This would have been Malinda Howell. In the 1860 federal census she is the wife of Laborm C. Howell and has a daughter, Helen, to whom Frank refers later, and who would have been about 15 years old at the time. Laborm had died in 1861. Prior to the war the family was relatively well-to-do and had owned 13 slaves. Malinda's second husband was George Pratt. Helen went on to marry Dillard Hardwicke and died relatively young, in 1871. Malinda died in 1878 and is buried in Oakland Memorial Cemetery in Arkansas.