Enduring Faith

I think of my six regular readers, about half read this for local history. For y'all, this post is more about faith and family than history, so you are forewarned.

I took a drive this morning to "visit" with my great-grandparents -- Green Berry and Mahala Davis Agan -- at the Buckner Cemetery in Lafayette County, Arkansas. I hadn't been there in over 30 years and it felt like a good time. I didn't know God had a purpose for me in mind.

Green Berry was a Hardshell Baptist Preacher/pulpwooder. He married many of the couples who later moved to Minden when the L & A Railroad came in 1923 and also his share of formerly underage couples from Louisiana who found themselves suddenly of age across the state line in Arkansas. Since he died before my father was born I never knew him. (Sobering dose of personal mortality this morning I realized that of my four great-grandfathers the longest surviving made it to 58, not good news for a 52-year-old.) He survives for me mainly in two sets of circumstances.

The first is his picture. We inherited an image of Green Berry taken about 1900. It is an oval image of a stern-looking man with an impressive handlebar mustache. The picture is stored in a closet and it so frightened one of my nephews that he refused to even sleep in the room where it was stored. Somehow I think that might make the hyper-Calvinist in Green Berry happy.

The second is my mother's story about the "preacher's chair." Today, I have inherited that chair and it sits in my living room. It seems it was a prized possession of Green Berry's that I guess he used in his churches. Any way, the first family occasion my mother visited as the fiance of my daddy led to a funny story. I think it was a Christmas celebration, but I'm not certain. Any way, Momma came into the living room at my grandparents house and the entire room was filled with relatives. No one -- not even Daddy -- made a move to give her a place to sit. She spied an empty chair and quickly walked over and sat down. The expressions of all in the room let her know she had made some awful violation of protocol, as she looked from face to face, someone finally said, "that's the preacher's chair." Momma replied, "oh, when he comes back I'll let him sit here." The answer came back, "He died in 1915" (This would have been in 1947). Momma said: "Oh, then I guess he's not coming." I can't help but think of that every time some one sits in the chair or particularly when one of my cats climbs up there for a nap.

This has been a week to test my faith and frankly, I'm still looking for answers, but God had a way of sending me a message through that old Hardshell preacher.

Here is a picture I snapped of the front of Green Berry's tombstone. (Excuse the iPhone quality of the pictures.

As you can tell, the inscription is barely readable, even in person. However, here is the reverse side of the same stone.

While it's tough to read in the iPhone image, the inscription is of the "I have fought the good fight" passage from 2 Timothy 4.

Well, what was God's message for me, delivered through the tombstone. The front side, giving Green Berry's life details, the earthly things have almost disappeared less than a century after his death. However, his faith, described by the inscription, endures and is still strong and visible.

Now, the logical side of me knows that the stones in the cemetery are on an incline and the fronts face to the north. Thus exposing the front side to the brunt of the weather for the past 95 years and its eroding effects. But somewhere inside I do believe that God intended that message for Green Berry's great-grandchild today, at a time he needed to be reminded of the power of faith.

To end on a lighter note. I also motored over to Magnolia and snapped an image of my grandmother Agan's parents in the City Cemetery. Here's that shot:

What's funny you may ask? Well, this stone is for David Green Emerson and his wife. It never hit me until today with TWO great-grandfathers having Green as a given name, perhaps I'd better start considering the possibility of some Jewish heritage.

Profile for Tourists of the Past

I was able to purchase on eBay a copy of the Louisiana edition of A Guide to the States published by the Louisiana Writer’s Project of the Works Progress Administration in 1941. It is a very interesting book, one I wish I could find a contemporary version of today. It gives brief profiles of the largest communities in Louisiana and includes more than two dozen driving tours of the state, listing points of interest on each tour, providing distances and describing the road conditions and accommodations along each route. The Appendices include a glossary of Louisiana terms from armoire to zombie, a chronology of Louisiana History, an extensive bibliography of sources for Louisiana information, a list of places including populations from the 1940 census and five regional maps of the state with points of interest marked. I really wish I had been able to find such a concise, but informative tour book a few weeks back when I went through Plantation Country along the River Road.


