Mrs. Ora Yantis, Paragould's Pioneer Belle, is the oldest living citizen of the original incorporated town of Paragould which in its infancy in 1883 covered 12 blocks south and east of Court and Second Streets. A sister, Mrs. Carrie Evers of Chicago, is the second oldest a brother Tommy was the first child born in the tiny town at the crossroads of two railroads in 1883, but he lived only eight months and was buried at Owen's Chapel because Paragould had no cemetery.

Mrs. Yantis 's father, the late W.J. "Uncle Bill" McDonald a colorful figure of the early history of the budding village came to the Paragould site in 1880, built his home where Arnold's Jewelry now stands, and moved his family here the following year from the family homeplace four miles west of Gainesville on Crowley's Ridge. Mrs. Yantis, only a year and a half older than Paragould itself, truly grew up with the town. She remembers seeing her father clear the streets of trees and stumps and much of its first struggles to become a city. She was a passenger on the first train to cross the first bridge over the Mississippi River at Memphis. She attended the public schools, the old Thompson's Institute, and the Memphis Conference Female Institute, a Methodist girls' school at Jackson, Tenn. At 19 she was married to Frank S. Yantis then manager of the Paragould Southeastern Railroad to Blytheville . Mr. Yantis a brilliant railroad executive served as vice-president of various short lines throughout the States until his death at 49 in 1921.

They were the parents of three sons: Frank Stuart Yantis of F.S. Yantis & Co.; Investment Securities in Chicago; William Alexander Yantis, president of Bunte-Chase candy manufacturers, Chicago: and Fordyce McDonald Yantis, a vice -president of F. S. Yantis & Co. Chicago. Other descendants include eight grandchildren and a great grandson and a great granddaughter. At 80, she lives in the family home, 117 W. Hunt, built in 1912.