professor of History, UALR
- Showcased in 2011 Arkansas Literacy Festivals
Promotional map of the Ouachita River Valley in Arkansas including Cedar Glades.
(Click the map to see a larger version)
2023 Booklet Release
Elderberry Summer
152 Pages | $18.00
The MacNeil cousins Rachel and Henrietta along with their friends Jake and Henry O’Sullivan, and Jake’s friend Max spend the summer on the MacNeil farm west of Hot Springs, Arkansas. They looked forward to a summer of adventure. But had not counted on the danger in some of that adventure. Two visiting mycology scientists become heroes during one of the children’s mishaps. The Hoo-Hoos of Pine Valley Lumber Camp provide a most memorable 4th of July celebration. And a soap maker in the black community of Cedar Brakes conspires with the girls’ grandmother to help a young man mature.
“In the face of a continuing worldwide pandemic and other threats to public health, Ms. Percefull’s groundbreaking work in the field of Public Health in both fiction and non-fiction writings, continues to be timely.
Elderberry Summer, like the previous books in her 1890s series is ‘….an excellent venue for learning the culture of the 1890s as Hot Springs and Cedar Glades come to grips with that important decade.’ ”
– Dr. C. Fred Williams, Professor of History, UALR
Non-Fiction/Scholarly Works
Selected Articles
The Record (Garland Co. Historical Society):
“The USPHS Venereal Disease Clinic at Hot Springs, Arkansas: Director O. C. Wenger’s Legal Angle” (2005)
“Wayward Girls/Hard Boiled Sisters of Arkansas: Their Incarceration and Medical Treatment in Early Twentieth Century” (2008)
“A Public Health Response: 1895 Spa City Smallpox Epidemic,” (2010)
“Hot Springs, Arkansas, and the Flood of 1871,” (2013).
2021 Booklet Release
Wayward Girls/Hard Boiled Sisters of Arkansas
20 Pages | $5.00
“They lost their lives in the undercurrent of social reforms, advancements in medical technology, and dominance of courts in social and medical issues. Sadly, because society devalued them as human beings, many valuable young women of this era were simply lost.”
Wayward Girls/Hard Boiled Sisters of Arkansas
Ouachita Springs Region: A Curiosity Of Nature
198 Pages | $19.00
Examines the federal government’s role in the development of Hot Springs National Park, Arkansas and the surrounding area in the unique context of a “spring’s region.” The author’s argument that many Americans in the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries believed that the federal government would soon sponsor significant public health facilities in Hot Springs offers a valuable corrective to the opinion of most historians who write about public health.