Since it seems a little too short to be the basis of a newspaper column, I decided to post the text about Minden to my blog word for word. I hope some of you will find interesting. There are some errors, by 1940, Minden had three movie theaters, not one as listed, and with the coming of the Louisiana Ordnance Plant in the Summer of 1941 we would soon add a drive-in between McIntyre and the Plant. The timing of the emerging oil and gas boom is off by more than a decade and there are other mistakes such as the description of the events of 1933 is hopelessly jumbled. However it is fun to read how our town was described to travelers 70 years ago.

Minden:

Railroad Station: Foot of S. Broadway for Louisiana & Arkansas Railroad

Bus Station: 120 Pearl Street for Tri-State Bus Line

Taxies: Fare $0.25

Traffic Regulations: Speed limit 25 mph. Turn on green light only. Parallel parking; no limit.

Accommodations: Two hotels; boarding houses; tourist camps

Information Service: Courthouse, S. Broadway and Pearl Sts.

Motion Picture Houses: One

Golf: Minden Country Club, 1.6 miles N. on U.S. 79, 9 holes (3,100 yds.), $0.50 a day

Swimming: Municipal Natatorium, Victory Park, northern part of town, adults $0.15, children $0.10

Tennis: Six courts in three city parks

Annual Events: Flower Show, usually in April; Garden Party, May; Fish Fry, first Tuesday in September

MINDEN (181 alt; 5,623 population), is the trading and shipping center of a productive cotton-growing and general farming district in the Northwestern corner of the State. During the late 1930s the town experienced a modest boom brought about by discovery of oil and gas in the vicinity. The presence of a plant which manufactures presses for cotton gins adds to the town’s industrial aspect.

Minden has a wide main street, tree-shade residential sections, parks planted with shrubs and flowers, and a general air of comfort and well-being. Saturday in Minden finds the streets, stores and theaters crowded with farmers and their families in town for their weekly shopping and recreation. In the vicinity are numerous small lakes and streams affording excellent fishing, boating and picnicking sites.

Minden was founded in 1836 as a real estate promotion by a German-American named Charles Hance Veeder; it was named after a town on the Weser River, in northern Germany, the birthplace of Veeder’s parents. The town’s founder deserted it to participate in the California Gold Rush.

Favored by fertile land and transportation facilities by way of Bayou Dauchite, Lake Bistineau, and the Red River, the town grew steadily sharing in the general prosperity that preceded the War Between the States. The Minden Academy, co-educational, was opened in 1838, but divided in 1850 into the Minden Male Academy and the Minden Female Seminary; the latter developed into an outstanding women’s college, but was closed in 1886.

In 1933 Minden suffered a series of disasters. First a cyclone took heavy toll of life and property; a few weeks later a fire destroyed the business district and many homes; finally the funds of the citizens and business establishments were frozen during the Nation-wide bank holiday. The discovery of oil and natural gas in the vicinity shortly afterward aided materially in recouping Minden’s fortunes.

POINTS OF INTEREST

At the MINDEN COMPRESS (visitors admitted), foot of S. Broadway St., opposite the depot, cotton bales pressed at rural gins are further compressed to half t heir original size. In addition to giant steam presses, there are 4 acres of covered warehouse space, enough for 8.500 bales of cotton

CITY PARK, made up of 3 squares in the neutral ground of S. Broadway St., south of the courthouse, has a bandstand about which hundreds gather every Friday evening during the summer to hear free concerts presented by the Municipal Band, and take part in community song-fests. At the south end of the park is a CONFEDERATE MEMORIAL.

WEBSTER PARISH COURTHOUSE, Pearl and S. Broadway Sts., is a two-story stone and buff-colored brick structure with an octagonal white dome. Each side has a small portico with four Ionic columns.

FERGUSON MEMORIAL TABERNACLE (Baptist), Murrell Ave., between N. Broadway and Pennsylvania Sts., is an open-sided structure somewhat resembling an airplane hangar. During revival meetings the floor is usually covered with sawdust, and converts “hit the sawdust trail.”

FIRST BAPTIST CHURCH, 310 N. Broadway St., S.E. Corner Broadway and 1st Sts., is a three-story cream-colored brick adaptation of Classical Greek architecture, built in 1925. Four embellished Ionic columns frame a recessed pedimented portico on the façade. The auditorium seats 1000 persons.

The ADA JACK CARVER HOME (private), 412 Webb Court, a one-story white frame cottage, is the residence of Mrs. Ada Jack Carver Snell, author of The Cajun, Red Bone and other stories and plays, most of which have as their locale Natchitoches and its vicinity.

MINDEN SANITARIUM (visiting hours 9-11 a.m., 2-4 p.m.), N.W. corner Monroe and Cedar Sts., housed in a four-story red brick structure was established in 1926 as a semipublic institution. There are 18 private rooms and four wards, with facilities for 35 patients.

Diamonds are Forever

Sequel to the earlier posts about the diamonds found in North Louisiana in the 1970s. Over the past couple of days I have been contacted by or in touch with Paul Heinrich of the Louisiana Geological Survey, Mike Howard of the Arkansas Geological Survey, Ann Middleton of the Bossier History Center and Clif Cardin the Bossier Parish Historian. To make a long story short, information has been shared among us about the diamond stories. There were at least two diamond finds that seem to have been merged together in local tradition. There was a diamond found at Princeton in 1970 in a driveway. Then, three years later, the diamonds were found at Gifford Hill at Sibley. Mr. Heinrich and Mr. Howard are working on documenting all the diamonds found in Louisiana. Clif has tracked down the lady that found the diamond in 1970 and now Ms. Middleton has information about both stories. So, that's the latest on that story, now if I could just find some Haynesville Shale under my property . . . LOL!!!

Friends of the Germantown Colony Museum

As mentioned in previous blog posts, the Germantown Colony Museum has become part of the Secretary of State’s museum system. This is an exciting development as it provides a chance for the museum to finally have an adequate source of funding for its operations, something that has been lacking for the 35 years the museum has been in existence. In fact, the first project planned for the site by the Secretary of State’s office will involve an expenditure of funds greater than the combined operating budget of the museum for its entire 35 years of life. I’ve also mentioned that perhaps there might be some instability in the future of this funding, as Secretary of State Jay Dardenne, who created the museum system and along with Representative Jean Doerge orchestrated the state takeover of Germantown, is running for Lieutenant Governor. The prospect of Dardenne moving over to the Lt. Gov’s office could leave Germantown and the other museums in his system (including the Eddie Robinson Museum in Grambling, the Delta Music Museum in Ferriday, the Mansfield Female College Museum in Mansfield, among others) as orphans. However, since the Lieutenant Governor also runs his own museum system, the Louisiana State Museum system, I trust that none of the museum will suffer if Dardenne’s is successful in gaining the Lieutenant Governor’s seat. The real threat to these museums is the ongoing budget crisis in the State of Louisiana (one that has many of us “antsy” about our own job futures), so all the skies aren’t blue, but even with the problems, Germantown has the brightest future it has seen since its founding as a settlement, back in 1835.


The reason for my blog post is to make folks aware of a significant meeting tomorrow. Anyone who has worked with a museum knows that the real key to success is gaining support from the public. For private museums, such as the Dorcheat Historical Association Museum, the key is getting capable management and then getting as many members as possible to make the community feel it is “their” museum. At Dorcheat we have been fortunate with leadership from Thad Andress and the wonderful job Schelley Brown has done as Director. In the case of Germantown, the management and the basic funding is not a local task – it comes from the state government; however, it is equally important if not more so, for there to be an outreach arm for the museum. Tomorrow, Cliff Deal, the Director of Museums for the Secretary of State’s office will be in Minden to help set the stage for creating such an arm. He will be present for an organizational meeting of what has been tentatively called the Friends of the Germantown Colony Museum. This will be the group that spread the word in the community and beyond about the museum and provides the volunteer base so necessary for success. Cliff is supposed to bringing the plans for the new visitor center that will be constructed at the Colony. To me, that’s a very important step as physical progress and investment makes it clear that the state is committed to the project.

So, if you have the time and have any inclination toward helping make our underappreciated treasure, the Germantown Colony Museum, a booming success, please consider coming to the meeting. It will be held at 3 p.m., tomorrow, Thursday, June 3 at the Minden Chamber of Commerce Offices in Minden. I hope to see you there.